TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2025: Touchland
Hand sanitizer: killer of germs and fashion symbol? Why not, asks Andrea Lisbona, the Barcelona native who set out to make the humble hand cleansing gel fashionable—even sexy. She launched her brand Touchland, made up of attractively packaged sanitizer 'mists' that come in many fragrances (e.g., 'applelicious' and 'frosted mint'), with a Kickstarter campaign after moving to Miami in 2018. The company's products were gaining traction even before the COVID-19 pandemic supercharged demand for hand sanitizers. But sales growth has skyrocketed in recent years, as tweens and teens amass and trade entire Touchland collections. Revenues were over $100 million in 2024, up more than sixfold from 2022. Today, Touchland sanitizers, as well as body and hair fragrance mists, are available for $10 to $20 at 2,500 U.S. retail outlets, including ULTA and Sephora. The brand was acquired by consumer goods company Church & Dwight for $700 million in May 2025. 'I moved to the U.S. with a deep belief that we could change the category and create something that resonated globally,' Lisbona says. Still, 'the scale and speed of our growth is beyond what I imagined.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNBC
7 hours ago
- CNBC
Gas prices are expected to fall: ‘It's going to be the cheapest summer since 2021,' one expert says
As Americans gear up for summer travel, prices at the pump may be cooling off. This summer could bring the lowest gas prices in years, and the national average price of gas could fall below $3 a gallon as early as September, says Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. "It's going to be the cheapest summer since 2021, when the economy was heavily influenced by Covid," De Haan says. As of Tuesday, the national average for a gallon of gas in the U.S. was $3.21, up roughly 10 cents from two weeks ago, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The spike was largely driven by a jump in oil prices due to the Israel-Iran conflict in the Middle East, but now that both countries have agreed to a ceasefire, De Haan says he expects prices to steeply fall and then resume their "slow decline" over the course of the summer. Typically, gas prices tend to drop throughout the summer due to various factors that increase the supply of gas, De Haan says. That includes jolts to gas prices from the switch to a more expensive summer blend of gasoline leveling off, refineries increasing production and consumer demand softening after early summer travel peaks. "Obviously the Middle East situation is an exception, but now that this is, seemingly for now, in de-escalation, gas prices should resume their slow decline over the course of the summer," De Haan says. Adjusted for inflation, gas prices are near the lowest levels we've seen in the last 20 years, De Haan says. The typical American uses about 3% of their income to fill up their tank every year, De Haan says, whether it's with gasoline or diesel. Due to rising incomes, "Americans are actually spending far less of their income on energy than they have in quite some time," De Haan says. Year over year, the price of gas is down 12%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' most recent Consumer Price Index report released earlier in June. This is largely due to fears that the U.S. economy is slowing down and an increase in supply of oil from a group of oil-producing nations known OPEC+, CNBC reported in May. Ultimately, De Haan says it's important to remember that most shocks will be temporary. The price of gas is mostly determined by the market for oil, which is constantly reacting to global events — so just as quickly as prices rise, they will often fall once the disruption passes. "Every event that's ever affected us from a pipeline outage … to major hurricanes that impact gas prices, all these events are temporary," De Haan says. "The world is changing every day. It's not always for the worst."
Business Insider
9 hours ago
- Business Insider
I moved home after graduating from college and worked remotely. I saved thousands, but it came with an emotional cost.
