Lucy Bee is a lifestyle brand selling skincare and soap products all completely free from palm oil and with minimal use of plastic. Lucy Bee is concerned with Fair Trade, organic, ethical and sustainable living, recycling and empowering people to make informed choices and select quality, natural products for their skin.
What Does This Mean?
We pride ourselves on being completely open and honest with our customers, with a strong emphasis on being as ethical as possible in everything that we do. This not only covers the ingredients that we choose for our products but also covers our packaging and the way we handle your questions or enquiries.
We are passionate about Fair Trade and its benefits and strongly believe in the values of organic farming, supporting sustainable living and caring for the environment.
No Palm Oil
A big part of our ethical ethos is caring for the environment and it’s for this reason that we choose not to use palm oil or any of its derivatives in our products.
Palm oil is used in numerous everyday products from foods, to makeup and skincare and the huge increase in demand has led to mass deforestation to make way for the planting of oil palm trees. With its negative effects on the environment, habitats and livelihoods, we have made it our mission to create products which do NOT use palm oil.
This is not easy, especially when you consider that many ingredients used in skincare include a derivative of palm oil, and it’s not always obvious that it’s been used. For example, some emulsifiers are sourced from either palm oil or coconut and the manufacturer of the emulsifier may not differentiate the source. We can confirm that no derivatives of palm oil are used in any of our products.
You can read more on this here.
Fair Trade
Fair Trade is at the very foundation of Lucy Bee.
When you see its benefits and the difference it makes to lives, we think the question should be asked, “Why wouldn’t you buy Fair Trade?”
We work closely with the Fair Trade Sustainability Alliance (FairTSA), a non-profit organisation specialising in fair trade and social responsibility; standard development; ethical supply chain management; and accountable, sustainable community development. Something which sets this organisation apart from others is that the local community directly benefits and has a say in how funds are spent to help improve their lives.
In the words of its Director, Winfried Fuchshofen PhD, "As a consumer, I can really make an impact and I'm not just buying a product to make sure the worker gets their minimum wage. I'm also contributing to the producer community that makes their life worthwhile."
Lucy Bee Coconut Oil, which is used in our Skincare and Soaps, is produced in the Philippines and is certified Fair Trade. Those farmers and workers who produce the oil benefit from the Fair Trade premiums through:
• The building of two wells for fresh, safe water for the local community
• School scholarships for children of the workers
• Solar powered energy in the village communities
• Low-interest lending programmes for the Philippine farmers
• A feeding programme for malnourished children
• Funds for coconut planting to make this a sustainable and viable option for the community
• Insurance against crop failure; for family welfare; and accidents
A further benefit of working with FairTSA is that they guarantee that monkeys are not used to pick the coconuts, which is not always the case in some areas.
Supporting Charities
Lucy Bee actively supports charitable works and we prefer to work with smaller charities, so that contributions aren’t used up in admin or ‘red tape’.
For 2020, we’re working with:
The Soup Kitchen, London, UK – our founder, Lucy, has been volunteering at The Soup Kitchen at the American International Church, London for some time. This charity feeds, clothes and provides mental health support to over 100 homeless and vulnerable people in London each day and none of that is possible without countless volunteers and donors.
Additionally, one lady that Lucy met while volunteering was a 63-year-old homeless lady with a talent for art, and who sleeps rough in London train stations. Lucy asked this lady to design a Christmas card which we then sold on our store, giving the full proceeds of the sales to this homeless lady.
Previously, we’ve worked with the following charities:
The St. Francis Hospice, Romford, UK – over the course of 1 year (2019), Lucy Bee donated £2917, used to help “provide the highest quality end of life care that sadly so many in our community need. Every year we support around 1700 people in our community across a range of services all with the aim of helping our patients live with dignity regardless of their condition.”
Love Support Unite Africa – this is a small charity which works in Malawi to empower communities to become self-sufficient. Lucy Bee supported this charity for over 3 years (2016-2018), donating in excess of £12,500 which has been used to fund 8 farms to feed and empower families and feed 450 pupils at the Mkunkhu school; build teachers’ homes at the school, allowing them the opportunity to provide evening classes to adults; sponsored orphans at the Tilinanu Orphanage, providing food, clothes and school supplies for one year.
We’ve also donated our Organic Coconut Oil, which was used to treat ringworm and used for baby massage; and we’ve donated our Fragrance Free Soap bars to the charity. They confirm that these will be used as follows:
• The girls at the Tilinanu Orphanage each have a bar, per month, for 2 years
• 587 bars have been allocated to adult literacy classes to give each learner a bar after they pass their exams
• 274 bars have been given to the nursery schools to help teach good hygiene practice
• 447 soaps for mother and infant health to be given to women on completion of the course, especially the sanitation component
• 2000 will be used in famine relief packages
• The remainder will be allocated to help encourage local volunteer teachers, to be given in schools and hospitals
All of the above donations have largely been made up of contributions that Lucy Bee makes for the sale of our Bath Salts because we’re unable to buy these Fair Trade - we donate a sum of 15p to a chosen charity for every sale of our Bath Salts.
Organic
We totally buy in to the need to protect our individual health and the health of the planet by following organic ways of production and avoiding pesticides and intensive farming practices.
Our Skincare products are certified by the Soil Association as COSMOS Organic and meet their strict benchmarks. It may surprise you to know that this covers not only the ingredients used in our formulations but also covers organic production, packaging, animal welfare, wildlife conservation, residues and additives to reassure you the products meet the highest available organic standards. Read more here.
Ethical and Sustainable Living
This is a common thread which runs through all that we do.
Our products are certified by Cruelty Free International, which works to end animal experiments worldwide. It’s the best assurance that a company has made a genuine commitment to ending animal testing.
When you see the Cruelty Free/Leaping Bunny logo on our products, you are assured that that product meets rigorous criteria which applies globally and extends over and above laws governing animal testing and includes ongoing independent audits.
At Lucy Bee, we believe that beauty products should be cruelty free and this is why we are proud to be Cruelty Free/Leaping Bunny approved. Read more here.
Our products are certified by The Vegan Society, which is a worldwide trademark and assures you that no animal product, by-product or derivative has been used in the product. You can read more about Lucy Bee vegan skincare here.
Plastic
Throughout our range we avoid plastic where at all possible and while we accept that we’re not perfect, please know that we are doing our very best to completely eliminate its use.
In our packaging, we use recyclable glass jars, aluminium tubes and card cartons over plastic containers and you can read more on this here.
Recycling
In an effort to be as environmentally-friendly as possible, we encourage recycling of our packaging, in your household waste – if in doubt, we recommend talking to your local authority for waste disposal and they can guide you further.
Recycling can help reduce waste going to landfill; saves energy; and conserves natural resources, such as timber.
About Lucy Bee
Lucy Bee is a lifestyle brand selling food, skincare and soap products all completely free from palm oil and with minimal use of plastic. Lucy Bee is concerned with Fair Trade, organic, ethical and sustainable living, recycling and empowering people to make informed choices and select quality, natural products for their food and their skin.
Any information provided by us is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease. We always recommend referring your health queries to a qualified medical practitioner.
