It's that time of year again for all our beauty fanatics. CEW, or Cosmetic Executive Women, is holding its annual Beauty Creator Awards to recognize and celebrate the best beauty products and creators behind them. One of the finalists this year is Beekman 1802, a doctor-founded skin and body care brand powered by goat milk. Dr. Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell, co-founders of Beekman 1802, joined Cheddar News to talk about the story behind their brand, and why goat milk is the secret ingredient you never knew your skin needed.

Why Goat Milk Might be the New Key to your Skincare Routine

Welcome back to Chester's news wrap. It's that time of year again for all our beauty fanatics, C. E. W. Or cosmetic executive women is holding its annual beauty creator awards to recognize and celebrate the best beauty products and creators behind them and cheddar News is taking part. So winners will be announced on november 11th but to hold us over, we're going behind the business with a finalist each week, right here on newsroom and one of the finalists this year is Beekman 18 02. It's a doctor founded skin and body care brand powered by goat milk. Here to tell us about it. It's dr Brent Ridge and josh Kilmer Purcell, their co founders of Beekman 18 02. So doctor, thank you so much for joining us and thank you so much for joining us, josh. We'll start with you doctor though. How did you come up with the idea to start a goat milk beauty company. What's the story there? Yeah, we always say there's two main ingredients in every big man product, goat milk and kindness and they both originate 15 years ago when we were to New York City guys a couple Brent was a physician specializing in aging and longevity and I was a writer and we were driving in upstate New York and we found a farm that we fell in love with, we bought it. We, after we moved in, we got a letter in our mailbox from a neighboring farmer who was losing his farm and he needed a home for his himself and his 80 goats and we always say that was the original act of kindness that started our company because we started making goat milk, soap and beauty products. Now, doctor you have 100 goats in your barn as I understand it. So how are you able to manage those goats running a business and a farm at the same time? Well, thankfully we still have farmer jOHN with us. Um, so josh and I really focused on the research of the product and goat milk has been used for thousands of years. Um and what we did was we unlocked the science behind why it had been so good for managing skin eruptions and skin sensitivities. And what we found was that goat milk had the same ph as human skin. So when you cleanse with it, it doesn't disturb the skin's barrier. And we've also identified 34 different components of the goat milk, which serve as powerful pre and post biotics for the surface of the skin and really nourishes the skin. And goat milk is also surprisingly very similar to human milk. So we think that there is also a mechanism by which goat milk can actually calm inflammation on the surface of the skin, particularly when it's caused by other beauty products. Now, josh goat milk is such a unique ingredient in your product. So why did you choose goat milk in particular as opposed to any other animal types of milk? Well, again, it goes back to us taking in farmer jOHN and those goats. And that's what we had was was goat milk. And and it was really researching after we've heard how amazing goat milk was for the skin over thousands of years. People have used it and we started researching why and it was the science behind it that convinced us that we really needed to create these amazing skincare products that would that we're actually so beneficial for your skin. Now doctor, can you tell us a little bit more about how you've been able to convince people of those benefits for healthy skin? You know what surprisingly hasn't been that difficult because people are familiar with goat milk as a cleansing product. You can walk in any market around the world and find goat milk soap there. Um And you know when we started talking about the microbiome, you know people are so familiar with the gut microbiome and probiotics for a healthy microbiome internally. Um when we started talking about our bloom cream, which is one of the products that is nominated for a C. W. Award this year. Um People immediately understood oh this is like yogurt for the skin. This is going to nourish my skin just like yogurt is great for the microbiome of your gut. The goat milk is great for the microbiome of your skin. Now josh you've had so many successful projects from this brand where you partner with Shits Creek, you created a bridge iton collection. So do you have a favorite partnership so far? I think our favorite partnership is with our customers. You know, we call all of our customers neighbors because we grew this brand, neighbor by neighbor, by neighbor and it's been so phenomenal to see the community that has been that these neighbors have built amongst themselves and how that story of kindness, how our core brand value of kindness resonates across so many different groups really resonates across every everyone. Doesn't matter how old you are, male female, where you live what your background is. We all crave kindness and and that's a key ingredient in everything we make. Now before we go, I have to say I loved you both on the amazing race. It is the one reality tv show that I would actually really want to compete in. So what was the experience like for you guys? And do you have any tips? Um it was terrible. It's really, really difficult. It's very, very hard. But you know, we would say just like in life, work hard, never quit and help your neighbor and you will be successful. Well, that's thanks to Dr Brent Ridge and josh Kilmer Purcell. They're the co founders of Beekman 18 02 and we wish you all the luck in the final round of the beauty creator awards