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"    Photo: Courtesy of Hannaway Public Relations   Jessica Alba is known for her healthy glow and radiant smile, but that wasn&amp;#039;t always the case. &amp;quot;As a kid, I was always sick,&amp;quot; said the Hollywood star. &amp;quot;I had pneumonia, I had really severe allergies. And it wasn&amp;#039;t until I got older, that I realized some of that was caused by toxins in things like detergent. That made me crazy, because it&amp;#039;s supposed to help get things clean.&amp;quot; Enter The Honest Company, a label of all-natural products created by Alba and her business partner, Christopher Gavigan. The team makes everything from lip balm to dishwasher gel, and today they launch their first book, The Honest Life. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s about making healthy choices and making eco-friendly choices, but realizing you can&amp;#039;t and shouldn&amp;#039;t pressure yourself to be perfect,&amp;quot; she explained. &amp;quot;I mean, I wish I could grow my own vegetables in a garden. But I&amp;#039;m terrible at keeping plants alive, and besides, I have two very active little kids and a job!&amp;quot;   We met Alba at the Crosby Street Hotel in NYC to talk more about the book, the job, and of course, being a movie star. ELLE: You&amp;#039;re in production for the next Sin City, plus you have a toddler and a baby. And now a book?! Jessica Alba: I know; things are busy. [The book] is so important, though! I wanted to write it because when I was first trying to figure stuff out\u2014what cleansers were safe around my baby, what makeup didn&amp;#039;t have toxic ingredients\u2014there was no all-encompassing guide book to help me make better choices. I felt really overwhelmed. ELLE: Didn&amp;#039;t this all start because of some laundry detergent? JA: When I had my daughter Honor, my mom told me to buy a certain brand of detergent. It was really expensive, but she swore by it. She said she&amp;#039;d used it when we were kids, and it was the only thing safe enough for babies. But when I tested it, I got huge red welts all over my skin. I panicked, but looking back, that freak out really inspired The Honest Company! ELLE: The book has a slightly more realistic approach to living healthy\u2014you all understand that you can&amp;#039;t make perfect food or product choices 100 percent of the time. JA: You can&amp;#039;t, but I&amp;#039;m really trying to make it easier. I mean, if I can prevent my children from getting cancer, I will do absolutely anything. Part of that is genetic, but part of it is environmental factors. So if I can reduce their cancer risk by using &amp;quot;cleaner&amp;quot; soap\u2014isn&amp;#039;t that crazy, that I have to talk about &amp;quot;clean&amp;quot; soap? But if I can keep them healthier by using more natural products, then of course I will, and I&amp;#039;d encourage every parent to do the same. ELLE: Is that why you started The Honest Company? JA: You know, there are many eco-friendly and toxin-free products out there, but most of them are so expensive. To me, that was the big issue. You shouldn&amp;#039;t have to be in a certain tax bracket just to afford safe household cleanser. That&amp;#039;s just wrong. And the book has tons of DIY tips. You can take some avocado and olive oil and make a hair treatment. It takes five minutes and it&amp;#039;s all natural! ELLE: Obviously, you mention lots of eco-friendly projects in the book. But you mention lots of other things, too\u2014like shoes. JA: I can&amp;#039;t call the book The Honest Life and not show my closet! Fashion is such a huge part of my life, and I think you can love clothes and love shopping and still be true to your ideas about eco-friendly living. ELLE: How? JA: By taking care of your clothes so they last longer. By picking things you actually like instead of what&amp;#039;s trendy, so that every month you&amp;#039;re not chasing some new look and throwing out your old one. And I&amp;#039;m a big fan of swapping clothes with your friends, because when you&amp;#039;re sick of something, it can still feel like new to someone else. The trick is to find friends who have your sense of style. ELLE: And who have your shoe size. JA: Oh, the gold mine is when they also have your body type! Then you don&amp;#039;t even need to try things on. ELLE: Speaking of clothes, do people still ask you about your costumes in Never Been Kissed? JA: No! But that&amp;#039;s such a funny question! ELLE: Well, it&amp;#039;s a classic &amp;#039;90s teen movie. And besides, you had to dress up as Malibu Barbie in one scene. JA: I totally did! I had to dress up as Barbie for the prom scene, and it was so ridiculous! My outfits in that movie were like\u2026how would someone describe them? I looked like a Spice Girl on crack. They were so outrageous, but you know, the character I played was pretty outrageous, too.  ELLE: Did you secretly love having better costumes than Drew Barrymore? JA: At the time, I definitely didn&amp;#039;t think I had better costumes than anyone. I was so shy about showing my body, and those costumes showed so much of my body\u2014that prom costume especially. I was so uncomfortable at first, but I thought about my character, and how she really believed those clothes were cool. I mean, I was playing a really ridiculous girl! So I just kind of went with it. And by the end of filming, I didn&amp;#039;t feel as shy. Actually, I remember it being pretty fun! Buy Jessica Alba&amp;#039;s new book, The Honest Life on her website,honest.com.    Photo: Courtesy of Hannaway Public Relations     Click here for live updates on the latest breaking fashion news. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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