Greenman is my 12 year-old micro-bodycare-craft-enterprise, based in Brighton’s Seven Dials, where my companion. Depsite various setbacks over the decade and a but I’ve been doing this crazy thing, my companion and continue to blend and pour hand-made organic lipbalms using community-farmed Ethiopian forest beeswax in my studio in Seven Dials in Hove, England.
In the beginning I hoped to build my hobby of using natural oils to look after myself, into business that might even pay the rent, and who knew, the sky was the limit. I quickly ran into difficulties of trying to produce craft type goods in the industrialised West. Labour is too expensive, regulations are intense (lipbalm and body oil are regulated as cosmetics, and even the simplest formulation needs to be OK’d by a certified chemist), organic certification costs £600, supermarket distribution requires health and safety inspections of your premises. So you need business plan which can payback an investment, the plan itself costs money and so your overheads excalate to the point where you can only really consider an industrial sized project, for example farming out your production to antiseptic cosmetics laboratories in England, and, soon, you realise, you might as well be manufacturing in India or China and then your unit costs really come down. You can buy whole carton of product fr what it was costing you make single units. But can you really be sure the beeswax they are using is one you specified from the villages in Western Zambia or Ethiopia? I expereinced problems with distributors demanding price reductions for volume orders, and certifications as above. Greenman was not paying the rent, so I had to start night work in social care. So I withdrew from trying to succeed in national distribution, and nearly withdrew the product from sale altogether.
But a couple of people tracked me down, sending somewhat desperate emails, that BeeBalm was the only product that helped with life long problems with cold sores, or PureBee was the only product that helped the sensitive lips of a wind-instrument musicians, and could they buy a pack of ten… One woman was pregnant in hospital in Poland during COVID isolation, and demanded I airmail her a tube of BeeBalm as she had run out. These stories convinced me I must continue with BeeBalm at least for those who seemd to genuinely appraciate the product. So I continued making a few batches per year.
Then, my companion introduced me to a charming Polish Beekeeper who had set up shop in Brighton’s Old Market. This Gentleman keeps most of his bees in Poland, and his product is not certified organic. But he is a real appreciator of bees and their products, and understands what BeeBalm is, and was prepared to stock it even though it is more than double the cost of his in-house lipbalm. So, now, I have stockist again: Honey Shop Brighton
The beeswax we use as pure as you can get, coming from virgin African forest (Soil Association Certified Organic), and humanely farmed using traditional methods, bringing the benefits of traditional farming methods to traditional communities in rural Africa. I enjoy working with this beeswax, as I come from Africa and have seen log-hive beekeepers at work in Western Zambia’s rain forest. Bees were traditionally kept in hollow logs, with excess honey and comb cut from the outer comb after driving the bees deep into the hive with smoke. When hives become old or diseased and bees leave or colonies die, they are cleansed with fire – no pesticides/antibiotics are used, and as a result Africa remains free of the industrial bee-farming diseases. Modern hives are now used, but the traditional purity is assured by the integrity of traditional African farmers, and the UK’s Sol Association certificate.Other ingredients in my lipbalm include Tea Tree Oil, a great anti-viral and antiseptic that helps heal cold – damaged skin. Cocoa-butter is for moisturising luxury and hints of chocolate. Wheatgerm oil is for anti-oxidant, vitamin E healing. It’s all packed into a cute little oval shaped lipstick that you can see the golden balm through. I keep a tube in my pocket, and have done so for the past 12 years, and use it for every little skin blemish that comes along. And yes, I suppose it makes a great stocking filler or thoughtful seasonal present for the winter solstice, if that is your thing.
Follow the link for directions to Honey Shop – for links to online ebay shop ☀️
Or, buy a tube from our ebay shop – we’ll post it to you:
Click here to order BeeBalm https://www.ebay.com/itm/154148460461.
Click here to order PureBee. https://www.ebay.com/itm/154148534062
Click here to go to Greenman website and for Honey Shop map https://wp.me/p52YDP-6P
PS I now only make Greenman Body Oil to order. The sumptuous, deeply sensual undertones of Bulgarinian Rose Oil come at a price, and makes the product too expensive for everyday use, and too expensive to keep in stock as it is best fresh (useby 12 months). But if you do want a 30ml bottle for the £30 pricetag, please message me and I’ll do a special making for you. Link to product description here: https://greenmanbodycare.wordpress.com/greenman-body-oil-30ml/
Greenman Bodycare 