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DATE
Wednesday, May 6, 2026 at 4:45 p.m. ET
CALL PARTICIPANTS
- Chief Executive Officer — Carla Vernon
- Chief Financial Officer — Curtiss Bruce
TAKEAWAYS
- Organic Revenue Growth -- 3.9%, supported by focused execution in prioritized categories.
- Reported Revenue -- $78.1 million, reflecting an intentional reduction from prior year primarily due to category and channel exits.
- Adjusted Gross Margin -- 43.5%, representing an expansion of 480 basis points and the highest in company history.
- Reported Gross Margin -- 42.6%, an increase of 390 basis points relative to the prior year.
- Consumption Growth -- 8.3%, with unit consumption up 20%, indicating demand outpacing the comparative category average of 2.6%.
- Wipes Portfolio Consumption Growth -- Nearly 25%, with all-purpose baby wipes up 14% and hand sanitizing wipes up more than 60%.
- Flushable Wipes Consumption Growth -- Over 200%, positioning the brand as #4 in the category, up from #5 in Q4 2025.
- Personal Care Consumption Growth -- 16%, with Honest now the #2 brand in total baby personal care, accelerating from the #4 position last year.
- Diaper Consumption Decline -- Moderated to negative 9.6%, an improvement from negative 18.3% in the previous quarter, attributed to lapping retailer distribution losses.
- Total Household Penetration -- 8.1%, a new all-time high, up 50 basis points sequentially, with 1.6 million new households added over the past year.
- Adjusted Operating Expenses -- Decreased by $1.8 million year over year, primarily through SG&A improvements, after excluding restructuring charges.
- Net Loss -- Less than $0.1 million, as reported.
- Adjusted EBITDA -- $4 million, resulting in a 5.1% margin, down from $6.9 million and a 7.1% margin in the prior year period.
- Cash and Cash Equivalents -- $90.4 million at quarter-end, with no debt reported on the balance sheet.
- Free Cash Flow -- $3.8 million, a turnaround from negative $3 million in the prior year, mainly due to working capital improvements.
- Share Repurchases -- $3 million utilized in the quarter and $8.3 million subsequent to quarter-end, at an average price of $3.26 per share, drawn from a $25 million authorization.
- Full-Year Guidance Reaffirmed -- Expects reported revenue decline of 18%-16% owing to strategic exits, organic revenue growth of 4%-6%, adjusted gross margin in the low 40% range, and adjusted EBITDA of $20 million to $23 million.
- Annualized Savings Target -- Powering Honest Growth initiative projected to deliver $10 million to $15 million in savings per year.
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RISKS
- Carla Vernon said, "The diaper category is under an enormous amount of pressure," and management expects ongoing competitive and promotional intensity to "continue to pressure the category," resulting in a "cautious" outlook for diapers.
- Full-year guidance incorporates macroeconomic uncertainties, with Curtiss Bruce stating, "several macroeconomic uncertainties remain."
SUMMARY
The Honest Company (HNST +10.03%) reported Q1 results featuring margin expansion, consumption gains across its core categories, and reinforced confidence in its growth strategy. Management credited disciplined portfolio optimization and a mix shift toward wipes and personal care for superior adjusted gross margins and increased household penetration. New marketing campaigns and expanded distribution channels supported durable momentum in product consumption and brand visibility. Working capital improvements helped drive positive free cash flow and provided flexibility for both reinvestment and significant share repurchases.
- Honest's flushable wipes achieved category growth rates greater than 10 times the market average for three consecutive quarters, illustrating rapid adoption.
- Brand penetration remains substantially lower than key competitors, particularly in personal care and wipes, with cited opportunities for 2x to 7x further expansion.
- Strategic guidance for 2026 balances projected organic growth with anticipated topline headwinds from divested operations and macroeconomic volatility.
- Management described the first quarter's marketing investment as elevated for product launches and expects sustained but flexible brand-building expenditure aligned with revenue and EBITDA targets.
