TA Ep. 170 Jill King – Exploring Non-Toxic, Bioavailable Skincare w/Honeybee Hippie

Leigh Ann: [00:00:00] And then we will dive right in. Well, Jill, welcome to The Accrescent podcast.

Jill King: Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here.

Leigh Ann: So a little backstory for the audience. We’ve met in person at a couple, cause you’re also here local to Orange County. So we, I’ve had, you know, the pleasure of getting to meet you in person at some of our local pop ups at the ecology center. And, you know, obviously we both know, I think my whole audience knows by this point that I’m so obsessed with your products.

I talk about them all the time. They’re, you know. Yes, they’re in my holiday gift guide. They’re everywhere. So it’s going to be so special now after we have this conversation to get to send people, you know, the real in depth topic of, Hey, this brand I’m obsessed with go listen to this full conversation and you’ll get all the inside scoop.

Jill King: Well, I’m so excited. Thank you so much for this opportunity to share just everything about, you know, where I’ve been and just the journey and

Leigh Ann: Yeah. And I know a fair bit about the products because I use them. And of [00:01:00] course, we’re going to get more into some of the specifics for anyone who’s new to things like tallow and honey and skincare. But, I actually, I love an origin story, and I actually don’t know the origin story of Honeybee Hippie, so take us back, was, you know, when did this come about?

Was this something that you had just been doing for a long time on your own, and then got to a point where you wanted to launch a brand around it? A little bit of the origin story there.

Jill King: Okay, well, interestingly, it’s only been a brand for a little less than two years, but hasn’t really even been that long. So my

Leigh Ann: know, and you’ve blown up, and I’m so happy for

Jill King: Oh, thank you. My background is, um, I have four kids and I actually have a grandbaby now. And just throughout raising my kids, I’ve always, you know, tried to make a lot of things homemade.

I’ve kind of, you know, dabbled in making some lip butters and some skin care things. Tinctures, I like to, you know, cook organically. And we’ve always been into, you know, just grass [00:02:00] fed, really healthy foods. And skin care was something To be honest, I was never interested in, never really thought about it much besides maybe, you know, like just curiosity of looking at labels.

But I was very confused by it because I would go to the store and I would try to find, you know, I’d look at these natural brands and I’d look at the labels and I’m looking at them like, what is

Leigh Ann: How is that

Jill King: I don’t, yeah, what and why is there, you know, sunflower oil in most of the, you know, natural brands?

And, and so like I said, I just kind of confused me trying to find something and I’ve always Kind of struggled with my skin. I guess you could say just had like drier skin that would react to things and Tried everything out there. I just would buy every you know serum whatever. It’s like oh, maybe this will make a difference You know this different eye cream and had just a drawer full of just a bunch of stuff that I didn’t really know if it Was working and I had heard about teloskin care several years ago from a friend of mine And for some reason, I just remembered it and I’m like, you know [00:03:00] what?

I really want to try that. I had been meaning to, you know, ask her and I just never did. And for some reason, I never thought of looking up a skincare company and buying some. I just thought, I’m going to try making it. So I looked up a recipe and I, you know, bought some tallow and I started kind of tinkering in my kitchen and started using it.

And started sharing it with my family and they’re like, wow, this feels really nice. And I shared it with, um, a friend of mine who owns a non toxic refill shop, Philip Buttercup, so Jamie. And I told her, I said, I’m not asking you to sell this. I’m just, like, curious what you think. And she was like, oh my goodness, I’ve been wanting to use Tallow Skin Care.

I’ve been wanting to have it here. And so I started, um, just kind of perfecting, because at first, you know, it was very, just the consistency wasn’t right and everything. And I started, um, She said, you know, let’s get it perfected and let’s you know, try it out So I like I said tried it with my family I would bring in samples for her and her staff and then that’s kind of what got me started is we started selling it At fill up buttercup [00:04:00] and it just really kind of went like people were getting great results They were coming back and that’s you know, when I started doing some markets met you and it’s that’s what got me started I

Leigh Ann: Oh my gosh. I love this so much. What a pioneer you are to just be like, Nope, not trying anyone else’s just going to make my own right off the bat. I love that.

