She’s coming clean.
In 2019, Gwen Whiting sold The Laundress — the luxury laundry and home care brand she co-founded — to Unilever for a reported $100 million.
Now, after waiting out an agonizing five-year non-compete, non-disparagement agreement, the 49-year-old has launched a new company — The Fill — devoted to cleaning and community, and she’s opening up about the regrettable Unilever deal.
“The value proposition was, ‘[Unilever is] a business that cares about sustainability,’ and I really drank the Kool-Aid, I really believed that I was sending my baby to college,” Whiting told NYNext. “Unfortunately, that was not the experience that I had.”
Under Whiting, The Laundress had scaled deliberately. Once owned by Unilever, the company boomed in scope and scale — with disastrous results.
In November 2022, Unilever had to issue an eight million-item recall of Laundress products due to bacterial contamination; the company told customers to stop using all detergents and cleaning products and pulled items from store shelves.
The following March, there was a second recall due to a carcinogen in some products. The Laundress temporarily shuttered, and wouldn’t relaunch until July of 2023.
“It was very painful,” Whiting said. “My whole life and identity were so intertwined with The Laundress.”
Her legal agreements made it worse.
“There were a lot of people reaching out to me and I had that five-year non-compete, non-disparaging agreement — I couldn’t say anything,” she said. (The Post has reached out to Unilever for comment.)
Whiting had stayed aboard for two more years after The Laundress’ sale, but unbeknownst to many of her followers, her contract had expired in 2021.
“It wasn’t exactly public that I was not part of [it anymore],” she said.
In the wake of the fallout, Whiting didn’t immediately plot a return; in fact, she actively resisted one.
“I never wanted to make products again,” she said. “My work was done.”
But friends and longtime customers kept calling — asking what she was using now, asking what they should clean with — and Whiting felt pulled back in.
“I couldn’t leave my community hung to dry,” Whiting said.
Last June, she launched The Fill, a line of eco-friendly cleaning products and a private member’s community, from her office at the National Arts Club in Gramercy Park.
Memberships start at $40 per year and include access to The Fill’s line of home and laundry care products, direct advice from Whiting via her “cleaning concierge” service, and admission to “the Circle,” a digital and in-person hub for workshops, Q&As, and community programming. Past events have included in-person fitness classes, online breathing workshops and Zoom reading sessions — and it’s all tied to Whiting’s belief that cleaning isn’t just a chore, but a lifestyle.
“I gave my know-how, cleaning help and resources openly for 20 years,” said Whiting, who studied fiber science and apparel design at Cornell and later worked as a designer at Ralph Lauren Home. “Now, that’s mine to share with the members of my community. And there’s value in community.”
While The Laundress trafficked in traditional notions of luxury with $50 bottles of detergent perfumed with Le Labo scents, The Fill is more sustainability focused and discrete, but still skews upscale.
Many products come in eco-conscious pouches, and refillable glass bottles are sold separately. Traditional perfume has been swapped for functional aromatherapy blends designed to calm, energize, or restore. Labels have a handwritten-look.
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It’s a deliberate return to the intimacy Whiting had spent years cultivating — then lost.
“My goals are very different [this time around],” she said. “It is a completely different way of doing business. A different sensibility. The second chapter.”
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