- Honest's e-commerce business continues to deliver rapid growth, with management highlighting its foundational digital-first strategy and resonance in online channels.
INDUSTRY GLOSSARY
- Household Penetration: The percentage of U.S. households that have purchased at least one Honest brand product within a specified period.
- Consumption Growth: The increase in consumer off-shelf purchase volumes (units), reflecting actual end-user demand rather than shipments to retailers.
- Adjusted Gross Margin: Gross margin calculated after making company-specified adjustments to GAAP measures, typically to exclude non-recurring or restructuring items.
- Powering Honest Growth: The Honest Company’s internal initiative focused on structural margin improvement, portfolio prioritization, and SG&A optimization.
Full Conference Call Transcript
Carla Vernon: Thank you, Chris, and hello to everyone joining us. Today, I will provide a high-level look at our first quarter performance and offer insights into how we are successfully executing our strategy to profitably scale the Honest brand. Following my remarks, Curtiss will provide greater detail on our Q1 financial results and discuss our reaffirmed full-year outlook. We are pleased with our start to 2026 as our recent actions to optimize our portfolio are bearing fruit. Our Q1 results demonstrate that Powering Honest Growth is leading to an enterprise that is more strategically focused, growth-driven and structurally profitable. Let me begin with our first quarter results.
By bringing a sharpened focus to our right to win categories and channels, we delivered organic revenue growth of 3.9% Delivering this growth on top of double-digit growth in the prior year underscores the momentum across our portfolio. As we continue to increase the availability of Honest products, we are also expanding our business across a broader set of households. Over the last 3 years, we've been disciplined in our focus on driving shareholder value through top line scale and bottom line expansion, and in Q1, we did exactly that. In addition to delivering organic revenue growth, our adjusted gross margin of 43.5% was the strongest in our history.
This year-over-year gross margin expansion of 480 basis points demonstrates the impact of our Powering Honest Growth initiative. By streamlining the focus to our right to win categories, we have ignited a virtuous cycle that allows our teams to successfully execute against our 3 strategic pillars of brand maximization, margin enhancement and operating discipline. In Q1, our brand maximization strategy of growing revenue scale and consumer strength of the Honest brand was evident. We delivered 8.3% consumption growth significantly ahead of our comparative category average growth of 2.6% and a notable acceleration from the 3.4% we delivered in Q4 2025. Best of all, our momentum continued to be volume-led with unit consumption up 20%.
As I shared last quarter, the Honest brand benefits from 2 powerful dynamics. The first and most foundational is the growing consumer interest in cleanly formulated and effective products for people with sensitive skin. The second dynamic is the unique competitive advantage of the Honest brand, which drives our commitment to upholding the highest standards in everything we do. This gives us the ability to build deep consumer trust and loyalty across a diverse range of households. This spans families with babies and toddlers to those with big kids and teenagers and even households with no kids at all.
In the United States, 89% of U.S. households do not have any children under the age of 6, while 75% of U.S. households have no children at all. This is why we are purposeful in designing a growth strategy that provides a broad range of products developed with a wide range of ages in mind. As a reminder, according to Numerator, over half of Honest's current buyers are for no kid households. Across all household types, the love for our cleanly formulated and sustainably designed personal care products continues to grow.
At Honest, every product must meet our industry-leading Honest standard, which is a set of guiding principles that includes a list of over 3,500 ingredients we do not use and that shapes every step of product innovation and development to ensure our high expectations for safety, efficacy and design. This appeal is evident in our growth. In Q1, our total household penetration reached a new all-time high of 8.1%, up 50 basis points from year-end. We're proud to have welcomed 1.6 million new households over the past year. As we look at the opportunity in household penetration, we still have significant runway ahead.
For example, in Baby Personal care, key branded competitors hold household penetration anywhere from 2x to 6x greater than ours. In all purpose wipes, larger brands have as much as 5x to 7x the household penetration of Honest. This considerable market opportunity presents a clear line of sight to our next phase of growth with a focus on transitioning existing category buyers to Honest and welcoming entirely new households into these categories. Now allow me to share more on each of these portfolios, beginning with wipes. In Q1, our total wipes portfolio delivered consumption growth of nearly 25%.
