Call it the Homecourt advantage.
Courteney Cox founded home care brand Homecourt in the throes of the pandemic, and as she told senior beauty editor Kathryn Hopkins during a fireside chat, she’s still all-in on the business.
“I am the creative director. I will move a font one millimeter — for the feel of it. I am Monica [Cox’s character on “Friends”] and I am very particular,” Cox said.
That level of discernment is what led her to found the business in the first place. “I clean so much, it’s actually annoying,” Cox said. “I’m going to every single room, and I’m always straightening out or cleaning something.”
Her thinking was simple when she ideated the brand: Take the same approach to taking care of the home as consumers do for their faces, hair and bodies.
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“It started out by wanting to do a candle line because I think they’re so important, but during the pandemic, all I would smell was Clorox because there wasn’t a beauty product for your home,” Cox said. “We spend so much time at home and not even just then, it’s such a special place. Why don’t we treat our homes the way we treat our body, our skin and our face? That’s where the concept came from.”
Scents are central the brand’s value proposition, as each product takes a fine fragrance approach to the home. Cox’s favorite scent, CeCe, for example — so named for her family nickname — ”is a mixture of some oils I’ve been wearing for about eight years,” Cox said. “It’s cedarwood, cardamom, cinnamon. It’s smoky, it’s sexy, and that’s my favorite.”
Cox tapped industry heavy hitters when creating the line, including Robertet perfumer Jérôme Epinette, who developed CeCe.
“We have award-winning perfumers, we have beauty chemists, they’re all the best in their fields,” Cox said. “It was important that there was one thing that wasn’t just ‘yeah, I like it.’ It needed to be great. I’m a really annoying perfectionist.”
Cox said the business has been on a steep upward trajectory since its launch. “We’ve doubled our sales every year, the sky’s the limit, and there are so many things you can do. Sarah [Jahnke, Homecourt’s chief executive officer] really has to hold me back because I just want to go and do things. There are so many things you can do at home. It’s limitless.”
First on her list is expanding to the U.K.; Cox already has a spot she wants to open her first store. “There’s one specific spot in London,” she said. “I would love for people to be able to feel the brand.”
Cox’s plans for Homecourt also coexist with her acting career, as well as a film she’s currently directing, which is based on a true crime story.
As for how she decides how to prioritize and what to take on, “I have to really believe in something. I haven’t been a face of a million things over my time in this business,” Cox said. “I have to love the product because I’m not able to fake it.
“I used to think work breeds work. Now, I think that passion breeds happiness,” she continued. “I just want to do things I really love, and I’m a better actor because I try so much harder. Before, I was just like, ‘Oh, I got a job, just do it.’ Now, I really care.”