Like many pandemic graduates, my young adult life started not with a bang, but with a whimper. There was no big celebration, just a diploma picked up from the school office and a new job as an associate editor at a Charlotte-based digital media company. I graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in December 2020. My lease, signed with four housemates, ran until the following summer. For the first half of 2021, I worked remotely in the same house I'd lived in during my first semester of senior year. Professional life wasn't much different from my life as a student, but I was content. When the lease ended, I was faced with three choices: move to Charlotte in anticipation of when my workplace returned to in-person work, find new housing in Chapel Hill, or move back home. At that time, COVID vaccines had been rolled out, but the pandemic wasn't over. I didn't want to move to a new city under those circumstances. With most of my friends leaving Chapel Hill, staying felt pointless. Moving home was the cheapest and easiest option. I took it. The savings added up, but I was languishing I moved into my old room and shared meals with my parents, just like I'd done before college. I worked from home, writing and editing articles about personal finance. My parents didn't charge me for rent or food. But, I helped out around the house and covered any personal expenses, like my phone bill and miscellaneous purchases. With no rent or bills, and student loan payments paused due to COVID, I saved roughly three-quarters of my income. I invested some of that money and kept the rest in a high-yield savings account. But while my savings grew, my personal life languished. My parents were loving but often treated me like the kid I used to be, not the adult I'd become. After four years of independence during college, that was hard for me to adjust to. I was also lonely. St. Louis was my hometown, but I had no community there. My friends were scattered across the country, and pandemic restrictions made it hard to meet new people. I knew I didn't want to stay in St. Louis long-term. Building a life there felt pointless since I planned to leave once the pandemic ended, but I didn't know when that would be. Moving to Charlotte was the fresh start I needed After eight months of limbo, I finally found the motivation to leave home when my workplace reopened for hybrid work. With my parents' support, I moved to Charlotte in February 2022. When I left home, I had about $15,000 saved. That money was invaluable in kickstarting my new life, which came with a surprising amount of upfront costs. I had no problem paying for my apartment's security deposit and first month's rent. When I couldn't find a suitable car due to the 2022 car shortage, I could up my budget and keep the monthly payment manageable with a higher down payment. I felt comfortable buying supplies for the apartment without second-guessing every expense. I even had several thousand dollars left over for an emergency fund. I didn't spend extravagantly, but it was incredibly freeing to know I could pay for the things I needed — now and in the future, thanks to my emergency fund — without going into debt. Starting my young adult life without credit card debt and with a financial buffer made everything less stressful. Was it worth it? I'm incredibly privileged — and grateful to my parents — to have had the choice to return home while working full-time. Not everyone has the chance, and not everyone has the choice. I was also lucky to land a job upon graduation, a privilege many pandemic graduates didn't have. But was moving home worth it? From my personal finance journalist's perspective, unequivocally yes. The money I saved set me up for long-term financial stability and made my first year in Charlotte so much easier. From a personal perspective, it's complicated. Those months at home weren't exactly the happiest time, but I don't regret them. They taught me that in order to build a life that made me happy, I needed to stop taking the cheap and easy way out. The year after I moved to Charlotte was one of the best in my life. My expenses ballooned, but I had freedom, community, and a better relationship with my parents despite the distance — all things worth more to me than money.
Business Insider
10 hours ago
- Business Insider
I worked at Tesla for 7 years. I quit because I couldn't support Elon Musk any longer.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Trae Cervantes, who worked as an engineering technician at Tesla until March 2025. It has been edited for length and clarity. I started at Tesla's Gigafactory in Nevada as a production associate in 2018, and I worked my way into a role as an engineering technician. I held at least four different positions during my time at Tesla. I was drawn to Tesla because I needed a way to improve my situation. Leading up to Tesla, I wasn't doing super well. I'd gone through a divorce, I got arrested for drinking and driving, and I was working two jobs to make ends meet. One of my best friends was working there and he told me to apply. When I got the job, I quit the two jobs and immediately got a better paying role with more time off. The reason I stayed is because they kept treating me well. I was getting paid the most I'd ever gotten in my adult life. No education, no real skills to speak of, and Tesla offered