Wednesday, October 15, 2014

American Made Vendor: Handcrafted Honey Bee

Today we're showcasing Handcrafted Honey Bee, a skin care company out of the small mountain town of Tehachapi, California. Founded by Stacia Guzzo and her husband Robert, Handcrafted Honey Bee offers body care products with an ingenious twist: you make the product yourself! The company provides you with a DIY kit for the product, be it lip balm, or facial cream, or deodorant (to name just a few of their offerings.)


Founder Stacia recognized a need for her company when she moved from the city to more rural Tehachapi and began experimenting with creating her own body care items. With two small children, she wanted "to learn a little more about what we were putting on our bodies on a daily basis." She learned to make her own soap and lip balm, and eventually began to teach classes about homemade goods. Realizing that demand for self-made products was high, she conceptualized a company where she could help customers get started with the process. 


Each kit is specially formulated with natural ingredients and comes complete with all the jars, labels, containers, and tools you will need. What we especially appreciated was how explicit Handcrafted Honey Bee is about the exact ingredients and materials that come in your kit. Take, for example, the "Just Face It" Nightly Facial Kit

On the page for this kit, Honey Bee lists each specific ingredient you will receive (Almond Meal and Rosehip Oil, for example), the four different products you will be able to make, and the approximate time each product will take to create. The company also lists possible substitutions for ingredients if you have a potential skin worry. In fact, this level of customization is one of the things Stacia feels is so special about her company. On her American Made site, she explains: 

I think there are two distinct characteristics of Handcrafted Honey Bee that set us apart. The first is the ability to completely customize the kit according to your skin type, to substitute ingredients due to allergies or personal preferences . . . The second characteristic that sets us apart is our emphasis on the educational component of making skin care. We believe that making skin care isn't just about learning how to follow a recipe or a set of instructions, but instead is an opportunity to learn a new skill set. This is one of the reasons that we include information about every single ingredient in each recipe, including its source and benefits. 


We were drawn to Handcrafted Honey Bee not only for its great products and mission statement, but also because we loved the concept behind the name. Just as honey bees work to create their own sweet and natural product, so we conscious-minded consumers can use nature's goodies to make our own balms and creams. The idea brought to mind one of our favorite Bleu de Toi prints: the Buzzing Honeybee Guestbook.


Stacia offers kits and mini-kits for gatherings like kids' parties and "Girls Night Ins". We especially loved the "Lava Lamp Lip Gloss" kit. For 9.99, you can make two groovy lip glosses with your girlfriends. We had fun envisioning the different kind of DIY-events you could host with your girlfriends: baby showers, bachelorette parties...maybe even a honeybee-themed gathering! 


As a special promotion for Bleu de Toi, Stacia is offering a a 15% discount on ALL products through November 15th. Use the discount code: BLEUDETOI

Thank you Handcrafted Honey Bee, and good luck in the American Made contest!

Photos courtesy of: Courtney Sacket Photography




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