If there are two women I trust, it's Chrissy Teigen and Kris Jenner. Both have established themselves as lucrative businesswomen—Teigen with her line of best-selling cookbooks and kitchenware, and Jenner with her $2 billion empire of Kardashian everything. They are also the matriarchs of two famous families, inviting their collective 74.2 million Instagram followers into their homes each day. Now, they want you to let them into your home.
The certified Boss Ladies have teamed up with entrepreneur and Good American CEO Emma Grede to create affordable plant-based cleaning products. Appropriately named Safely, the collection features six essential house products: hand soap, hand sanitizer, hand cream, universal cleaner, glass cleaner, and laundry detergent.
"I'm not a believer that healthy food and ingredients should come at a price for people," Teigen tells ELLE.com over the phone. "Every family has the right to feel that the products that they're putting their children and animals is going to be a quality product that works, but isn't going to be full of chemicals. There's nothing worse than spraying a chemical-filled spray around surfaces you tend to cook on."
Recruiting Jenner was a no-brainer. "Kris and I have been friends for so, so long," Teigen adds, then pauses to put in her lunch order ("chicken," she relays to an assistant.) "Her brain is just incredible in the way that it works. And I still find myself wanting to impress her so much. And it's not intimidation. It's just I have this complete admiration of her. Knowing that you're with someone like Kris, you feel safe, and you're going to have a good time because she’s truly so hysterical and down-to-earth. We both have so much in common, oddly enough, that this was not working at all."
Ahead, Teigen talks about her new cleaning brand, being a momager to Luna and Miles, and why she believes she would be Kris Jenner's favorite daughter.
How did Safely come about?
Emma Grede, who has known Kris for a long time and has been in business with Kris for so many years now with Skims and Good American, brought this idea about how to shake up the world of cleaning products. We wanted to give something new to people that have been stuck inside their homes and been so bored of what they're using that aren't necessarily products that they want around their children and animals.
Everything that Kris Jenner does always takes so much planning and years and years and years. I don't know how she keeps anything a secret because I've been so excited about this for so long to the point where I posted too many photos the first day. They're like, "We have to space these photos for the entire run of the project. What are you doing?"
Who’s the cleaner one, you or John?
Generally, I am just a clean freak. John, I always say, is a neat freak. He's not a clean freak. I'm a clean freak. John will look like the disappearing man when it comes to leaving his clothes out, with the shoes and the jeans left around, perfectly positioned over each shoe. He looks like he completely dissolved or something. And I'm the one that always cleans up. And then Kris is insanely clean. Kris is probably a cleaner clean freak than any of us.
Have your kids Luna and Miles started cleaning around the house?
I can genuinely say that I have some of the cleanest kids around. They are to the point where I have to wrap their chicken tenders in a napkin, so they can have something to hold onto when they're eating their food. Kids reflect the behavior that they're around. So they see me being like that, and they're like that too. And I do love it.
[Miles] was obsessed with brooms and Swiffers. My Miles is a sensitive soul. We took the Swiffer away, and it was horrific. He would cry and cry. He would hold it when I read him bedtime stories. His crib looks like the claw game. He is just in there with about 100 other stuffed things, and he sleeps cross-legged with his head poking above the stuffed animals and the broom.
If you were one of Kris’s daughters, do you think you would be the favorite?
I do. I do because I thrive on that. I was the kind of person that would go over to a friend's house, and I would be like, "Hey, Mrs. Johnson, do you need help doing the dishes?" And then my friends would always get so mad at me because I would be such a kiss-ass. I was always the teacher's pet. Of course, your parents are like, "Why don't you do this at home?" I flourished when I was at a friend's house. So yeah, I'd be the favorite. For sure, without question.
Will you be a momager to Luna and Miles?
You almost get to the point where you're like, who will take better care of my children than me. But I won't because I know that I would much rather surround her with someone smarter than her. Plus, I wouldn't want to mix those two worlds.
I honestly don't think that with the way Luna is going and her passions, she needs a manager of sorts. She is very creative and artistic, but I don't think it will translate to TV or film. I see Miles needing a manager, though. He loves to perform and dance. He's a lot like John. Luna is a lot like me. Luna loves to perform too, but Miles was much younger when it became a part of him. I can see it with Miles, for some reason. Maybe it's because he looks exactly like John.
Does your mom Pepper have any momager tendencies?
God, no. Are you kidding? I'm her manager. I have to do everything for her. She doesn't return a single email. You tell her what time to wake up the night before, and when she wakes up, and she's there. But no, she doesn't write anything down. She doesn't have a calendar. She doesn't have anything. It's us all carrying the Pepper train. This train has no gas without us. Do trains have gas? I don't know. Or coal. The train has no coal.
Lastly, I’d like to thank you for speaking out about the rise in attacks against the AAPI community. As an Asian-American, I’ve always been so grateful for you and your platform and visibility.
Thank you, that makes me happy to hear that. I'm happy to represent positively for the Asian-American community because representation is so incredibly important. Seeing yourself in the public eye and hearing that your voice can be echoed through someone with any following is an essential thing.
It's a needed conversation. For so long this has been a seed planted in people's heads, the coronavirus being called the China virus. Politicians led that conversation, essentially putting a target on Asians' backs which is horrifying. [My mom] could be seen as somebody that people would have these nasty thoughts about, and it makes me sad and angry.
What are some ways people can help the AAPI community?
I think it's important for people to know that there are so many different ways to support our community. It's not just reaching out and doing performative bullshit through "just checking in on you" texts. It's making sure that those local Asian businesses are supported, whether it's a market or a restaurant, or making sure that their Chinatown can carry on throughout the year.
There are so many different organizations that you can find your focus. If you're interested in helping ensure that communities are safeguarded for many years to come, you can quickly look that up. There's a site called 18 Million Rising and Stop AAPI Hate that's incredible for us to donate to right now. As long as people know about tangible, active things they can do, that is the opposite of performative. That's the way they do it.
Safely is available now on getsafely.com.
