“If bees were to disappear from the globe, mankind would only have 4 years left to live.”

This is the quote that stuck out when I came across YBC’s Lauren Wotherspoon’s blog post about her
mission to save the bees. Lauren Wotherspoon is the Director of Events and Marketing for Yoga by Candace (if you remember Candace has previously shared her mindful living tips with us). Lauren was inspired after watching the documentary More Than Honey, where she learned about the business of honey and how bees are such an integral part of our food industry and survival.

After reading Lauren's post, I was inspired to help! She was kind enough to put me in contact with someone from the Friends of the Earth and I was able to set up an ongoing contribution to assist in their efforts save the bees!  As a result, we've been able to contribute a portion of all sales from our amazingly successful Lavender Lip Butter Kit sales to help save the bees. Yay!

We originally intended to make only 150 Lip Butter Kits and see how they were received. What we didn't know is how amazingly popular they would be.  We sold out in record time and we are overjoyed with the popularity. 

So we've decided to create another limited run of 150 kits to supply the holiday demand and raise even more money and awareness to help save the bees! We encourage you to get your Lip Butter Kit before they run out!

Those of you who know us, know that we always strive to do everything we can to protect, nurture and heal our natural environment. In addition to the work we do to raise money for Everglades preservation, we also consider the environment in everything else that we do. From the ingredients we put into our products, to how we ship them, to the packaging we use, everything has an impact and we want to make sure ours is a positive one.

After doing a lot of research and in an endeavor to become even more eco-friendly, we have decided to change our packaging from aluminum to glass bottles. We didn’t arrive at this decision lightly, and we are so thrilled to share this amazing news with you. Not only is our new packaging being more eco-friendly, recyclable and healthier for you and the environment, but we think it also looks soooo nice!

But hold onto your seats, we’re not showing you the final product..not yet at least. First, we want to take you through this process with us.

We are researchers here at Soulful Essence, we looked around for information on packaging and the impact of glass vs aluminum and vice versa. Here’s what we found:

Why is Glass Better than Aluminum?

Glass has been used as a packaging since 3000 BC! We think that’s a great track record!

Glass is 100% recyclable and there is NO limit to how many times glass can be recycled-- yay! this was our major pro for switching to glass!

Recycled glass can account for 60% of all raw materials when making new bottles!

The energy saved from recycling a glass bottle can power a CFL (compact fluorescent light bulb) for 20 hours! That’s more than most people use in a day!

The beginning of the lifecycle of the aluminum bottle (mining of bauxite, smelting of aluminum) has a larger impact than glass.  - The mining of bauxite for aluminum is highly toxic to the land due to the chemicals used in the process. - Oh no, we DON’T want that.

It takes 30% less energy to melt recycled glass than it does to create new virgin material. - You know, working smarter, not harder. That’s what we do!

Finally, we also found that by using glass, and increasing recycling, we are adding jobs to the US, (since mining for aluminum usually occurs outside of the US). Go USA!

Now that you’ve read some of the facts we found on this journey to be even more eco-friendly, we want to treat you with some behind the scenes photos of our latest product shoot with our new glass bottles!

We’d love to hear what you think about our packaging changes. Are you excited to see the new packaging? Let us know in the comments below!