Category: Uncategorized

By Sean Lawson – 7th August 2018

What is a lotion bar? How do you use one and why should you? Lotion bars are solid bars of lotion. They may resemble a soap but they act like a lotion. Our bars are made of skin nourishing natural ingredients such as beeswax, cocoa butter, coconut oil and various other essential oils. Absolutely nothing unnatural goes into our lotion bars!
The lotion bar is designed to stay solid at room temperature or lower but will melt when applied to the skin from ones own body heat. It can be applied anywhere on the skin (within reason), and is great for using when just coming out of the bath/shower. Using a lotion bar is easy – just take the lotion bar into your hands and warm it with body heat. This will melt a small portion of the bar. One can then either rub the lotion onto the body part that needs moisturising,or get enough in your hands to put the lotion bar down and use hands to cover your skin.
So why should you use this instead of normal lotion?

1. Its great for the environment. Think about all of those bottles of cosmetics and lotions you’ve used over the years. Where did that plastic come from, where does it go? Because our lotion is solid, there’s no reason to package it plastic, instead we use aluminium tins and it is very easy to travel with.

2. Use in the shower for easy an effective application and moisturising. The best time to apply moisturizer is when your pores are open, either in the shower/bath, or just out of the shower/bath. This allows the lotion to deeply penetrate skin as well as seal and protect skin throughout the day.

3. Nothing artificial or dangerous. Lotion bars are known for being a health conscious choice. Unlike many other packaged lotions, they are made purely of natural ingredients. Our lotion bars are free from any potentially hazardous chemicals found in commercial cosmetics such as phthalates, parabens, formaldehyde, para-aminobenzoic acid (PABA), ethanolamines and petroleum.
If you’re interested in knowing more or have any questions, drop us a message, and of course, please spread the word!.

By Sean Lawson 11th May 2018

Its been a little over a year since we officially started training ‘Ejo Heza’, our first group of trainee beekeepers in beekeeping techniques most suited to our context here in rural Rwanda. Since then things have certainly had their ups and downs, namely troubles with pests and disease, bees absconding, attacks by giant hive beetles, and our own beekeepers struggling to commit to the project. But we’ve also seen growth in our colonies, new hives and techniques learned, and friendships between us and this group develop.
It is our goal, over the next year to use this blog to update you on our regular inspections of our hives with stories, photos and videos of the goings on in a Rwandan Apiary and be able to bring many of you outside, in to our world of bees, beeswax and honey. In doing so, we’ll hopefully be able to communicate to you the importance of bees to our environment, to the livelihoods of our beekeepers/artisans, and why we at Beeutiful Creations, don’t just sell products, we promote their makers: Human and Insect.
In the meantime, why not check out this gallery focusing on what we’ve been up to over the past 12 months…

By Emma Lawson – 11th May 2018

How do bees, fair trade crafts, and rural Rwandans connect with one another? In this post, we’ll reveal how ‘Beeutiful Creations’, a social enterprise start-up founded last year, is helping to bring about positive change for those living in poverty, in a pretty sweet way…As part of Azizi Life’s Impact, the local NGO started by Azizi runs a beekeeping project and incubated a new social enterprise, Beeutiful Creations.  Beeutiful Creations works with groups and individuals through training, business development, and finding a market for the sale of their crafts. The cooperatives that Beeutiful Creations work with produce, among other things, hand-dipped and moulded candles made from 100% pure Rwandan beeswax.  They have recently developed natural beeswax soaps, beeswax Lotion bars, as well as a new range of lip balms.

One of our most popular products is our ‘Raw honey‘ , which unlike most honey you buy, is not heat-treated and only loosely filtered.  Why does this matter? When honey is heat treated, it loses a lot of its nutritional goodness, leaving you just with the sugars.  Raw honey is in effect, an antiseptic with natural healing properties. It also contains pollen, which if it’s from your local area will boost your immunity to allergies like hay fever for the following season, as well as antioxidants, antibacterial and antifungal properties that can help soothe a sore throat, digestive issues, and skin complaints.Bees are small creatures, and yet they are so vitally important to our environment, pollinating the crops and fruits that feed us.  Indeed, 1 in every 3 mouthfuls you eat is pollinated by bees.  Beeutiful Creations protects bee populations by allowing them to swarm naturally in traditional hives, and harvests honey responsibly.But it’s not just the environment that benefits.  Here is an ‘at a glance’ look at what the group members from the Beeutiful Creations cooperative have been able to do with the additional income from sales:

• One lady from the group, Julienne, purchased domestic animals as an investment to save for the future.
• Olive, a widow, also bought domestic animals to breed, to pay for her and her child’s health insurance.
• Desire, husband and father to a young child, covered his kitchen with a roof for protection during the heavy rains as well as his family’s yearly health insurance.
• Valens, father of four children, installed a solar power lighting system in his basic mud brick house, meaning that his family no longer breathe in paraffin fumes from a kerosene lamp.  His children can now do their homework safely at night. 

Sean Lawson, Co-founder of Beeutiful Creations, told us:

“It’s so inspiring to see the willingness of these men and women to take on new challenges, creating quality products and working together to better their futures in a dignifying way”.

The group have been working hard on making 100% pure and natural hand dipped beeswax candles, and the good news is that they are now available to purchase in the US as well as Rwanda through the Azizi Life website!