Who's The Boss?

Actress. Mother. Entrepreneur. Jessica Alba is a woman redefining having it all

 

- Justine Cullen

Jessica Alba is sick. She’s been fighting a cold for weeks. She shows up to the ELLE cover shoot with tissues in hand and a medicinal tea to her lips. As far as shoots go, it’s not a good sign. Today is an unseasonably freezing and wet day in perma-sunny LA, we’re shooting in an almost completely outdoor set and Alba, 36, is meant to be wearing the spring looks, designed for balmy climes and definitely not for standing with the sniffles trying to look glamorous in torrential rain. Also, the vet is on the phone because Alba’s just found out her dog has cancer, then one of her daughters is sent home from school with a tummy bug. (Cue cutest moment on the shoot, when Alba asks Honor via FaceTime if she’s still feeling sick and the eight-year-old answers, “Yes, I am,” throwing in a dramatic but not-very-gastro-related faux cough for effect.) It’s Inauguration Day, and while the rest of the crew are in denial trying to ignore the political shitstorm erupting around them, Alba spends the better part of the morning in the makeup chair watching the proceedings on an iPad. She was up late last night editing how-to beauty videos for The Honest Company, the business selling family essentials that she co-founded in 2011, and she’s tired, but Alba’s not one to cower away from life – even when it gets as real as this.

This is no ordinary cover shoot anyway. In business terms, The Honest Company is considered a “unicorn” (ie, a start-up valued at more than a billion dollars or, in The Honest Company’s case, a couple of billion dollars) and, like any entrepreneur, Alba needs to spend an inordinate amount of time between getting her hair and makeup done and being styled by the