With a wide and growing array of formats, Honest wipes are expanding throughout the store and across household types with products ranging from adult flushable wipes and hand sanitizing wipes to toddler flushable wipes and all-purpose baby wipes. The consumption of our all-purpose baby wipes grew 14% this quarter, reflecting just how much our community loves having a stylish pop of design on their changing table, countertop or in their bag for those everyday cleanup moments. This quarter was the national rollout of our updated more shopper-friendly packaging for our all-purpose wipes. With this new bolder, more shoppable package design, it is much easier for people to discover these wipes on store shelves.
We introduced our largest packaging format to-date, a mega pack that allows parents to maximize value and stay fully stocked on our wonderful sensitive skin safe wipes. Our Honest flushable wipes are a clear standout in our portfolio, delivering Q1 consumption growth of more than 200% off of a still emerging base. These plush moist and plumbing safe flushable wipes have now grown at more than 10x the category rate for 3 consecutive quarters. As a result, we are now the #4 flushable wipe brand in the category, up from the #5 spot in Q4 2025.
This momentum illustrates how our growing Honest community loves the unique combination of fashion, function and flushability we bring to the category, and we're just getting started. A few weeks ago, we adopted a very stylish and thoroughly modern new approach to our marketing of flushable wipes. We kicked things off with a high-profile social media campaign in March, partnering with mega influencers specifically chosen to resonate across our target households. Whether you love an intimate conversation with Tia Mowry, a besty moment with Kat Stickler or a freestyle wrap by Hannah Berner, we had something for you. The response from followers was immediate and the algorithm did its thing.
In fact, 1 post amassed 1.5 million views across Instagram and TikTok in just its first 12 hours. Building on that incredible digital engagement, we launched a national campaign in April across a broad media landscape of video, social, out-of-home, festivals and more. The ads, posts and videos put the spotlight on the moments when even the most stylish and glamorous women get honest about why they love our flushable wipes. We didn't stop there. This quarter, we also refreshed our collection of hand sanitizing wipes. In Q1, we relaunched our Lavender and Grapefruit scent in updated counterworthy packaging and rolled out our pocket packs in those 2 fresh scents.
For the quarter, we saw a consumption increase of more than 60% on our hand sanitizing wipes, maintaining our position as the #2 brand in the category. Now shifting to Personal Care. Our Personal Care collection delivered consumption growth of 16% in Q1. Our shampoo, body wash, bubble bath and lotion have long been a trusted choice in the 11% of U.S. households with children under the age of 6. In fact, with consumption growing 7x faster than the category, Honest has officially become the #2 brand across total baby personal care, jumping from the #4 position last year. Now to build on that momentum, we are expanding our reach.
We are pleased to have introduced our new Pixar Toy Story collection, bringing the Honest standard to the 89% of U.S. households with big kids and kids at heart. Initially, we launched the collection, both in-store and online at Walmart. As of a few weeks ago, I'm excited to announce that we added the collection to Amazon, which will meaningfully expand our reach just in time for the Toy Story 5 movie release next month. Speaking of going to Infinity and Beyond, our brand literally reached new heights recently.
During the live stream of the NASA Artemis II mission in April, astronaut Christina Koch radio Houston to ask Mission Control for help in tracking down the Honest lotion the crew had packed on board. It was incredible. It was an organic moment that highlights just how essential our products are to our community even in orbit. Not only was this an incredible affirmation that Honest products are for everyone, but because my own mother was a NASA hidden figure, this was a full circle moment in more ways than one. Finally, let me share an update on our diaper portfolio, where we have seen progress on our performance.
Our consumption declines in diapers were nearly cut in half, moderating to negative 9.6% in Q1 from 18.3% in Q4 2025 as we lapped the distribution losses of gender-specific prints at a key retailer late in the quarter. However, our outlook for the broader diaper category remains cautious. We are navigating a highly competitive and promotional environment that we expect will continue to pressure the category. While diapers remain an important option for families looking for the Honest standard of clean, we will prioritize our growth in households with babies and families with little kids through our higher growth, higher-margin wipes and personal care platforms. Despite these localized category pressures, the broad strength of our portfolio is shining through.