Jill King: Thank you. And I’m glad, you know, looking back, I was like, Oh, maybe I should have tried somebody’s, but now I’m glad I didn’t, because there was nothing to compare it to. And I think if I would have tried something like, Oh, it needs to feel like this, or it needs to look like this, or smell like this, but since I didn’t have that comparison, it was really just like, you know, just, wide open, you know, what do I want it to be like, and feel like, and, and experimenting

Leigh Ann: Well, and you were clearly following some like nudges, you know, some divine nudges towards something you were meant to be doing, you know? And I think that always kind of leads you on a path you’re meant to be on.

Jill King: I totally

Leigh Ann: Yeah. And like I said, I mean, I, I know that you were a young brand. And to see how much you’ve grown even in this [00:05:00] year, cause I think it’s been about a year that I’ve known, known you, known of you.

I’m over here like cheering in the background, just. Like, oh my gosh, you go girl. It’s only been two years and it looks like you’re doing amazing and I’m so happy.

Jill King: Thank

Leigh Ann: So with all that said, Honeybee Hippie, you know, honey is also a big part of what you’re using in your products. I guess maybe we should even back up and go give us the overview of the products.

Obviously, we’ve started talking about skincare and tallow, but maybe just give us the overview of what, what is kind of some of the range of products Honeybee Hippie has, and then we’ll start to break them down a little bit more.

Jill King: Okay. So I only make things that I want to use. So I started with the, with the tallow balms or the tallow whips. And um, that’s kind of the core of the product line. So there’s two blends right now. There’s the honey hydrate, which is the one I know

Leigh Ann: Oh my God. Obsessed. Mm-Hmm.

Jill King: you know, has the grass fed tallow, it has the Manuka honey.

It has some organic beeswax, um, [00:06:00] some olive, organic olive oil, and then there’s another blend called the natural mama. And that just has some different herbs infused into it and it doesn’t have the honey. So moms can use it for a nipple balm for breastfeeding. They can feel comfortable putting it on their infants, on their whole family, and just, and it just gives kind of a variety also for someone who, you know, they look at the ingredients and they might want to try something different.

So the, um, Those are kind of the core of the product line, I guess you’d say. It’s what started out and then I would lay in bed at night thinking, I really need something for my lips. I’ve tried every lip balm, lip butter on the market. They’re too greasy, too waxy to this, to that. And so that was one of the next ones like, I need to make a lip butter.

And so, you know, I have the, the hibiscus and honey

Leigh Ann: Mm-Hmm.

Jill King: It has some, Um, hibiscus powder in it. So it has a tiny bit of a tint, doesn’t go on dark, but to me it just kind of accentuates the lip color that you already have, like your, your own lip color. And then, you know, like I said, I would, Oh, I need a face [00:07:00] wash.

I’ve been, you know, wanting, I’ve been again out there looking for non toxic face wash, very confused at ingredients and learned about oil cleansing. And I tried the oil cleansing and it just was a little bit, I didn’t feel clean enough. And then when I started talking to, um, a skin therapist, we were talking about, you know, using honey as a, as a cleanser because it’s, you know, it kills bacteria and it’s such a great cleanser that, that’s when, Her and I talked and we, she gave me some ideas on, you know, mixing the honey and the oil together.

So that was the birth of the Honey Glow Face Wash. So that is a, um, it’s a soap free, and it’s honey and oil and herbs mixed together. Comes out kind of like a thick gel like consistency. And just cleans the face without stripping the micro, you know, stripping the skin of, um, the natural oils it maintains and protects the microbiome of the skin.

Cause you know, so many washes are just, it’s like when you dry your skin out, it just doesn’t [00:08:00] work, even for acne prone, you know. You want your skin to be balanced and hydrated and not over producing oils to try and compensate for the overly dry skin. So there’s the Honey Glow, um, there’s um, Hydrosol, the Rose Hydrosol, which gives your skin the water based moisture.

