DEMK founder Lily Hart on herbs, simple ingredients, and her move to Tennessee.
By Eden Daniel
I’ve tried a lot of skin care in my life. Most of it ends up half used in a drawer or in the trash. I came to DEMK’s tea, body butter, and salve while managing eczema, and I buy them myself. Then something unusual happened. I bought them again. I had never rebought a body product, not once. I was always moving on to the next thing, still looking for something that worked. With DEMK, I finally stopped looking. So when I sat down with founder Lily Hart, who’s moving to Leiper’s Fork full time next year, I wanted to know what makes her products different.
If you work out a lot, your skin takes a beating too. Sweat, friction, and hot showers can dry it out, and for people with eczema, sweat can set off a flare. Having a routine you’ll actually stick with matters.
DEMK started at Hart’s kitchen table. She first made products for her father, who had liver disease and very sensitive, fragile skin.
“When someone is going through a tough health journey, you become hyper-aware of what goes on their body,” she told me. She wanted something gentle and plant-based that would soothe his skin without harsh additives.
That’s still how she approaches every product. “It always starts with solving a real functional need, but it has to end with a ritual.” Results get you to try something once, she explained. The ritual is what keeps you coming back, like the smell, the texture, and taking a few seconds to breathe.
A lot of conventional skin care relies on synthetic preservatives, artificial fragrance, and mineral oil. They’re cheap, they last for years on a shelf, and fragrance makes a product smell strong. DEMK doesn’t use any of them.
Hart’s test is simple. Every ingredient has to do something for your skin. She sees synthetic fragrance as an irritation risk with no upside, and while mineral oil holds in moisture, she says it doesn’t add much beyond that. Plant oils and extracts, she points out, also bring fatty acids and vitamins. “If an ingredient doesn’t actively nourish your skin or enhance your daily routine, it has no business being in a DEMK product.”
It’s also why she still makes everything herself. As demand grew, advisors told her to hire a big contract manufacturer and focus on sales. Saying no was scary, and expensive. Large factories, she says, tend to push brands toward premade bases, synthetic stabilizers, and cheaper oils that work better with their machines. “Keeping formulation in-house allows us to maintain complete control over the freshness, purity, and quality of every single jar.”
If you picture a beauty brand as a factory cranking out thousands of jars an hour, the DEMK workshop will surprise you. “How slow and hands on everything is,” she says.
Whole herbs soak in organic oils for weeks, with the light and temperature kept steady. She never flash heats the oils, since high heat can break down the plant compounds. She says it looks more like an old apothecary or a kitchen than a factory.
There’s a lot of trial and error. She estimates she threw out 10 to 30 batches for every product she sells. Without synthetic stabilizers, natural oils and waxes can be hard to work with. She’s had salves set hard as a rock, lotions separate overnight, and teas that just tasted wrong. “If a formula isn’t completely stable, nutrient dense, and delightful to use, it never leaves my workshop.”
DEMK started as a skin care brand, so she wasn’t sure about selling tea. “Are people coming to a skincare brand for tea?”
But she kept coming back to the idea that how you feel overall shows up in your skin. Once she got the blend relaxing and tasty without added flavorings, she put it out. It’s now one of the brand’s most popular products and part of her own evening routine.
Customers seem to agree. Many use DEMK’s body oils and DEMK tea together. Some of the messages that mean the most to her come from parents. “When a parent messages me and says, ‘My teen was so self conscious about their skin, and using your routine helped calm their complexion,’ that hits differently,” she said. “You realize you’re not just sending out a jar. You’re helping someone feel comfortable in their own skin again.”
I asked what responsibility she feels to people with chronic skin conditions, people like me. She didn’t hesitate. “It’s a huge responsibility that I hold very close to my heart.”
She knows what it’s like to pay for products that promise relief and end up causing irritation. Her approach is what she calls “total ingredient transparency, zero fluff, and genuine comfort.” When your skin is dry or irritated, she says, her job is to help it feel soft and hydrated again.
A note from me: sensitive skin is personal. Even calendula and chamomile can bother some people. Patch test anything new, and talk to your dermatologist if you have a skin condition.
Her thinking has changed over the years. “I used to think ‘more is better,’” she admitted, meaning more ingredients and a complicated ten step routine. In the last five years, she’s moved toward keeping things simple.
She thinks the industry makes money by convincing people they need a cabinet full of products. In her view, a few strong plant ingredients used consistently will beat a crowded routine “every single time.”
She doesn’t chase trends either, including short lived “clean beauty” fads. She sticks with plants people have used for generations, like calendula, chamomile, and seed oils.
Working with plants has slowed her down, too. “A plant doesn’t bloom overnight, and your skin barrier doesn’t restore itself in an hour,” she said. It taught her to pay attention to what her body needs and to skip the quick fixes. Anyone who’s trained for a race or comes back from an injury knows the feeling.
If she had to pick one product that sums up DEMK, it’s the salve. It’s the first thing she made for her dad, and it has no water or fillers, just plant oils and herbs. “It’s simple, honest, and deeply effective.”
And if money and regulations weren’t an issue? She’d make a seasonal skin elixir from wild harvested plants picked at their peak, infused for months, blended for one person’s skin and climate, and sold in handmade ceramic jars. “Pure, uncompromised botanical care tailored for one person at a time.”
Hart can’t wait for the move. “Tennessee has such a special energy, and I absolutely love the local farmers markets.” One of the first things she wants to do is get a booth at the markets near Leiper’s Fork. She loves meeting people in person and hearing their stories, and friends in the area have already offered to help at the table. Those conversations often turn to liver health and fatty liver disease, which people ask her about all the time. It’s why she wrote her book, The Liver: Listen to the Whispers Before They Become Screams. Still, she says, “nothing beats having those genuine, in person conversations over a market table.”
She also plans to host a monthly get-together where people can drink tea and get to know each other. Her long term dream is the DEMK Garden, where she’d grow as many of her own herbs as she can. Growing them locally, she says, will take her formulas “to a whole new level of fresh, potent quality.”
I asked what she hopes people remember most about DEMK, whether it’s the products, the business, or the feeling. She answered right away. “The way we made them feel, without question.”
Products run out and packaging changes, she said, but people remember how a brand made them feel. If DEMK helps someone feel better in their skin, switch to simpler products, or take five minutes for themselves on a hard day, she’ll count that as a win.
Five years from now, she hopes people will say DEMK never cut corners on quality as it grew.
Prices are on the high end for natural skin care. Each tea bag can be brewed twice, so it comes out to about $2.60 a cup. Hart says the blend has 17 herbs.
DEMK products aren’t medical treatments. If you have a liver or skin condition, talk to your doctor.
Learn more at demkbylilyhart.com and on Instagram at @demkbylilyhart.
About Eden. Eden Daniel has her BS in exercise and sports science from Bryan College, NSCA tactical certification, and is a graduate student in athletic training at MTSU. She is a sponsored fitness athlete of Spinto Fitness, where she runs races and takes part in HYROX and CrossFit workouts, and she is active in numerous charities. She and her Boston Terrier Lovey live in Murfreesboro.
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