Protecting Consumers

Lexie Sachs

Lexie Sachs ’09 informs and helps us make smart product decisions through Good Housekeeping Institute role

As trends in consumer priorities shift and Americans increasingly turn to the internet to do their shopping, it can be challenging to know which products fulfill marketing promises while offering the best value. In her role as associate director of the Textiles, Paper and Plastics Lab for the Good Housekeeping Institute, Lexie Sachs FSAD ’09 combines her skills as a research scientist and a creative communicator to help consumers make informed decisions about where to spend their money and which products to avoid.

For Sachs there is no such thing as an average day. In any given week, she meets with manufacturers about new products, tests products for safety and performance in her lab, writes for the Good Housekeeping website, and works with various editorial teams to put together the Good Housekeeping magazine.

She loves the variety of her work and being able to improve lives through consumer advocacy. On a lab day, she might be testing children’s clothing and costumes for flammability, bras and workout clothing for stretch and shrinkage, sheets and towels for softness and durability.

Two trends Sachs sees growing in popularity are wellness products and products marketed as sustainable. Those claims, she explained, are sometimes false, such as workout clothes that purported to burn more calories – a claim she debunked in her lab. “If it sounds too good to be true, it likely is, so I’ll test it.”

Sachs recently completed testing yoga mats that manufacturers marketed as better for the environment. Not one mat lived up to their sustainability hype.

“Take recyclability: you can’t put the mat on the curb or take it to your recycling center because they aren’t set up to recycle that material,” she said. “Technically the material was recyclable but the consumer doesn’t have access to the ability to recycle it. There were biodegradable mats that can biodegrade in a lab setting, but not in landfill conditions. It’s frustrating, as someone who understands these claims, that shoppers are frequently misled into paying more.”

In addition to the Good Housekeeping platforms, Sachs has weighed in on everything from sheets and backpacks to mattresses and luggage as an expert consultant for the New York Times, Good Morning America, The Dr. Oz Show, Inside Edition, NBC News and Fox.

Sachs said that she wishes more consumers understood the differing quality of online reviews. “Consumers need to be aware and understand who is making product recommendations. Let’s say you’re shopping online and looking for reviews. You’ll see claims that products have been tested, but it could just be one editor who called for a pillow, slept on it one night, and wrote a review saying they tested the product.”

Sachs has been reviewing weighted blankets, which she says have become increasingly popular without much testing as to their effectiveness and safety. “Two children have died in recent years, so when we see safety issues involving children we want to make sure our readers are aware of the risks and know how to use them properly.”

Sachs met her husband Andrew ’01, Hotel Administration, in her freshman year when he was living in Ithaca. They live in Long Island with their daughters, four-year-old Bayla and one-year-old Joanna (Jojo for short). Outside of work she spends most of her time with her family. She hopes to bring her daughters to Ithaca this summer for Jojo’s first visit.

Sachs, who worked in Professor Anil Netravali’s lab, said she loves coming back to Cornell to meet with former professors to discuss their research. “Now that I’m in the industry and doing research on my own, to be able to come back and see all of the new and exciting innovations that are happening in the fiber science department and share them with colleagues is always so impressive.”

See more like this