Hey all, we get many questions about our products, our philosophy, our process, and ourselves so we thought this would be a great place to compile some answers to our most asked questions. Please let us know if you would like us to add any to this page. You can contact us here.
Why are your soaps and products palm oil free?
We do not use palm oil in any of our products because of sustainability issues. If you read the labels of most foods, soaps, and a lot of skin care products you will find palm oil in almost everything. The problem with this is that in order to keep up with the demand for palm oil, rainforests are being destroyed. Here is a great article about the consequences of palm oil over use.
Why not use sustainable palm oil?
We are trying to move away from palm oil completely to lessen the demand and show that palm oil is not necessary to make amazing skincare products that are also still affordable. Even using stainable palm oil demonstrates that there is still a want and need for palm oil to be produced and we want to be completely sustainable when it comes to our products.
Do you use lye in your soaps?
We use lye (sodium hydroxide) to saponify our soaps. All soaps are made of fats or oils, water, and lye. Lye is what turns the oils into soap. But don’t worry, during the soap making and curing process the lye is changed into soap. Even melt and pour soaps are made with lye. All soaps are made using lye.
How long do you cure your soaps?
We make two types of soap. One is hot process where we cook the soap in a crockpot and the other is cold process where we let the heat of the lye water solution melt the oils. Hot process soaps cure for a minimum of two weeks since the soap is heated during the soap making process. This will shorten the cure time and lead to a hard bar almost immediately. Cold process soaps are cured for a minimum of four weeks. They take a little longer to harden and we want to sell the best quality of soap that we can.
Do all of your products contain honey?
Not all of our products contain honey. Our shampoo bars do. We also use a lot of bees wax in our products like our lotion stick or bars. One of the reasons we chose our name is to celebrate bees. We love bees and without them we would not have any of the natural ingredients that we rely on. We use lots of herbs and botanicals in our products, not to mention we need bees to pollinate the plants that we get our oils from too. We are also environmentally contentious as we know that our bee populations are dying from pesticide usage. We by organically when possible and sustainably sourced ingredients as well.
Do you make everything yourselves?
We do! We make all of our own products from scratch. Through lots of trial and error we have created products that we think are pretty amazing. We made our first batch of soap in 2013 and have been obsessed since. Around that time I was studying herbalism and was making skin care products for my own skin issues. We have been crafting and creating and experimenting ever since.
Where do all your colors come from?
All of our colors come from nature. We use a lot of herbs and clays to create beautiful natural colors that actually add benefits to your skin. We do not use micas that are lab created and dyed because we do not feel that they add anything beneficial to your skin.
Where are you based?
We make everything in our workshop (we like to call it our beehive) in East Sacramento.