From a mother dealing with the physical and mental struggle of arthritis, fibromyalgia and sciatica, (former Director @ Spike Lee’s agency Spike DDB) Russell Markus, Founder of Lily CBD, sought out healthy alternatives for his mom. The journey through chia seeds and sensory deprivation tanks ultimately lead him to CBD.
“I desperately wanted to provide my mother & close friends a healthy alternative to help with their physical struggles and stresses. As a society, we’ve been so conditioned to use pills that provide short term benefits, yet they often lead to long term issues. Let’s be honest, we all know friends and family who have been victims to these pills that have spread like a wildfire throughout our society. I was desperate to make sure that didn’t happen to the people I loved.”
The journey led him to launch Lily CBD, a hemp based CBD oil, born from a desire to give ourselves and those we love an alternative to the conventional ways of calming and nurturing the mind and body. Named after two loving maternal great-grandmothers from Brooklyn, Lily CBD, a CBD focused company, is crafted to help you feel alive.
Lily CBD was laser focused on sharing their organic practice CBD to friends and family in early April to begin collecting feedback. Starting in late May, Lily CBD launched in Soho House, The Assemblage, and Parsley Health and officially opened up their eComm store to the public in July. The currently company is self funded. “Finding partners was not about quantity, rather finding individuals & organizations who were to be progressive in their approach to health & helping society,” says Russell.
In August, the brand continued growing it’s partner network with locations like HealHaus, a wellness center in Brooklyn, Clover Grocery in the West Village, The End in Williamsburg, Office Coffee on Canal Street and STAE Beauty Essentials @ The Surf Lodge in Montauk. The brand will continue to expand its list of national partnerships throughout the remainder of 2018 and into the following year. “There’s a lot of product on the market, and I only feel comfortable sharing a CBD with the world that, I feel comfortable with my family taking. While I haven’t tried all the CBD that’s out there, our full-spectrum and terpene rich formula is unmatched to any lab results I’ve seen. ”
On LilyCBD.com, customers and clients can select from a range of strengths depending on their own personal ailments and general health. Lily CBD is committed to working with single source, organic practices, family farms and is creating a network of farms accessible within 100 miles of the state of New York.
“We needed to be able to sit with farmers, help in the harvest and touch & feel the product. As the industry grows, expected to far exceed $20 billion by 2020, there’s going to be a range of quality in the market. We have to strive to share high quality CBD grown with integrity.”
In order to ensure integrity when helping to heal while providing clients with the best knowledge possible, Dr. Soyona Rafatjah (Formerly of Parsley Health) joined Lily CBD as Functional Medicine Advisor. “CBD can be an extremely effective treatment for a multitude of diagnoses, and comes with minimal if any negative effects. I have personally seen patients of mine find relief from various conditions like seizures, insomnia, anxiety, migraines, and pain, when no other therapies were helping. I believe that a combination of the increase in positive scientific studies and the positive feedback by millions of people who use it, can be credited for the skyrocketing usage and access to CBD products in the past few years. A 2017 survey from Brightfield Group and HelloMD on 150,000 people showed that 42% of people who used CBD had stopped their over the counter and prescription pain medications. With drug overdose recently becoming the leading cause of death in Americans under 50, CBD could be potentially reverse this trend, saving millions of lives of people in their prime years.” says Dr. Rafatjah.
Lily donates 5% of all sales goes to charities focused on children with Autism, Epilepsy and Mental Health Issues.
PRODUCT DETAILS
Lily CBD comes three retail strengths 500mg ($99), 1000mg ($179), and 1500mg ($249) & custom strengths for key food and beverage partners. The CBD is made with organic practice Hemp CBD Oil and non-gmo MCT coconut oil. Our organic practice hemp-CBD is farmed over a three months season. Once fully matured, the CBD is CO2 extracted from the hemp flower in a state-of-the-art facility in order to produce the cleanest, healthiest CBD possible. Our full spectrum oil is non-psychoactive and filled with CBD, CBC, CBG, CBDV, CVDA and a wide range of terpenes.
Our CBD has been tested for the quality of our cannabinoid breakdown, nutrients, and terpenes while ensuring it contains ZERO heavy metals, pesticides or any contaminants.
