I had a thought as I began writing this blog post, and can’t say it is one I have had before; what do bees do in winter? There’s a chance I started thinking about this because I have been watching a lot of David Attenborough’s 3D series at the moment (highly recommend doing the same if you haven’t yet!), but anyway, I was quite delighted to find out that honey bees survive in a similar way to penguins.

Honey bees keep warm by huddling in the hive and taking it in turns to snuggle in the heated middle and to do their time on the edges keeping the cold out. Using the energy they get from their honey stores, the bees also shiver to generate further heat. Pretty cool, right?

There was of course a reason I had bees on my mind and that’s because I want to share a lovely brand with you today as part of my new series on cruelty-free shopping and ethical companies.

beefayre are a small UK-based company dedicated to creating handmade, high quality, mostly organic items that are free from petroleum by-products and beautifully packaged with designs illustrated by the company’s own founder, Sharon Jervis. The natural ingredients beefayre use include quality essential oils; they never contain sulphates or parabens. They are also PETA certified cruelty-free, with strictly no animal testing of beefayre’s ingredients or end products.

Not only that but beefayre are so passionate about sustainability and dedicated to helping bee populations that they donate 3% of their profits to bee conservation. Given that bee numbers have been in sharp decline over recent years, this support is essential to ensure that bees are protected and also that their vital role in our ecosystem isn’t lost.

beefayre kindly sent me some of their range to try out and I have been thoroughly impressed with the deliciously scented moisturising lip balms (I’m not easily impressed when it come to lip balms). This relaxing bluebell & wood anemone candle that has found a home in my bathroom and barely any wax has disappeared yet after burning through a couple of long baths so I expect it to be going strong for quite some time. Though I would always prefer to choose a plant-based wax over unsustainable paraffin wax, I actually only learnt recently how toxic those candles can be in your home so I will certainly be picking up more plant wax candles from beefayre in the future.

Do you look for brands that have a sustainable outlook? Share your favourites in the comments!