Are there hops in my shaving cream?

Jeremy Martin | Thursday, February 20, 2014

Beer--it's not just for drinking any more. That's what the good folks at Kalamazoo's Damn Handsome Grooming Company believe.

The one-year-old, boutique manufacturer of grooming and beauty products whose line includes soap, beard oil, lip balm, shaving cream and more, makes them with ingredients normally associated with the production of beer.

"We have our studio is on about five acres, where we have a hop farm, we also grow mint. Everything else comes from a brewery or someplace that manufactures organic oil or organic butter," says Jarrett Blackmon, who co founded the business with his wife Bridget.

Damn Handsome purchases ingredients such as spent grains and brewer's yeast from several area craft breweries and picks up other ingredients such as butter and oil from sources outside the area.

"Hard-working, natural ingredients," as Blackmon calls them.

"All of our oils and butters are Midwest based. Our brewed ingredients we do get from a lot of West Michigan breweries, and some Mid-Michigan breweries," Blackmon says. "We partner with craft breweries; we chat with them, pick up some spent grain, talk about hops. It's great. The community is so giving, and so cool, we become friends with many of these guys."

Blackmon uses the word "friends" instead of business partners because Damn Handsome sees itself, not as just another local business but as a new and vital member of the Kalamazoo-area craft beer scene, which is one of the reasons the company generally chooses to wholesale its products or distribute them online as opposed to selling them at brewery stores.

"That's piggybacking on the success of the craft beer community. That's not what we're trying to do; we're trying to be a part of it," Blackmon says.

Outside of their work with Damn Handsome, the Blackmons are avid craft beer drinkers and home brewers. They've been trying their hand at making beer of their own for several years.

Blackmon sees the beer making as a fun hobby, not a budding business. Soaps, lotions, oils and other handmade products are what he and his wife are truly passionate about.

The company began creating and marketing products for men, but will soon be expanding its line to cater to women as well.

"It's a little bit of a departure but still beer-centric," Blackmon says. "What we found is that some of the female customers that buy for the boyfriends or their husbands end up using the products themselves."

In the end, Blackmon says he thinks the residents of Kalamazoo will take to bathing with beer just as quickly as they took to drinking it.

"The community in Kalamazoo is just so amazing and supportive of trying wacky things," Blackmon says.

For more information, please visit the Damn Handsome website here.

Jeremy Martin is the craftbrew writer for Southwest Michgan's Second Wave.