Saturday 19 September 2015

Save the bees



This a bit of an odd post for me. I'm not really a campaigner, obviously I have been championing everything organic this month, and with my day today choices in general, but I don't exactly actively support a specific cause. I sort of share a tiny part of my life on this blog through reviews, and while I have an opinion on many things, I never really try to persuade anyone of anything outside off a discussion in polite company. It's not because I'm not passionate, I just honestly don't have the temparment for such things, and I need a bit of time to formulate an argument if/when I'm not 100% certain about something. I guess that is why I love writing so much, I can have all the back up I need in front of me while I'm doing it, and can triple check any claim I'm making. Why such a long intro? Well this post is not really about a beauty product, but of course a beauty product is very much involved.

Bee lovely Busy bee balm is a product from a special Neal's Yard range, created to raise awareness about the predicament that bees are currently in. To be blunt they are dying, and this is nothing to do with evolution (this particular argument is often raised when dealing with nature conservation), and everything to do with pesticides used in agriculture, and parks, and general lack of wild flowers when there used to be plenty (of course there are over things contributing, but these are the big ones). From the sales of the bee lovely range, Neal's yard donates £10000 a year to bee conservation projects (unfortunately I could not find out what it was in terms of percentage of profits donated).

They have a wealth of info about why bees are so important on their website, including a pretty awesome save the bees pdf booklet. The most concerning thing to me is a predictive statistic, that if things don't change, the honey bee in UK could completely die out by 2018. Not only is this in my lifetime, that's just a few years away, it will go in a blink of an eye. I know people normally care more about economy than ecosystem, so the effect on our economy would be devastating. Bees pollinate 84% of EU agriculture, and in UK in particular bees have been disappearing at a faster rate then elsewhere in Europe. It's really crazy to me that this is not on the news other than an occasional mention, it is a serious problem (and it all sort of reminds me of Silent spring and bald Eagles).

Few things that anyone could do on a personal level to help bees would be to support organic farming, not use pesticides in their own gardens and plant bee friendly flowers like lavender. I would obviously go as far as choosing organic beauty products, or products made with organic ingredients, and of course supporting companies that give back to the bees. It turns out that a healthy honey bee colony can produce up to 2-3 times more honey than they would need, but it's extremely important to support good bee keepers when choosing honey for your kitchen. If no honey is left for the bees in the winter, they will not survive.




So about this balm in particular, it isn't anything super fancy. A mixture of sunflower, castor, conconut oils with beeswax, cocoa butter, orange peel oil, calendula extract and vitamin E. It's a lip balm sized jar, 15g, and has to be used up within 3 months. I like the consistency and the mild orange scent (there is something else I detect here too, but I really can't put my finger on it). It looks seriously juicy, like some sort of orange delight. As it is a multipurpose balm you can use it however you please, I like to have it in my bag, and mainly use it as a lip balm or a cuticle balm. I find it really enjoyable, especially as a cuticle balm, it's as good as any specialised product that I have. I also have my eye on the bee lovely soap, it looks very cute.

Have you tried anything from the bee lovely range? Any thoughts on the bee situation? Let me know in the comments.

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