Q:
Can I find Bee Civil products in stores?
A:
Not right now, but as that changes, we’ll post it here first. That would be cool, but we have to figure out how that model could work and still accomplish our mission…
Q:
I’m allergic to tree nuts. Are your products safe for use if I have a tree nut allergy?
A:
No. Even our website contains traces of tree nuts. You should probably grab an epi-pen before you hit the back button. We’re sorry that you can’t safely use our products, but they’re probably really bad for you, like really bad. Consider buying lots of t-shirts instead or donate directly to the cause of your choice.
Q:
Do you have a vegan option or plans for a vegan product in the future?
A:
We really should have structured our FAQ pages to put some “yes” answers at the top, but No. The owner and founder of BCBF is a strict ethical meatgan, who only recently started wearing plant-based clothing as a concession.
Q:
O.K., so that seemed a little rough. So, do you test your products on animals then, you terrible non-vegan meatgan?
A:
Yes. Sort of. We test them on mammals, specifically humans, more specifically on children, most specifically on myself and my adult children. So, technically, the answer is still yes.
Q:
Isn’t it unfair to the bees, who you shamelessly exploit for your nefarious efforts to combine business and generosity, couldn’t you use a non-bee-based product for your wonderful and life changing balms?
A:
That’s another tough one. We experimented with alternative options for making our products, and always came back to beeswax. The butterflies were too hard to catch and milk. The crickets kept breaking when we tried to scrape the wax off of their shells. And as it turns out, neither the rats nor the mice produced any wax. In the end, it was the bees. They unionized into this collective bargaining pact that they keep calling “The Hive” and threatened to strike if we didn’t give in to their demands to incorporate their products into our balms, since they allowed us to use their namesake in our company name.
Q:
A lot of the ingredients in your products are listed as organic, but you don’t have the little USDA sticker on your boxes. Are your products certified as organic?
A:
That’s another fun question Our lip balms are made with nothing but the ingredients listed on the label and heat. We can legally list all of our ingredients and let you know which those are certified organic and which are natural.
We don’t pay to have our products certified by choice. You’ll have to do the math on your own. There’s nothing in the law that prohibits us from using organic products as our ingredients, we just can’t use the “O” word on our displays or packaging without the appropriate certification.
We thought about certifying as a part of our production process until we did the math. It costs thousands of dollars a year to certify as USDA Organic.
Paying that as a marketing strategy for our boxes wasn’t nearly as important as the product inside the tube, so we decided we could better spend that money elsewhere. Einstein’s poster asked us to do something. If he meant give money to the USDA, then we read it wrong and we’re really sorry. Choosing to give $4000 to someone is a big deal to us as a small company. When the choice is between giving that to orphans or a federal bureaucracy, the orphans win every time.
If we become a big enough operation, and if it turns out that this is actually a sustainable business model, we'd love to explore organic certification and reformulate our product line to comply. We're just not there yet...
Can I find Bee Civil products in stores?
A:
Not right now, but as that changes, we’ll post it here first. That would be cool, but we have to figure out how that model could work and still accomplish our mission…
Q:
I’m allergic to tree nuts. Are your products safe for use if I have a tree nut allergy?
A:
No. Even our website contains traces of tree nuts. You should probably grab an epi-pen before you hit the back button. We’re sorry that you can’t safely use our products, but they’re probably really bad for you, like really bad. Consider buying lots of t-shirts instead or donate directly to the cause of your choice.
Q:
Do you have a vegan option or plans for a vegan product in the future?
A:
We really should have structured our FAQ pages to put some “yes” answers at the top, but No. The owner and founder of BCBF is a strict ethical meatgan, who only recently started wearing plant-based clothing as a concession.
Q:
O.K., so that seemed a little rough. So, do you test your products on animals then, you terrible non-vegan meatgan?
A:
Yes. Sort of. We test them on mammals, specifically humans, more specifically on children, most specifically on myself and my adult children. So, technically, the answer is still yes.
Q:
Isn’t it unfair to the bees, who you shamelessly exploit for your nefarious efforts to combine business and generosity, couldn’t you use a non-bee-based product for your wonderful and life changing balms?
A:
That’s another tough one. We experimented with alternative options for making our products, and always came back to beeswax. The butterflies were too hard to catch and milk. The crickets kept breaking when we tried to scrape the wax off of their shells. And as it turns out, neither the rats nor the mice produced any wax. In the end, it was the bees. They unionized into this collective bargaining pact that they keep calling “The Hive” and threatened to strike if we didn’t give in to their demands to incorporate their products into our balms, since they allowed us to use their namesake in our company name.
Q:
A lot of the ingredients in your products are listed as organic, but you don’t have the little USDA sticker on your boxes. Are your products certified as organic?
A:
That’s another fun question Our lip balms are made with nothing but the ingredients listed on the label and heat. We can legally list all of our ingredients and let you know which those are certified organic and which are natural.
We don’t pay to have our products certified by choice. You’ll have to do the math on your own. There’s nothing in the law that prohibits us from using organic products as our ingredients, we just can’t use the “O” word on our displays or packaging without the appropriate certification.
We thought about certifying as a part of our production process until we did the math. It costs thousands of dollars a year to certify as USDA Organic.
Paying that as a marketing strategy for our boxes wasn’t nearly as important as the product inside the tube, so we decided we could better spend that money elsewhere. Einstein’s poster asked us to do something. If he meant give money to the USDA, then we read it wrong and we’re really sorry. Choosing to give $4000 to someone is a big deal to us as a small company. When the choice is between giving that to orphans or a federal bureaucracy, the orphans win every time.
If we become a big enough operation, and if it turns out that this is actually a sustainable business model, we'd love to explore organic certification and reformulate our product line to comply. We're just not there yet...