Our positive Q1 results show that we are financially stronger and on the right path with great possibilities ahead. With that, I will now turn the call over to Curtiss to provide more detail on our Q1 financial results and walk through our reaffirmed full-year 2026 outlook.
Curtiss Bruce: Thank you, Carla, and good afternoon, everyone. As Carla mentioned, our first quarter results are a clear indication that the structural improvements we made to our business last year through Powering Honest Growth initiative are driving our growth and profitability today. We are pleased with our start to the year. Before diving into the financial results, I want to provide a brief update on this transformation. We are seeing the immediate accelerated benefits of a highly favorable margin mix, driven by our sharpened focus on our right to win categories alongside the positive impact of our rightsized SG&A.
As we look to the balance of the year, we remain firmly on track to realize our expected supply chain efficiencies in the second half of 2026. As a reminder, we expect Powering Honest Growth to deliver between $10 million to $15 million in annualized savings, serving as a powerful catalyst to further fortify our bottom line health and generate the fuel needed to reinvest in our growth. Now turning to our first quarter performance. Revenue was $78.1 million compared to $97.3 million in the prior year period, primarily reflecting the impact of our strategic Powering Honest Growth category and channel exits. On an organic basis, revenue grew 3.9% to $78.1 million.
This growth is particularly notable as it was achieved over a difficult prior year comparison, which was bolstered by retailer inventory buildup ahead of the 2025 tariffs. Our performance this quarter reflects strong momentum behind our higher growth, higher-margin wipes and personal care platforms, partially offset by moderating diaper sales declines. These diaper results were driven by the initial lapping of previously disclosed headwinds related to a key retailers transition to gender-neutral prints. Q1 reported gross margin came in at 42.6%, a 390 basis point improvement compared to the prior year period.
On an adjusted basis, our gross margin of 43.5% was historically strong, reflecting favorable freight costs as well as mix from our higher growth, higher-margin wipes and personal care platforms, which was accelerated by Powering Honest Growth. These items were partially offset by tariffs. Total operating expenses decreased $1.2 million year-over-year, including a modest restructuring charge related to Powering Honest Growth. Excluding this transitional cost, our adjusted operating expenses declined by $1.8 million. This reduction was driven by our structural SG&A improvements, which more than offset our plan to drive double-digit increases in marketing investments directed specifically toward our higher growth, higher-margin wipes and personal care platforms.
Coupling these structural cost savings with our meaningful adjusted gross margin expansion creates a powerful financial engine, underscoring our capacity to strategically reinvest in our brand while rightsizing our SG&A at the same time. Looking at our bottom line, we reported a net loss of less than $0.1 million for the quarter. Q1 adjusted EBITDA was $4 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 5.1%, down from $6.9 million and a 7.1% margin in the prior year period, largely due to lower reported revenue. Regarding our balance sheet and cash flow, we continue to be in an exceptionally strong position.
We ended the quarter with $90.4 million in cash and cash equivalents and 0 debt, while Q1 free cash flow was $3.8 million, a substantial improvement compared to the negative $3 million in the prior year period. This year-over-year increase was primarily driven by continued working capital improvements stemming from Powering Honest Growth and our rigorous focus on operating discipline. During the quarter, we utilized $3 million of our newly authorized $25 million share repurchase program with an additional $8.3 million deployed subsequent to quarter end. In total, these repurchases were executed at an average price of $3.26 per share.
These actions reflect our confidence in the structural improvements we have made to our business, the significant financial flexibility generated by our asset-light operating model and our commitment to balancing aggressive reinvestment in our growth initiatives with returning meaningful value to our shareholders. Moving to our outlook. While we are encouraged by our start to 2026, we are also mindful that it is still early in the year, and we are navigating an environment where several macroeconomic uncertainties remain. That said, the actions we've taken to optimize our portfolio have created a much stronger foundation for profitable growth.
