Brooklyn Soap Company

Brooklyn Soap Company is a German men's grooming brand based in Hamburg, trading through the legal entity Brooklyn Soap GmbH. Despite its name and the tagline "Born in Brooklyn. Made in Germany.", the company is a German operation: its products are developed and produced in Germany, while the Brooklyn reference points to where the founding idea took shape [3]. The brand specialises in natural men's care — beard care, fragrances, facial and body care, and hair care — positioned around the phrase "honest men's care" and a "no bullshit" approach to ingredients.

Since 2022 the company has been wholly owned by Merz Consumer Care GmbH, the consumer division of the Hamburg pharmaceutical group Merz [6]. It continues to operate actively as a Merz submark, with a live European storefront, a current catalogue and wide retail distribution across the German-speaking market.

The brand traces its concept to a stay in New York. According to trade-press accounts, the founders interned in the city after university and moved to Brooklyn; while browsing the Williamsburg flea markets they met an Australian couple selling handmade soap, which sparked an interest in natural cosmetics and inspired the idea for a men's grooming line [5]. The result was a range developed in Germany but carrying the Brooklyn name as a nod to that origin.

Sources differ on the founding year and the number of founders. The company's own Story page and the dominant trade-press record give the founding as 2012 [3][5], while a 2015 editorial in Garden Collage Magazine dates it to 2013 [7]. The same editorial names two founders — Felix Ermer and Victor Dik — and describes them as childhood friends from New York [7]. The more widely repeated and more recent record instead lists three founders, Felix Ermer, Viktor Dik and Jonas Hillebrecht, who are said to have met as university interns in New York [5]. The 2012 founding and the three-founder version reflect the broader source consensus.

Merz, a Hamburg-based pharmaceutical and consumer-health group, built its stake in Brooklyn Soap Company in two stages. Trade coverage reports that Merz had been involved with the Hamburg start-up for around a year and a half before announcing, in March 2022, that it had increased its holding to 100 percent [6]. The acquisition placed the company within the Merz Consumer Care division. According to that coverage, the founders stayed on to run the company as managing directors under the Merz Consumer Care umbrella.

The brand frames itself around what it calls "Ehrliche Männerpflege" — honest men's care — and a "Kein Bullshit" (no bullshit) stance, meaning care products developed specifically for men's skin, hair and beards without what it regards as unnecessary ingredients. Its stated aim is to serve "all men. For every skin type, every hair type, every beard type." The company says its formulas use natural ingredients from renewable resources and leave out mineral oils, silicones and parabens, and describes them as free from microplastics. The brand's tagline is "Men's Care Done Right," and it targets, in its own description, urban men around thirty and older who are open to trying new brands [5].

The catalogue centres on men's grooming and spans several categories: beard care, fragrances, facial care, body care and hair care, alongside electric tools such as trimmers and razors. Early signature items included a beard oil, a beardwash scented with peppermint and rosemary, and an aluminium-free deodorant built around ingredients such as tea tree oil, eucalyptus and cedar [7]. The current range extends to fragrances, including the eau de parfum "The Woods," and to grooming hardware such as the "Brooklyn Blade" beard trimmer. Frequently cited natural ingredients include tea tree oil, eucalyptus, peppermint and rosemary.

The company makes several environmental claims tied to its products and operations. It states that its formulations are free from microplastics and that packaging uses glass bottles or recycled PET, and it offers CO2-neutral shipping through DHL GoGreen. Most of its products are described as vegan, with the exception of its beard wax, whose beeswax the company says comes from controlled organic cultivation. The brand also reports running its own beekeeping initiative — described as four bee colonies and a roughly 500-square-metre wildflower meadow — in partnership with the German organisation Stiftung Mensch.

The brand has been the subject of trade and editorial coverage rather than formal awards. Garden Collage Magazine profiled it in 2015 in a feature on natural men's grooming [7], and the trade publication The Spin Off named founder Felix Ermer and the Hamburg brand in a 2017 "Retailer to Watch" piece [5]. Its 2022 acquisition by Merz was reported by the trade outlet CosmeticBusiness [6]. The company also lists German and international press mentions, citing outlets such as Stern, Men's Health and GQ.

The company's status is best described as acquired: it has been fully owned by Merz Consumer Care GmbH since 2022 [6], while continuing to trade as a distinct brand. The underlying business remains active. Brooklyn Soap operates a current European e-commerce storefront with an up-to-date product range, and its products are listed by German drugstore and retail chains including dm, Rossmann, Müller and Budni. The legal entity Brooklyn Soap GmbH remains registered in Hamburg.