Bees make beeswax to build their hive, which is their home. Bees must fly the equivalent of six times around the earth to gather enough pollen to create a single pound of beeswax. Beeswax is also a secondary food source for bees and is vital for the survival of the colony.

Taking the bee's wax is considered cruel. PETA will not certify a product “Cruelty-Free” that uses beeswax for this reason. Honeycomb is the bee's backup food supply and is also their home. This is where they raise their young. We need bees to pollinate most of our food crops, and there is no need to exploit and harm bees by taking their wax to make lip and skincare products.

Bees don’t just spit up beeswax!

Technically, they spit up to make honey, but making beeswax is a little different. Every pound of beeswax is a labor of love and a lot of hard work for bees to make.

Worker bees make the wax using eight glands located on the inner part of their shield plates. Bees must remove eight pounds of honey from the hive to make one pound of beeswax!

Bees typically only live for about 40-days; they are working hard to help the next generation. Bees only leave the hive on sunny days. After working so hard, imagine the devastation of someone coming along and taking your house and hard work away. It’s not fair or necessary.

Beeswax Is Not Hydrating

Let's think about this for a second, would bees want water in their hive? Or would they create a wax to keep water from the hive to protect their home, young, and honey?

There is a lot of misinformation online, saying beeswax is hydrating and a humectant (retains water) it is not. It’s a myth to say beeswax is hydrating and “locks in Moisture.”  Beeswax locks out water and acts as a waxy barrier.

Beeswax is hydrophobic, meaning it repels water from the beehive and skin. Run water over a beeswax candle, and one will quickly see that the water slides off.

Beeswax is not Cruelty- Free. Factory- farming of beeswax is happening.

Beeswax has become an acceptable and widespread ingredient in many natural and clean beauty products, especially lip balms. Beeswax is often used as a natural alternative to petroleum-based products, but bees need their own beeswax.

Beeswax is found in 99% of ALL lip balms and lipsticks.

Beeswax molds easily, quickly and is cheap compared to other plant-based waxes.

Unfortunately, at factory bee farms and large bee farms, it is not unusual for farmers to cut off the queen bee’s wings so that she cannot leave the colony, and they use other methods to imprison the queens. When the beekeeper wants to move a queen to a new colony, she is carried with “bodyguard” bees; if they survive transport, these bodyguard bees will be killed by the bees in the new colony. Large commercial bee farms may also replace the honey that bees produce and need to get through the winter with a cheap sugar substitute that lacks the nutrition of honey.

How is Luxe Beauty helping the bees?

All Luxe Beauty products are beeswax-free. Every ingredient is carefully sourced to ensure it is free of pesticides, petrochemicals, and other harsh GMO ingredients.

We donate 5% of our annual profits to a flower and tree-planting program in Costa Rica and Malibu, California, to support wild bees and their natural habitat.

What can you do to help the bees?

1) Buy products that don’t use beeswax. With the bees disappearing, they don’t have extra wax or honey to share. It's all about supply and demand. We can make a conscious effort to not buy products containing beeswax.

2) Plant flowers. When planting for bees, make sure you plant from untreated plants. Most plant starts are pre-treated with neonicotinoids. The safest thing is to plant from organic seeds.

3) Buy fruits and veggies from local organic farms/growers growing with permaculture practices in place. This helps show that you support bees because, on those farms, they aren’t using pesticides or practicing large-scale mono-cropping.

4) Start a backyard hive or join a community of beekeepers that practices bee-centric beekeeping, which is a philosophy that puts the bees' needs before the needs of humans. This focuses on education and rescuing unwanted colonies; that might otherwise be exterminated.

5) Avoid GMOs as these chemicals are harming bees.

6) Eliminate the use of pesticides since they can poison the bees. Ask your local community and golf course to do the same.

Join us in taking the sting out of skincare and lip products!

Our purchases reflect our values, so it’s time to make a beeswax-free choice to take a stand for bees!