Kindred Black

As a brand, Kindred Black is more akin to a collection of curiosities with rich symbolism and deep-rooted stories than just products.

Beginning with a workshop that reused local recycling to create glassware and a connection to the story of the rose, Kindred Black has built a world where skin care and beauty come in vessels that make one pause and reflect. The packaging itself is more than just something that contains the product; it’s a collectible or reusable object of art. Constantly expanding on this practice, Jennifer and Alice now create jewelry and other talismans for the home, all with the idea of making the most beautiful and unique items they can fathom. We spoke to the two founders about the artisans and herbalists who bring this vision to life with them, learning the histories of ingredients and what they have learned from this process.


Interview JENNIE BARCK
Images courtesy of KINDRED BLACK

I would love to learn more about where your approach to Kindred Black came from, because it connects a lot of interesting areas. It's about beauty, both on a self-care level and in deeper well-being: the beauty of the bottles, the home, and the well-being of the planet. Could you talk a little bit about where that approach came from?

Jennifer I was thinking, why do we do it like this? And I think it's because we're just sort of curious collectors by nature. When we started this company, we wanted whatever we did to be informed by the ethos of taking care of the planet, trying not to be wasteful, trying to be really mindful about what we put out into the world and try to sell to people. So it just makes sense that we started with all different categories and eventually focused that down. Now we're opening it back up because we find it, as collectors and curious people, more interesting to bring that perspective to different categories that we're interested in.

Alice We live in a consumer culture, and we're not going to stop buying stuff. We really should, but I think what we do decide to spend our money on and surround ourselves with, use on our face, wear on our bodies, we should really feel connected to those objects and those things. We really try to find the story behind everything, whether it be just a face oil or a lip balm, or an ingredient in a perfume, or a stone that you're going to wear in a ring. Years ago, we had a small clothing line. We worked with a family-run factory in Pennsylvania where it was a woman, her mother, and her uncles, her cousins, her daughters- the whole family was there. So, just telling these people's stories. I think when you set out to find that story or that reason for putting a product out there, it all kind of falls in line because those people really care about what they're doing. The makers are master craftsmen. It just kind of naturally aligns with being good for the environment, good for people, good for society.

It all starts with a story, and then it all kind of falls into place from there. So, how did you both get wrapped up in slow beauty and these ancient ingredients that you're using and that your products are made of?

Alice We're both big history buffs and constantly reading. We were always reading folk histories and traditions and looking for little tidbits. There's just so much about the plant world out there that we started collecting these stories. Before we even had a beauty line officially, we had certain products that we sold just because there was this amazing backstory to it.

Jennifer It really started with the rose water. We don't sell it anymore because, with the way that we package things, we can't get an airtight seal, so we can't do water products anymore. But we had this incredible Iranian rose water that was like nothing you've ever smelled. That was the first product we ever put out in glass. We used an incredible workshop in Mexico that uses…

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