me opportunities to take charge of my life and grow my career. I started out on their production line for the Model 3 and I moved up from there. When I started out, it was grueling work. It was pushing heavy things up and down aisles. I was on my feet for 12 hours a day, but they also give you three to four days off a week to recover. It was a physically demanding job, but it didn't bother me. I knew that if I demonstrated a good work ethic I could work my way up, and that's what I've done. Every few years I was able to move up, from production associate to technician to eventually lead and engineering roles. A month into a new role, it was March 2020, and we were all furloughed. It was a big freak-out moment for me. Nobody was telling us what was going on, and I felt like I was going to lose my job. But we were back to work five weeks later and I learned to work around the new COVID safety standards. I felt like I really took ownership of my area, and I eventually became a lead for that team. To do it, I really had to show my value — I had to leverage my skills and build the relationships and rapport. That's what you have to do at Tesla — the skills aren't enough, you also need the relationships, and you need to show you can pick up the slack because things are always changing there. In 2023, they provided me an opportunity to go to school through a program at a local community college. They helped me get a certificate in advanced manufacturing. I took nine courses between January and May, all while I was still doing my normal duties, and I even made the Dean's list. Later on I got another certificate, a green belt certification for Lean Six Sigma. 'A cult of personality around Elon' I never drank the Elon Musk Kool Aid. When I started at my orientation, they talked about his controversial tweets. They said it's gotten him in hot water with the Securities and Exchange Commission, but they were mostly joking about it, like his behavior was okay because of who he was, what he does, or however much he's worth. There's always been that kind of mindset at Tesla, a cult of personality around Elon. I remember when he smoked weed on the Joe Rogan Experience, seeing so many T-shirts referencing it at the Gigafactory. I'd thought some of the things he'd done were wrong, like the Thai diver incident, but I believed in the mission. Then all of a sudden, he jumped into a capacity where he could impact my daily life. His involvement in Twitter, his involvement in the election, all of that was detracting from the company's mission. I didn't realize how much it mattered to me until the last couple of months. When Musk started throwing his money around in politics — that was a big thing for me. What I took issue with the most was the giveaway for prospective voters. It seemed so morally wrong. I didn't want to be associated with that. I started actively looking into his history, and the company's. The stock price and how we're making money — none of it made sense to me. That was another reason I wanted to get out. There are a lot of empty promises that haven't been fulfilled, like Full Self-Driving or the lower-cost EV. When I first left, I gave myself a hard time When he lifted his arm and did that Nazi salute, I was disgusted. (Editor's note: While discussing the incident with Joe Rogan, Musk said, "Hopefully, people realize I'm not a Nazi.") Last year, I started to be ashamed to tell people where I work. I chatted with a couple of folks at Tesla and I explained to them why I believed that that was a Nazi salute, and most of the time they just heard me out. Near the end of my time at Tesla, I started bringing up politics because I'd kind of got to a point where I didn't really care. I started working on my resumé. I spoke with my wife, my very close friends, and I explained the reason I wanted to leave. My wife just wants me to be happy. A lot of my friends are really, really pissed off at Musk, just like I am. They were all excited for me to leave the company. I have a pretty good support system. I changed my profile on Teams to a meme of Musk. I resigned that day. When I first left, I gave myself a hard time. I didn't have a job lined up, and I could have stayed longer or waited to get laid off and gotten severance at least. But then I started thinking about the layoffs last April, and I remember sitting in the building, seeing people send out text messages and Teams messages and wondering if they had a job. There were people who didn't find out until they got to the security gate at the factory. Why would I want to go through that? Between that and then the day when Trump bought a Tesla on the White House lawn, which happened the same day I gave my resignation notice, I felt more resolute in my decision. When I met with my supervisor and put in my notice, I told him, "I have to leave. I can't do this anymore. It's getting to a point where I feel like I'm compromising myself morally by walking through those doors every day." I'm not going to lie, I cried a little. Seven years is a long time and Tesla wasn't always a bad thing for me. What I would tell people is, if you're sitting in my shoes, and you feel uncomfortable, go for it. Do what you think will help you sleep at night. There are plenty of good people at Tesla. I didn't leave the place because of the company. I left because of the face of the company.
