A small kitchen-table operation that takes lip balm a little too seriously.
BeeKiss'd is run by three of us out of a kitchen in Cheshire. The bees live on the Welsh border. The pots are made of wood. The whole thing is small on purpose.
How it started
We started in 2019 with a surplus of beeswax from the family hives on the Welsh border. The first balms were a way to use the wax responsibly rather than throw it out, and they went down well enough with friends that we decided to make a few more.
Like most small enterprises, the next two years were tricky and we will not dwell on them. We relaunched properly in 2022 with a renewed focus on minimising the environmental impact of every pot - which led to two years of experimenting with packaging until we settled on the wood-and-cornstarch design we use today.
The formula has barely changed since the first decent batch. Welsh beeswax, cold-pressed sweet almond oil, a single essential oil, a little natural pigment. We have not yet found a reason to add a fifth ingredient.
Three of us, all the time
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Oliver
The Scientist
Tunes the formula, runs the test pours and looks faintly disappointed when a batch is anything less than perfect.
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Kieron
Prime Motivator
Keeps the bees, keeps the website running, and keeps everyone else honest about which pots are good enough to ship.
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Jamie
Gofer
Goes for things. Wax, almonds, post-office runs, more wooden pots, more almonds.
What we are not trying to be
We are not trying to scale into a chain. We are not trying to add ten new SKUs every season. We are not trying to manufacture overseas. The plan is to keep making the balm we wish we could buy from somebody else, and to keep doing it at a size that lets us check every batch.
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