Forensic Analysis · Retail / Consumer Discretionary · as of Aug 12, 2026
Honest Company, Inc. (HNST)
A forensic read on Honest Company, Inc. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
D · Weak — demands caution
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
7.2
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
-52.7
P / E (ttm)
-9.2%
ROE
$559M
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
-1.9%
Revenue growth
This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.
Honest Company, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 7.2, placing it in the Safe zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-17.2%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -17.2% in the latest fiscal year and rising from -23% — well below its ~9% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
+6.4%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +21% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+6.4%/yr). The count is growing: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~6.4% shaved off per-share growth every year — total profit has to grow that much just to keep earnings-per-share flat, and a stake held since FY2022 has been diluted ~17%.
3% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 3% of revenue and 77% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $0.09 per diluted share. The cost of it is not in the cash flow — no cash left the business — it is in the count: holders gave up about 6.5% of the company a year, and that rate is not falling. That is the figure to weigh, not the share of free cash flow.
stopped
FY2021→FY2023
Shareholder returns — halted.Capital returns have STOPPED — $35M of buybacks + dividends in FY2021, but ~$0 in FY2023. A halt usually means the company is conserving cash.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$371.3M
Revenue Growth YoY-1.9%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+5.8%
Net Margin-4.2%
Free Cash Flow$13.6M
Return on Equity-9.2%
The forensic grade and screens above are free — no account needed. Want the AI investment read on top — the 0–100 rating, thesis, bull-vs-bear, red flags and the 12-month scenario, written from Honest Company, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?