Courteney Cox is adding entrepreneur to her résumé with the launch of Homecourt, a sustainable, luxury home goods collection.
Friends star Courteney Cox says her new Homecourt range takes a clean beauty and sustainable fragrance approach to items used around the home such as soaps, lotions, and cleaning sprays.
For her first foray into entrepreneurship, Cox partnered with a former WWD staffer, Nécessaire cofounder Nick Axelrod-Welk, as well as Viktor & Rolf’s former head of marketing Sarah Jahnke to create Homecourt. Axelrod-Welk serves as head of creative and product development, Jahnke is chief executive officer.
It’s a move Cox’s Friends character Monica Geller would be proud of—Geller was a notorious clean-freak throughout the show’s decade on the air. But those clean sensibilities are intrinsic to Cox too—especially a home that smells clean.
Homecourt
“We decided to make a beauty line for the home,” Cox told WWD. “I’m obsessed with design and my home, and I wanted the home to smell like something that I’d want to wear. During the pandemic, we were so used to the smell of Clorox, but then you’re like, ‘OK, we’re still at home,’ and I don’t want my house to smell like that anymore.”
In an Instagram post announcing the launch, Cox said the products were two years in the making.
All of the products are focused on four scents, created in partnership with scent giants Givaudan and Robertet. The four scents are “Steeped Rose,” “Neroli Leaf,” “Cipres Mint” and “Cece”—Cox’s signature scent, which is a blend of Guatemalan cardamom, dried mate absolute leaves, Sri Lankan cinnamon, and Indonesian patchouli oil, among other ingredients.
“I use two oils and one perfume and I mix it together,” Cox said of her blend for “Cece.”
She says Givaudan and Robertet came up with “exactly what we sent them as samples.” Cox said it was a task as the three different perfumes and oils have so many other notes than she was aware of. “They did a great job recreating my personal scent.”
The products are only available direct-to-consumer now, but as a sustainability benchmark, they meet Sephora’s Clean at Sephora beauty guidelines—free of harmful ingredients including sulfates, parabens, formaldehyde, phthalates, and mineral oil. The products all come in 100 percent post-consumer recycling materials.
Luxury fragrances in the home
The concept for Homecourt originally started as a candle line, but Cox soon realized a gap in the home goods market. A similar trend is happening in the laundry room, too, as luxury fragrance brands like Le Labo have found a new market in clean laundry detergents.
“Right now, home fragrance is mostly in candles or diffusers,” Jahnke told WWD. “We’re really pushing home fragrance into new formats, so now instead of lighting a candle, you can do that, but you can also spray [the scent] on your counter and get that same experience.”
The brand also took a skincare approach to the products, using ingredients like argan oil, Australian hibiscus flower, and glycerin to hydrate skin. All of the products are dermatologist tested.
Sustainable home goods
It’s a good time to enter the sustainable home and cleaning products market, not just because of the need for sanitizing amid the ongoing Covid pandemic.
Sales of sustainable cleaning products are expected to hit $110 billion by 2025—an 8.5 percent CAGR over 2021’s expected $73 billion in sales, according to a Smithers study published last year.
While conventional cleaning products are still dominant, the growth rate there is about half of that for the sustainable options.
The demand for sustainable cleaning products mirrors the shift in demand for sustainable options across beauty, fashion, food, and other sectors including vehicles and travel.
“I don’t want to say that [Homecourt] turns it into a ritual because no one likes cleaning and we’d be lying to you if we said this makes cleaning enjoyable,” Axelrod-Welk said. “But just generally speaking, [the brand’s goal] is to make those moments better and make the idea of tending to your space a better experience.”
Homecourt’s initial launch features a hand wash, dish soap, and surface cleaner. Hand lotion is coming next month, and Cox will get her candle—that’s debuting in March. The brand is also expecting to launch into the luxury laundry space next year, among other categories.
“We’re redefining the space and this category,” Axelrod-Welk said. “All of these products should be sold under the same roof because you should want as good of a fragrance as you expect from your niche candle as from your dish soap and your surface spray.”
Prices for Homecourt’s products range from $20 to $50. More info is available on the brand’s website.