We have effectively shifted our resources toward the categories where Honest has the clearest competitive advantage, and our 2026 framework reflects both the early returns of that discipline and our prudent approach to the balance of the year. With that context, we are reaffirming our full-year 2026 outlook. We continue to expect the following: reported revenue declines of 18% to 16% due to our strategic exits, organic revenue growth of 4% to 6%, in line with our long-term algorithm, adjusted gross margins in the low 40s and adjusted EBITDA of $20 million to $23 million. As I wrap up, I want to emphasize how pleased we are with our start to the year.
We believe our first quarter results clearly demonstrate that sharpening our focus on our right to win categories has built a resilient financial foundation. We are executing with strict operational discipline and maintaining a clear line of sight towards sustainable, profitable growth. With that, I will turn it back to Carla for final remarks.
Carla Vernon: Thank you, Curtiss. As we shared last quarter, Powering Honest Growth was about unlocking the full potential of our business model by serving as a force multiplier to our strategic pillars. We believe that our Q1 results confirm that the heavy lifting we did in 2025 is paying off. I'd like to thank our team of Honest Butterfly for their commitment and diligence in building our shared vision for Honest. Now more than ever, Honest is well positioned to deliver strong value creation for investors, expand our Honest community and build the enduring strength and meaning of the Honest brand. With that, I will now turn it over to the operator to open the line for questions.
Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from the line of Aaron Grey with AGP.
Aaron Grey: First question for me, I just want to talk a little bit about the reiterated guidance. I can certainly understand the commentary in terms of wanting to have to take a prudent approach for the remainder of the year. Just given if you take the run rate for 1Q, that kind of takes you to the high end of your guide now. Curious if there's any shipment timing that hadn't impacted the Q or any type of seasonality we should be thinking about ahead just given some of the other top line initiatives we talked about right now -- earlier on the call that should obviously lead to some nice sales trajectory.
Curtiss Bruce: Aaron, this is Curtiss. We are certainly pleased with the revenue growth in Q1. It represents a very good start to the year and in line with our expectation and I say we're equally pleased with the consumption of 8% growth as well, and that was on our higher growth, higher-margin portfolios in Wipes and Personal Care. As you think about the full-year, we're just reiterating our guidance, right? We are still expecting to be able to deliver on the 4% to 6% organic growth. We don't have any concerns coming out of the quarter that there was any dislocation in revenue performance and the consumption performance.
Aaron Grey: Second question for me is in terms of marketing spend, some uptick there sequentially to about $14 million. Maybe talk about some of the strategy that you have. You talked about it a little bit, Carla, in your prepared remarks. I'd love to hear in terms of some of the initiatives you have to help support the growth for some of the brand launches and expansion there.
Carla Vernon: Sure. Why don't I get started? Aaron, we really believe that marketing is a force multiplier here at Honest, and it has always been an important piece of the fabric of building this powerful brand. We think we've got a strategic advantage because ever since our beginning, we've been very brand forward, very consumer forward. We know that this investment we're making in marketing is going to be a very powerful driver of this improved awareness that's key to our growth strategy.
As you know, we have -- the success we've demonstrated on household penetration gains have been very balanced across our products and our consumer types, and that's because we've been very intentional as we allowed ourselves to be more focused coming out of Powering Honest Growth. That degree of focus is allowing us to point our marketing dollars and our marketing strategies strongly towards our key categories. In this quarter, what you've already seen is we kicked off a fantastic marketing campaign against our flushable wipes business. You remember in my comments, we are now the fourth largest brand in flushable wipes, and we delivered more than 200% consumption growth in the quarter.
We just about 4 weeks ago, started kicking off a very groundbreaking campaign. You can see some images from that campaign in our investor slide presentation, our social media feed as always. This campaign really takes a different approach than other flushable brands in the category. We are living up to our name of being honest, right? We've got these really glamorous, beautiful women talking about the role that a flushable wipes plays in their life and why they love our particularly soft and plush and cleanly formulated wipes. We've got that campaign off to a very strong start. It includes a social media lens where we've got mega influencers across different demographics.
