Unscrambling the Code: Deep Patel on Building a Men's Skincare Empire

The serial entrepreneur’s top Blu Atlas picks.

The Foundery: BIPOC Innovators Shaping our World

The world of beauty is brimming with cultural richness, with ancient wisdom from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean shaping everything from ingredients to rituals. Yet, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) founders often go unseen in the mainstream beauty industry. The Foundery changes that narrative.

Here, we celebrate the visionary entrepreneurs of color transforming beauty, wellness and lifestyle on a global scale. Discover their stories, groundbreaking brands, and the inspiration they bring to the industry. Get ready to be empowered, enlightened, and introduced to the future of beauty – one innovative founder at a time.

Deep Patel grew up in Atlanta and now lives in Laguna Beach, California and he is as relaxed as it gets on our video call. “My life is pretty simple,” he laughs. “I work out every day, I eat clean and I have dinner with friends.”

Patel built Blu Atlas, a men’s grooming line and sold it to the Foundry for an undisclosed eight figure sum. Blu Atlas make science-backed products with premium ingredients and their line of products includes skincare, bodycare and fragrance.

Patel wrote his first book, A Paperboy’s Fable: The 11 Principles of Success, by the time he was 17 which led to him launching a digital marketing agency where he provided advice to large corporations such as A.T. Kearney and Cellucor hiring him to strategise their approach to younger audiences. He then built Penguin CBD, a company specializing in upscale CBD products and even dropped out of college to keep building the company. Eventually, the CBD brand sold to Verma Farms when he was just 22 years old.

He arrived at Blu Atlas after all these ventures and his past experience meant he was ready to build a company that operated so smoothly he went from start to sold in just 18 months.

Why he launched Blu Atlas

My skin would get super irritated with products like deodorant, body washes and face washes so I went to a dermatologist in San Diego (where I was living at the time). The dermatologist asked me what I was using on my skin.

So I showed her my deodorant and she told me this has artificial fragrances, sulphates and a host of other ingredients that are hard to pronounce. She suggested I switch to something more clean and natural. So I went home and searched for clean and natural products for men.

I came across a few brands and I ordered from three different companies. One of the companies had products that worked really well but didn’t smell good. I wanted to smell good but I also didn’t want irritated skin! It was a massive challenge.

I told a friend of mine in Florida about it and he has a small cosmetics lab and he said “let me make you some samples”. He made me a deodorant, face wash and body wash. They smelled amazing and didn’t irritate my skin. I thought this was perfect and why not do a company that sells this. Worse case scenario if it doesn’t work out, I will have enough inventory for life.

But I didn’t realize at the time how many men looked for clean personal care products!

His favourite Blu Atlas products decoded

My skincare routine is pretty simple. I use the face wash every day, its my favourite Blu Atlas product. It really is something magical. Then I follow with the face moisturiser. I use a scrub maybe once or twice a week. I use all the shower products of course.

Volcanic Ash Face Cleanser

One of the big surprises I had was that most face washes have artificial fragrances in there to make them smell good. That’s not good for your skin at all. When people get irritated skin, its usually from fragrances. Something else I have also learned is that the longer the list of ingredients the worse it is for you. So if you look at our ingredients, our face wash has less than 14 ingredients. The hero ingredient which not many people use in products is volcanic ash and its good for all skin types and there are not many ingredients like that. We’ve had people of all skin types and ethnicities order the product and give us positive feedback.

Volcanic ash is good for sensitive skin as well and like all ingredients it depends on the percentage of the ingredient used in the products and ours is at the sweet spot where its still efficacious but not overbearing on someone’s skin.

Atlantis Eau De Parfum

We started as a skincare line and evolved into a men's grooming line. The reason we did the cologne is because it was hard to get a completely natural cologne but ours is completely clean and doesn’t have the harsh chemicals some of the other big brands have.

Body Wash

The Body Wash smells very good and we don’t have any bad chemicals in there. We use green tea extract, sugar cane and aloe and people love it.

On Writing a Book “A Paperboy's Fable: The 11 Principles of Success”

When I was in school as a teenager, I used to complain to my dad about the stupidest things like having too much homework. My dad told me that when he was my age he was a paperboy and sometimes he would ride a bicycle for 10 plus miles in the snow. He would wake up at 4am in the morning for his paper route and then walk another 10 miles to school.

That really put things in perspective for me. He was a small business owner so I thought his story was super cool and what if I made this into a parable where I take aspects of what he did in life and turn it into a fictional story about a high school paper boy who starts his own business.

On Selling Blu Atlas

We were growing super fast and we went from 0 to 1 almost overnight. After that, I didn’t know how to make it the next Native or Dr Squatch and one key part of doing that was getting into retail which I don’t have experience in. So I thought we need a partner who can help us take it to the next level so we can get it into the hands of even more people. After talking to the Foundry, I knew that they were the company to do it.

I had a lot of bigger corporations I was talking to but they didn’t seem truly invested in the product and I genuinely wanted this company to last for decades to come.

Building ULO

My next venture is a hair loss telehealth company called ULO. Many Blu Atlas customers asked me about this and while our products are clean they are not meant to re-grow lost hair so I thought this could be an interesting opportunity. Further, not many men are willing to see a doctor in person for hair loss so online seemed a good solution.

My co-founder is Rob English who has a community focusing on hair loss called Perfect Hair Health and we are launching in a couple of months. Watch this space!

KEEP READING