Ivanka Trump’s attempt to educate the public about good hygiene fell short for many people. On March 26, Donald Trump’s daughter and senior advisor shared an Instagram video of her children Arabella, 8, Theodore, 6, and Theodore, 3, singing the alphabet and washing their hands. “We ALL have a role to play to slow the spread!” Ivanka captioned the clip, referencing the hashtag many celebrities have been using to encourage sensible hygiene. She continued, “Wash your hands (ohhh…and turn off the sink with your elbow or a towel while you do to save 💦 … still a work in progress with these guys 10 days in 🤷♀️) 💛.”
Although the demonstration was adorable, people took issue with the suds Ivanka supplied her kids with: a $39 bottle of Aesop soap. It features ingredients like “botanical extracts” and “finely milled Pumice,” and critics believed the fancy soap to be tone deaf amid a nationwide panic about the economy and job losses. “Ivanka Trump posted a video of her children washing their hands, with $39 hand soap. What’s next, tomorrow she’ll tell us to eat $100 cakes?” one such person tweeted, while another posted, “Isn’t a $40 bottle of hand soap a bit expensive, @IvankaTrump?” A third frustrated Twitter user posted, “WTF?! Again completely [sic] out of touch with the real world! I stock up twice a year when they have good sales from bath & body antibacterial soaps, hand sanitizer etc. $40 4 soap that cost $2 to make is just ridiclous & the fact that Ivanka is pushing it while people can’t work.” On the very same day Ivanka shared the hand washing video, The Department of Labor reported that “3.28 million people filed for unemployment insurance last week,” per The New York Times.
Even more fans took issue with the running water in the video! “Why is the water running while they scrub there [sic] hands?” one Instagram user asked in the comments section of Ivanka’s post, while another person added, “Omg look how much water you wasted daaamn.”
Ivanka Trump posted a video of her children washing their hands, with $39 hand soap. What's next, tomorrow she'll tell us to eat $100 cakes?
— Janice Hough (@leftcoastbabe) March 26, 2020
This isn’t the first time Ivanka has caught flack amid the coronavirus outbreak. On March 17, Ivanka gave fans another look at her quarantine with her family, sharing a photo of her “living room camp out” with the kids. Chrissy Teigen wasn’t impressed with Ivanka’s indoor fort and snack suggestions. “After we quote pack unquote sandwiches can we please have Covid tests,” the cookbook author and model tweeted, who was frustrated over the difficulty Americans have been facing while trying to get tested for COVID-19. These sentiments have only grown stronger as the coronavirus’s death toll continues to grow — as of March 25, it surpassed 1,000 deaths in the U.S.