Also, what we have going now is, as I mentioned, our Toy Story 2 launch behind our new portfolio of kid personal care kicked off as Pixar began the early initial rounds of driving buzz against that movie. That movie launches in June. We're really just getting into the window where our own awareness driving of that portfolio is heating up as well as Disney's. We've got some other great stuff planned for later in the year that I look forward to coming back and talking to you about.
Curtiss Bruce: Yes. Aaron, let me just reiterate and maybe add on to Carla's comments. We definitely believe that brand building is a strategic advantage for us here. We're going to continue to invest in marketing as we look to strengthen the business and create a sustainable growth platform. This is why it was so important for us to execute Powering Honest Growth. The gross margin acceleration, the gross margin expansion is really the fuel that we need in order to continue to invest in marketing to have a long-term sustainable business.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Anna Glaessgen with B. Riley Securities.
Anna Glaessgen: In the past, I think the classical brand discovery was talked about through diapers and then expanding through the broader categories that you guys offer. Now while we've seen diapers declining, we're also seeing continued nice gains in household penetration. Can you speak to how consumer discovery of the brand has shifted and how your go-to-market has shifted in response?
Carla Vernon: Wonderful. I'll give that a try. You are right, Anna. We are at our all-time highest household penetration, which is such an affirmation that we have picked categories where consumers love what we have and where our portfolios are very expandable across demographics and across types. A few things drive that.
I've talked a lot about the fact that the largest percent of households in America are not, in fact, the littlest baby households, but they are both those bigger kid households and the households like my own, my daughter ought to go off to college where maybe there was a kid in the household and there isn't anymore as well as households where maybe there were never any children in the household. What we found is that the benefit of Honest, which is that clean formulation, sensitive skin safe, that is relevant, not just for babies, right? That is relevant.
We know that a degree of adults describing themselves as having sensitive skin is as high as 50% to 70% based on certain research. Honest products that we make have been relevant to a broader set of households for a while. We already sell more than half of our -- or excuse me, more than half of our consumers are already in these households. What we're doing now is really putting the strategy and product innovation road map together with that consumer base and making sure we talk to them. This Flushables wipe campaign that I just talked to you about is a great example. We are talking to adults about why they will love Honest products.
That is really a new form of expanded investment, and we're seeing it work because, of course, those businesses are -- the growth of those businesses is outpacing the pressures we're seeing in the diaper category. We feel really good about what that shift in mix and shift in focus has done for our business model.
Anna Glaessgen: Then one follow-up on marketing. Nice to see the investment in Wipe and the activation there, as you noted in the first quarter. Should we take that level of spend and assume that continues? Or was it elevated given the launch cadence that hit that quarter?
Curtiss Bruce: Yes. I'll take that one. This is Curtiss. As we think about marketing, we -- you're correct, we did have an increased level of investment in Q1. That was behind the activity that Carla previously mentioned. Like I said in the earlier remarks or the earlier question from Aaron, we are going to continue to invest in marketing. We're not going to sort of guide expressly to that line item, but the investment in marketing is going to be fueled by Powering Honest Growth, and then our -- both the revenue guidance and the EBITDA guidance reflect that increased investment.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Andrea Teixeira with JPMorgan.
Andrea Teixeira: Amazing story about your mom. Carla, I was just hoping Curtiss to talk about like the competitive environment we hear in general. I guess you're above and beyond that in terms of like your premium positioning. But on the diaper segment, there has definitely been a more competitive stance from a lot of the players. If you can comment on that. Conversely, I know you've been getting a lot of new products in and distribution, and you clearly accelerated the delivery this quarter.
I was just hoping if you can comment about like what are the learnings and what is the -- what are you seeing towards the back end of the year, as Aaron was saying in his question, right? I mean, you probably would have a potential to raise the guidance. I understand that, obviously, it's early in the year, but how we should be thinking of what's happening -- what has happened in the quarter and what it informs you through the rest of the year?
