Some of the best ideas are born out of necessity. apple & bee botanical skincare wasn't a business plan or a trend I spotted — it was my answer to a problem no one else seemed able to solve.
It started with my skin falling apart.
As my forties approached, my skin — which had behaved itself for decades — suddenly became reactive to almost everything. I was diagnosed with four conditions at once: polymorphic light eruption, seborrheic dermatitis, eczema, and psoriasis. Doctors prescribed steroids that thinned my skin and created new problems. Patch testing at my local hospital revealed I was allergic to several common ingredients, particularly preservatives — which, as I quickly discovered, are in virtually everything.
The irony wasn't lost on me. I'd spent over 30 years in beauty therapy and aromatherapy, working with some of the big skincare companies. I had shelves of cosmetic science books. I'd even made and sold natural skincare to friends and family 20 years earlier. I knew this world inside out — and yet here I was, unable to find a single product that didn't make my skin worse.
So I went back to basics.
I started cross-referencing everything I knew with the latest advances in skincare science, experimenting in my rural Lincolnshire kitchen with the purest ingredients I could find — unrefined organic butters, cold-pressed oils, botanical extracts, clays, powders, and essential oils. No preservatives. No synthetic fragrances. No fillers. No water. Just concentrated botanical goodness, formulated with intention.
The results changed everything for me.
Waterless formulations, I discovered, aren't just kinder to reactive skin — they're genuinely more effective. Without water, there's no need for preservatives, and the active ingredients can be far more concentrated. My formulations can contain up to 50% more actives than traditional products. Every drop does more.
Once my own skin began to calm, I knew I had to share what I'd found.
apple & bee is named for me — the 'apple' is taken from my own surname — and for the bee, my spirit animal, forever busy pollinating the botanicals I rely on. Everything is still handmade in small batches in my kitchen, stability tested for months, and independently safety assessed before it reaches you. My packaging is as considered as my formulas — recycled kraft paper labels, recyclable dark glass jars with sustainable wooden lids, sourced to protect both the product and the planet.
If you're reading this, you might be on a similar journey — searching for something gentler, something that actually works with your skin rather than against it. I hope apple & bee can be that for you.
Thank you for being here. I'm forever grateful.
Lots of love, Clare. xx