Great to use before putting on one of the talos. Um, I’m trying to think of some of the other products

Leigh Ann: I know you have some bath soaks. Actually, the hydrosols one, I haven’t tried yet. I’ll have to, I’ll have to get that one in my next order. Um, you have some bath soaks.

Jill King: Yes,

Leigh Ann: I think you just came out with the castor oil packs.

Jill King: Yes, so the castor oil pack is a Chinese herbal infused castor oils. There’s three blends and that’s my only collab product so far. So I actually collaborated with a friend of mine that is a, um, Chinese herbal medicine doctor. She’s an acupuncturist. She’s got three or four different degrees.

And that was actually her idea and her blend to. infuse the castor oil, you know, with these, [00:09:00] um, Chinese herbs to affect certain organs. And so there’s the digestion blend, there’s the, um, menstrual blend and the thyroid blend for

Leigh Ann: Oh my gosh. I love it. I know there’s so many. I just pulled up your website again and then I’m like, wow, there’s literally so many things here. The lotion bar, the, um, the tooth powder, the magnesium butter, which I’m obsessed

Jill King: tried that one

Leigh Ann: Oh yeah, I’m obsessed with it. And then

Jill King: that is one of my

Leigh Ann: so, so many amazing, amazing products.

Literally everything is gold. This is why I’m so excited to have you on because I just can’t wait for people to try. So let’s get into, there’s a couple like really key things I want to get into. Talking about Talo, benefits of Talo. I also really am excited to talk about Infusing herbs versus essential oils.

This is something I really, like one of the reasons I love what you’re doing so much, but let’s start with tallow and spend a little bit of time here, but for any who might not have ever [00:10:00] heard of it before, or it’s just kind of been in the ethers. They don’t really know what is tallow. Why is it so beneficial for skincare?

Jill King: So tallow is actually the fat from beef. It’s beef fat. And it’s funny because it’s like half the people have heard of it. It’s like, oh, I’ve heard of tallow skincare, that it’s great. And then half the people go, wait,

Leigh Ann: I know, as soon as

Jill King: what? Exactly. Beef fat? But yes, it’s the, it’s the fat that’s rendered down. So all the impurities are, you know, taken out of it.

It’s actually shelf stable, which is one of the big questions. Like, oh, do I have to keep it in the refrigerator? But once it’s rendered down and it’s, it’s shelf stable, so it is, it’s beef fat. But the thing that’s so amazing about it is, um, you know, so many people now are aware of how harmful seed oils are for our body to ingest them.

Well, it just makes sense that our skin’s the largest organ, and we want to feed our skin the same thing that’s good for our insides. And so the nice thing about tallow is it’s the closest composition to the human skin. So our own skin’s sebum, which is our oils, is [00:11:00] the closest composition to the tallow.

So it’s, it’s highly, it’s, uh, readily absorbed and it’s very, very hydrating and full of natural vitamins and minerals. So you see so much skincare it’s like, you know, vitamin C, vitamin this, but with tallow it already contains vitamins A, D, E, and K. And so you don’t need to add a bunch of stuff to it. And then obviously by fusing it, infusing it with the herbs, that also adds, you know, increased nutrition and benefits.

But it also has a great fatty acid profile that’s, um, like I said, just feed, really literally feeds your skin from the outside and feeds your body from the outside in.

Leigh Ann: and I know some people might be thinking, okay beef fat oil If I put this on my face, am I gonna break out? I want to talk about this and i’ll share my own experience too because I Have incredibly sensitive skin. I will break out in two seconds flat if it is not a really quality product even with some natural oils I [00:12:00] can break out so easily and tallow is like the the only oil really that I use on my face that is like literally just so nutrient dense and my skin absolutely loves it.

But can you speak to that too for a second of why that doesn’t need to be a concern?

