For Lily Wilmoth, buying skincare products had long been a secret indulgence. But when she was pregnant with her first child, her skin began reacting to the very products she’d trusted for years.
“Anything that smelled strong and had crazy colors, I loved it,” she confessed. “But I started getting rashes and itching all the time. So, I started doing some research and learned about all the junky ingredients in a lot of skincare.”
Struggling to find clean products that were reasonably priced, Wilmoth—a former teacher—went to the library to learn how to make soap. What began as a personal search for safer, simpler skincare evolved into a deep dive into history. She started studying ancient medical practices, from Egypt and China to Greece and Medieval Italy, to understand how generations before her nourished their skin using whole, natural ingredients.
“Across cultures, I learned the deep power of animal fats like tallow, schmaltz, and fish liver oils,” she said. “They’re rich in nutrients that modern formulas often overlook.”
From her research, she developed a herb-infused tallow balm, which she sold at a local farmer’s market in North Carolina, where she and her husband lived, alongside eggs and vegetables cultivated from their farm. For several years, Hearth and Homestead remained a farmer’s market side project. But in 2022, after the birth of her fourth child, Wilmoth decided to take a leap of faith and open an Amazon Handmade storefront, a community where artisans sell authentic, handcrafted goods directly to customers.
“When we started our Amazon store, we had zero experience with what was required to start a real business. I didn’t have a trademark for our business name, and didn’t even know that was a thing,” Wilmoth recalled.
Using Amazon’s IP Accelerator program, she was able to secure a trademark early on, connecting with a vetted law firm and fast-tracking a process that can otherwise take months.
“Of course we didn’t have a law firm, and we wouldn’t have known who to go to for that. IP Accelerator felt very safe, and made the whole process easy, especially for people with zero experience building any kind of brand before,” she said.
She also leaned on Amazon’s broader support network—from Seller University resources to hands-on support from account managers—to navigate everything from logistics to advertising.
In 2023, she nervously signed up for Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), handing off storage, packing, and shipping.
“I was scared to do FBA at first, but an Amazon rep walked me through the entire process,” she said. “He was like, ‘this is how you pack your product to send to the Amazon warehouse, this is how you ship it.’ It made me a lot more confident.”
The move helped accelerate growth, with the business reaching $6.5 million in sales that year.
“We started getting semi-trucks of beef suet delivered to our driveway. We were holding up traffic. It was just wild,” she recalled.
As orders continued to pour in, Wilmoth and her husband—who quit his job to join the business full time—moved Hearth and Homestead to a production facility and hired a team to help make product. The brand’s 100% Grass-Fed Beef Tallow Moisturizer is now the top-selling body mousse in the Amazon store, and the company has expanded from a one-woman operation to a team of 25 artisans. Last year, the company earned $15 million through Amazon alone.
That success has not only poured back into the local Central Virginia community where the company is based but has helped bolster the regenerative American farms where they source nearly 2,000 pounds of suet each week.
“We are very picky about sourcing our fat and only work with small farms that are raising 100% grass-fed cattle,” said Wilmoth. “Which is what makes it so great to see them grow as we grow.”
Wilmoth is as dedicated to keeping the product man-powered as she is to the quality of ingredients she uses.
“We still oversee every batch—from rendering the suet to approving every tray of tallow before it’s piped into jars,” she said. “That’s something we’re never going to compromise on.”
That dedication to quality is personal. Hearth and Homestead remains a family business, run by Wilmoth and her husband while homeschooling their five children. They also give back to their community by donating care boxes to at-risk and postpartum women.
“Our motto in the production room is, ‘Every jar is our customer’s only jar,’” she said. “We put time and love into every single one.”