For the past twenty-seven years, the team at Juniper Ridge has journeyed across the western United States to study and perfect the scent profiles of its most iconic landscapes. From sleeping under the stars in the Mojave Desert to hiking through towering redwoods along the West Coast, these experiences inspire our aromatic interpretations of nature. Using sustainably harvested plants and traditional steam-distillation techniques, Juniper Ridge handcrafts natural home and body care products in our Oakland, California workshop. When the wilderness calls but you can’t always answer, bring nature home.
OUR HISTORY
Juniper Ridge began in 1998, when founder Hall Newbegin started selling his own small-batch, sustainably harvested products at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market. Over the next 20 years, Hall built Juniper Ridge into a classic West Coast home and body care brand. His goal was to share the restorative fragrances of the plants and trees he encountered while backpacking throughout the western United States. Through our products, he learned how to encapsulate the feeling of those wild places and bring that sense of the outdoors into everyday life.
Sadly, we lost Hall in June 2020, but we continue the work he started. We feel lucky to encourage people to get outside—and to bring the beauty and gifts of nature into their homes.
Today, Juniper Ridge is a small, family-owned company based at the O2 Artists Aggregate, a sustainable eco-industrial lot in Oakland, California. From this home base, our diverse and dedicated team formulates, manufactures, and ships our home and body care offerings around the world.
THE PROCESS
From beginning to end, we handcraft our products in a way that reflects our relationship with the environment and our community. We combine sustainably harvested flora with upcycled trees removed by forest management for fire mitigation, and we make all our essential oils from scratch. After gathering the organic materials at our home in Oakland, California, the Juniper Ridge team uses time-honored perfuming techniques to steam-distill these oils. These clean, authentic oils form the foundation of our hand-bottled and sustainably packaged home and body care offerings.
At Juniper Ridge, we never use synthetic perfumes. All our products are formulated without parabens, phthalates, preservatives, or dyes. We believe it’s important to demonstrate respect for the environment at every level, so our products are cruelty-free and packaged in SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative) paper. Free from toxic and artificial chemicals, our products help bring both ourselves and our customers closer to the wild places we so revere.
STEWARDSHIP
Inspired by the outdoors, we think it’s crucial to show up for the environment. That’s why we founded our Western Wilderness Defense Fund. Every year, through our Wilderness Defense Program, we donate 10% of our profits or 1% of our sales (whichever is greater) to organizations that fight to keep the wilderness wild. Hall started this practice at the beginning of Juniper Ridge with tiny checks of $100, sometimes even less, and today we’ve been able to donate over a quarter of a million dollars to the cause. Juniper Ridge brings the spirit of the wild into our everyday life, so we’ve made a commitment to protect the wild places that inspire us. We know that unless we take action to protect the wilderness, it will disappear.
Read our Trail Notes blog post about past year's recipients.