Carla Vernon: Great to hear from you, Andrea. Let me begin with the diaper portion first, and then I'll move on to the new product and distribution learning and our approach to that. Yes, we agree. The diaper category is under an enormous amount of pressure. That pressure is multifaceted, as we know, with macroeconomic pressures facing consumers, along with just increased competitive landscape that is more heated up than we've seen it in previous years. For us, where we feel encouraged is that as we modeled our diaper business, we knew it was important to get past these distribution losses.
Now that we are really lapping those distribution losses that we've been talking to you about, and we saw our own declines cut in half then that told us that as we've been looking at the category, things are playing out according to what we've built into the model and according to what we expected.
With that said, we know that those baby households are important, and so we think we show up differently than most of the other brands in the baby aisle in the baby category because we have the power of a single brand that applies broadly across even when just in the baby set with great meaning because people trust our products to really do what they say. As we are seeing, there are places where people feel that is very important and worth it to them, right? That is because I think that's clean trust we've always had. We love to think it has to do with also our beautiful design.
It just they're beautiful products to use as we know, as well as making sure that they deliver on their sensitive skin friendly benefits. We've got the power of a brand that can press multiple different ways in the aisle. That's why we're still seeing our growth is offsetting those declines that we're managing in diapers. When I think about new products and distribution, I guess I'll pick up on that same storyline, which is the Honest brand was always built broadly even from its beginning.
What we have learned is that as we bring the brand into things like kid personal care, adult flushable wipes, hand sanitizing wipes, makeup remover wipes, trial and travel, we are finding the brand is a fit no matter where we take it to new spaces in the store, we take it to new rooms in anybody's household, we take it to new consumers. That does come with the need to invest in each of those categories. We have to show up and talk to that consumer group in that particular category against that job to be done.
That's why you've seen that the team has built a financial model that allows us to go after these higher-margin categories while reinvesting.
Curtiss Bruce: Then let me just add because we're talking about innovation, we're certainly pleased with the start to Q1, particularly around the innovation. Our 2026 plan and our 2026 guidance on organic revenue was really balanced. It was innovation, velocity and distribution, and so this was not a singular one driver plan. We are still very confident in our ability to deliver with the success that we had with innovation and the distribution that went into the market in Q1.
Andrea Teixeira: If I can squeeze one about e-commerce and how you are potentially outperforming. I think it was always the case, but I just wanted to check in, in terms of a channel performance against Biggs?
Carla Vernon: I think you're talking about broad national e-commerce. Is that right, Andrea?
Andrea Teixeira: Yes.
Carla Vernon: Yes, we are continuing to be very pleased. First of all, we're seeing that across the board, whether it's your traditional brick-and-mortar retailers as they continue to build out their own focus in e-commerce in AI-driven purchases and shopping behavior or where you're looking at the sort of original pure-play e-commerce brands. Our brands, they really fit those models. We know that everyday essentials and consumables do very well in e-commerce. We're seeing a lot of strength for HTC in e-commerce in general. Honest was -- we love to talk about this, right? We were born digital. We were one of the original DTC brands. We were built by the digital generation, and we were built for the digital generation.
Our products really come to life very well in an e-commerce channel, and we're seeing that the algorithm plays out very strongly. with that being certainly one of the fastest places we deliver growth.
Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Our next question comes from the line of Dana Telsey with Telsey Advisory Group.
Dana Telsey: Two questions. One, as you think of the tracked channel consumption, which is up, I think, 8.3%, a real acceleration from the fourth quarter. As you think about going forward, how do you see the levels of demand? Is it new product drivers? Is it category drivers? How would you -- how are you planning go forward? Then on the margin side, with the change in energy prices, how is it impacting your pricing, your customer? Any shifts that you've been seeing? How has it adjusted by channel?
