Who Makes Beekman 1802 Skin Care Products

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A decade agone, Brent Ridge was working as a physician and his partner Josh Kilmer-Purcell was an advert executive in New York City. Today the two men run the highly successful lifestyle brand, Beekman 1802, which just shattered records with its launch on HSN last week. So how did these two metropolis slickers end up owning a 60-acre goat farm and start a booming business concern that encompasses skincare, nutrient, home, a quarterly magazine and their own reality bear witness The Fabulous Beekman Boys? They credit information technology all to their neighbors.

Ridge and Kilmer-Purcell bought a farm in Sharon Springs in upstate New York in 2006 as a way to escape from the city. "We just thought it would be a weekend getaway," Ridge tells PEOPLE almost the subcontract that is now frequented by celebs including Mindy Cohn, Tiffani Amber Thiessen, Rachael Ray and Martha Stewart.

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But in 2008, both men lost their jobs during the recession and had to devise a plan to afford their mortgage and salve the farm. "We started Googling 'What can we make with goat milk,'" says Ridge. (Their belongings housed the goats of their neighbor, farmer John, afterwards he lost his own farm.)

They started with goat milk soap, learned how to go far from the assistance of ane of their neighbors, and Ridge began selling information technology at Henri Bendel. "I stood on the floor at Henri Bendel for eight weeks straight, x hours a day, selling the soap and talking virtually how amazing it was for the skin." A buyer from Anthropologie happened to endeavor his lather, brought the product into Anthropologie stores and put the Beekman Boys on the map.

More and more of their neighbors in their small upstate town of 547 people began pitching ideas of products they could sell to accompany the soaps and before they knew it, a business was built-in. "As metropolis people who have worked in media before our role in this trivial village in upstate New York was to aid build a make that all of our neighbors could sell products under," says Kilmer-Purcell.

To this day, they refer to all of their customers equally "neighbors" and 50,000 people a year brand a pilgrimage to visit their brick and mortar store located on the one-half-mile-long primary street of Sharon Springs, New York.

"I think part of the reason nosotros take grown so quickly and and so solidly is because all of our neighbors and customers feel simply equally part of the success for Beekman as we are," says Kilmer-Purcell. "They tin can come to Sharon Springs and they tin can meet all of the crafts people, they tin pet the goats, they are as much a role of the make and the visitor as nosotros are. They call themselves neighbors equally well."

They expanded their brand by incorporating goat milk into as many beauty products as possible. "Nosotros started noticing how our skin felt differently even in the midst of our harsh upstate winters," Ridge explains. "We didn't detect goat'due south milk as a beauty regimen, information technology'southward been used for thousands of years from milk maidens who used to wash their faces with it every morning to Cleopatra who used to bathe in it, it's only now that we understand why it's working, because the protein structure is similar to human milk. Your skin really simply drinks it in."

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Their launch signified a push towards introducing more natural products on the network and their debut was the largest beauty premiere the company has ever had. "It was a really extraordinary mean solar day," Rob Robillard, VP of Integrated Dazzler for Qurate Retail Group, tells PEOPLE. "We sold out of 177 items on the day and their "TS" (Today'due south Special) sold out by ii p.thousand. Our customers really loved what they were selling and we brought a lot of new neighbors on board besides. Nosotros're happy for them."

But Robillard knew they would be a striking with the HSN client correct from the showtime.

"They really are authentically amazing guys. The minute I met the two of them I knew instantaneously that their story was beautiful, their narrative was amazing and they were actually extraordinary story tellers themselves so I knew that they, and their story, would exist exciting to our customers," says Robillard. "Information technology's a nifty story and it's great for the guys, great for their customs, great for their suppliers, peachy for the goats! We're really happy to be one part of helping to make them a success."

And their success trajectory is even more impressive considering that their business is all local and independent. "Particularly with the dazzler industry, information technology'due south and then rare to run across an independent dazzler visitor that doesn't accept private disinterestedness funding or isn't owned past one of the big conglomerates, nosotros truly still are a homegrown, made in the United states of america, completely self-funded dazzler brand," says Ridge.

For Ridge and Kilmer-Purcell, teaming with HSN connects them fifty-fifty further with their "neighbor."

"HSN allows us to brand the product, nosotros come and talk straight to a neighbor and then they come up directly to us and information technology'south the most directly amazing, rewarding relationship," says Kilmer-Purcell.

As the largest employer of Sharon Springs, they staff over 100 people, over 80 per centum of which are female, and they never plan on moving their headquarters elsewhere. "Nosotros keep the post office open with the amount of mail service club we exercise," says Kilmer-Purcell. "We are such in an economically challenged rural area and for everyone to exist able to survive and to thrive, nosotros have to work together."

And that customs mindset is exactly what Kilmer-Purcell says is the fundamental to their success. "Our visitor motto is work hard, never quit, and help your neighbour. We actually say equally long as we do those three things we can abound as big as we can grow because it just keeps helping everybody. We have to stick to those three ethos."

In addition to their beauty products, the Beekman Boys will exist back on HSN throughout the year to introduce the HSN "neighbor" to the rest of their "living make" (they dislike the term lifestyle brand).

On August 20 they will introduce their Happy Place dwelling cleaning line, and subsequently launch their gourmet food line on HSN. "We're looking to aid them exist a living make across our network throughout the residue of the yr," says Robillard.

The Fabulous Beekman Boys are doing some pretty "fabulous" things.