New Bee Venom Face Cream Launched in Canada

Bee-auty Product Puts Sting on Age Lines

By Karen Gram, Vancouver Sun, May 18, 2012

There is nothing like a close-up mirror to cause a gal in her prime to feel the sting of aging. One glance dispels any fantasy that she looks as young as she feels. Ouch.

Now, the sting of a bee can take the bite out of that unwelcome reality.

A new beauty product just being launched commercially in North America uses bee venom as an alter-native to Botox. The Vancouver Island business launching the product says bee venom can work wonders on those age-defining lines.

But unlike Botox, bee venom cream doesn't paralyze facial muscles.

"It fools the skin into thinking it has been stung, and it releases certain chemicals that tighten the area to combat the sting," explains Catherine Martin, co-owner of Wedderspoon Organics, a Duncan-based organic manuka honey business. In particular, bee venom stimulates the production of collagen and elastin, she says.

"Gwyneth Paltrow and other movie stars [who import it from England for personal use] say they swear by it," she says, adding it's very popular in the U.K. and is a craze among China's new middle class.

Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, has been applying it to her face for about five years. People say she looks good these days and, while marital bliss could be behind it, she claims it's bee venom that is beating back years of smoking and horse riding. Duchess Kate is said to be using it, too, although it's hard to imagine she needs it yet.

Wedderspoon's Martin hails from England and on visits saw this product take the nation by storm. She and her husband Sebastien Martin decided to add the product to their line of manuka honey products.

"We thought the cream itself, the idea and the science behind it, was interesting, and we wanted to develop a more organic - more of a natural emphasis - with our cream because that is what Wedderspoon is all about," she says. "So we have developed our own formulation, and we are really pleased with it."

Besides the venom, the cream contains organic active manuka honey and wax, apricot, cocoa and avocado oils and lots of other organic stuff. It doesn't contain sodium lauryl sulfates, petroleum, mineral oil or parabens…