Carla Vernon: Dana, let's start with that consumption acceleration. As you noted, when we exited the previous quarter, Q4, we reported consumption growth of 3%. In this quarter, we reported consumption growth of 8%. That growth is very encouraging to see given all of the complexities we've been talking about in the macroeconomic environment. The way I think about the drivers and how that would play out for the rest of the year, this lapping of the distribution declines in diapers is certainly one of the components of why it is sort of more wind at our back on a consumption basis with regard to that piece of our portfolio.
We should still see that in the year, but as we've talked about, the diaper category has a lot of pressures. That's why we want to make sure our guidance has got that consideration for the unknowns in the diaper category. We also -- well, let me step back and say, Curtiss talked about our growth based on 3 very balanced drivers, right? We've got innovation as a driver. That includes innovation we launched last year, like flushable wipes entering brick-and-mortar for the first time last fiscal year. That stuff takes a while to catch on and drive awareness. The fruit continues to pay out and grow.
Now we've got the awareness driving campaign to act as continued wind in the sales for that type of business. Remember, I also mentioned last quarter, we did a considerable amount of our innovation launches for the year in the first quarter intentionally so that we have the ability to drive that all year. New items are a piece of our growth for the year. Then you've got the velocity and the continued availability increases. Those make out really the 3 ways we look at our growth: innovation, the velocity, velocity that consumers -- when they try our products, they love it. We have great repeat rates, and we are driving a lot of marketing to drive awareness.
Then the distribution growth. There are a lot of drivers for us on distribution growth. Sometimes our brand is already in a retailer, but we might only be in the baby set. When we enter and step our way into the flushable lifestyle, that drives a lot of distribution for us even in a retailer we're already in. Think of the kid personal care business the same. We were already in Walmart. We were already in Amazon, but that was an entirely new sort of branch to our tree, if you will, that we are now able to get the benefits of as we launch innovation and expand even in retailers we're already in.
Curtiss Bruce: Then I will take the inflation and fuel question here. We continue to monitor and evaluate the impact that the volatility in our macroeconomic environment could have on our business. This is where our asset-light model, our inventory position and the cost mechanisms we have with our suppliers enable us to manage risk in the short term. As we think about 2026, we are confident in our ability to still deliver against our expectations.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Owen Rickert with Northland Capital Markets.
Owen Rickert: Just quickly for modeling purposes, last quarter, you mentioned guiding to organic growth improving sequentially throughout the year. Is that still the right way to think about guidance right now?
Curtiss Bruce: Yes. Owen, it's a good question. We are pleased with our start, both on net revenue and on consumption. That was the sequential improvement that we talked about, and so that's in line with our expectations. We are still very confident in our ability to deliver the annual guidance, but we're not offering any updates on the cadence.
Owen Rickert: Then secondly for me, what early reads are you seeing from some of those newer product launches like the Sensitive Rich cream, Send Wipes and Hydro Rich cream just in terms of potential velocity and repeat?
Carla Vernon: A lot of those items launched in Q1, and so often in my experience, Owen, it is still early to have a true velocity run rate on new items like that. What becomes important is making sure that the shelf sets are all settled in so that we really have a clean read on that data and then driving that awareness. What I would really anchor us on is that in almost any category where you look at Honest, our household penetration is so low that each of these new products really gives us an opportunity to reach into a new household and introduce the brand.
For example, you brought up some of our baby items, Sensa Rich Cream, and that is in our Personal Care portfolio. Our Personal Care portfolio is still only at 2% household penetration, whereas what we see in brands that have been around the category longer, we see those with anywhere from 5 to 7x as much penetration as we have. As we continue to make our way in these categories, drive familiarity with the awareness that the Honest brand is there, we feel very, very confident that there is so much runway from our loyal consumers as we continue to drive that growth.
Operator: I'm showing no further questions. With that, I'll hand the call back over to CEO, Carla Vernon, for closing remarks.
Carla Vernon: Well, thank you, everybody, for joining us this quarter as we continue to go to Infinity and beyond. We look forward to talking to you next quarter.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating. This does conclude today's program, and you may now disconnect.
