Honey’s Sweet Effects

Honey: you may know it as a natural sweetener that gives everything from desserts to teas and lozenges a sweet and soothing kick, but did you know it’s also a fabulous ingredient for cosmetics?

Sweet effects

For centuries, honey has been used as a natural skincare ingredient. Cleopatra even made it part of her daily bathing rituals to keep her skin smooth and firm! So, what makes honey so sweet for our hair and skin? First, it’s a humectant which means it attracts and retains moisture on our skin and hair. We use honey in our ultra-hydrating Helping Hands Hand Cream, which is made especially for those who frequently wash their hands or are prone to dryness. Together with organic cocoa butter and calming chamomile, it brings dry or cracked skin back from the brink. And with a formula that’s about 50 percent honey, our Fairly Traded Honey Shampoo softens and moisturizes the hair and scalp to keep your mane silky smooth and shiny.

Fairly Traded Honey Shampoo in use

Secondly, honey’s rich texture makes it a natural soother. Which is why we use it in our richest facial moisturizers, like Gorgeous and Cosmetic Lad, and in our Honey I Washed The Kids Soap to help dry, sensitive skin feel calm and soothed. It’s also in our bestselling body butter Scrubee, made with gently exfoliating ground almond and—you guessed it—honey.

Sweetly preserved

In addition to being deliciously sweet and beneficial for our skin and hair, honey is also a natural preservative. One of its superpowers is a seemingly eternal shelf life. Modern archaeologists have reported uncovering pots of the sweet stuff, completely preserved inside tombs that are thousands of years old. While this seems like a curious time-defying trick, it’s actually honey’s complex composition that gives it serious staying power.

Despite being a thick liquid, honey contains very little water—and without it, it’s nearly impossible for bacteria or microorganisms to survive and spoil it. It’s also acidic, making it a harsh environment to microorganisms and essentially eliminating them before they can flourish. Lastly, honey also contains small amounts of the mild antiseptic hydrogen peroxide which keeps it pure and free of anything that could cause it to go bad.

Because of honey’s perfectly balanced formula, it’s only natural that it would play a role in our self-preserving products. In fact, it’s an indispensable ingredient when creating cosmetics without the use of synthetic preservatives: it provides moisture without introducing water to the formula (which would increase the opportunity for microorganisms and bacteria to flourish). Honey does double duty in many of our fresh face masks like BB Seaweed, where it helps keep it balanced without synthetic preservatives, while keeping skin moisturized and soothed too.

If you still have honey on the mind, learn more about the sweet nectar here or shop all things honey here. If that’s not enough, visit your local shop to get up close and personal with our bee-utiful products.

Our honey is always sourced from ethical beekeepers that allow the hives to function naturally, and are invested in the welfare of native honeybee populations.