Jill King: Yeah, that’s what a lot of people ask me that. Well, isn’t it going to clog my pores? Because it does sound like you’re putting fat on your face. You’d think it would clog your pores, but tallow is actually very low on the comedogenic scale. So comedogenic is It’s how much it clogs your pores. It’s very low on the comedogenic scale.

It’s the same as jojoba oil, which a lot of people, you know, love for their skin. So that’s what you, when you, when you’re talking about breaking out or acne prone skin, you want to stay away from anything that is in even the middle to high, you know, to higher range on the comedogenic scale. Want to stay away from like cocoa butter, coconut oil, those types of oils are higher on the comedogenic scale, but tallow is very low.

Leigh Ann: Yeah for me one of the things I love too and I think this this is when you know it’s [00:13:00] so bioavailable is it actually absorbs so quickly into my skin.

Jill King: Yes.

Leigh Ann: the skin just sucks it right in, versus sometimes when you’re using other oil based products, you feel like it’s just kind of sitting on top of your skin for a long, long time, which I hate that feeling.

And of course, now I use it all over, you know, on my hands, if I get a sunburn, if I,

Jill King: Mm hmm.

Leigh Ann: if I get a, I had a bee sting the other day, I was putting it on my bee sting. You know, so many different things, so.

Jill King: And you’re correct. It’s so healing to so many different things. Eczema, um, psoriasis, um, I’m trying to think. Somebody just sent me a message about their little baby with cradle cap and they said they put the tallow on the cradle cap and it’s the only thing that took it away. So yeah, it helps with so much skin

Leigh Ann: Yeah, you know, I even like, I, it goes on my eyebrows and I like put it around my eyes and I mean, my nails, my eyebrows and my eyelashes grow so much faster when I use your [00:14:00] tallow stuff. It’s amazing. Yeah.

Jill King: that is amazing.

Leigh Ann: so cool, especially for someone who has like blonde, you know, blonde eyebrows, blonde eyelashes to have like that good growth from a completely non toxic product.

I love that. Amazing. And to the point we made earlier, so you have a couple of the balms that really you can use on so many things. Actually, I just had a friend the other day say, Oh, I didn’t even realize you could use the balm for your face. I just use it for my hands and my body. And I was like, no, girl, get that on your face immediately.

Jill King: get, I get people like, Is it okay for your face to make this design for the face? It’s like, for the face, you can use it on the body. But yeah, you can use it

Leigh Ann: yes. And then actually you came out with kind of the like pump jars of the magnesium butter. And then I think the California sunshine that is actually easier to use on the body.

Jill King: Correct.

Leigh Ann: what I want to talk about now is the herbal infusions versus essential oils. What made you decide to go that route? And then let’s break that down a little bit.

Jill King: did a [00:15:00] deep dive. I can’t remember where I first heard. I used to be like the essential oil queen. I had cabinets full. I would use it on everything. I would, you know, when something comes out, you’re like, Oh, it’s it’s a miracle. Let’s try it on

Leigh Ann: Yeah,

Jill King: And I started hearing that, well, they’re so potent, they’re so strong.

And there was a study that I heard that they did with I think it was little boys with lavender essential oil, and they said that it was changing, it was affecting their hormones. And that really piqued my interest, like, oh my goodness, like I’ve been, you know, slathering, my kids were, you know, putting the diffusers on for a long time.

And so I looked into it and just really, you know, went down that rabbit hole with essential oils. And although I’m not completely against them for everything, I do think they have a place in, you know, healing and medicine. I really just came to the conclusion that I don’t, um, care for them for the skin.

Um, they’re very concentrated. To get one drop of essential oil, it can take up to a pound of herbs. And so, even if you look up recipes on how to, you know, make different [00:16:00] things, it’ll, you know, a little lip balm can say, you know, 15 drops of essential oil. And so you just sit there and you think about it, it’s like, Okay, 15 drops, if it can be up to a pound, would you ever in nature put 15 pounds of a component of an herb into anything?

And no, and so, it’s just to me, they’re, they’re too, um, strong, they’re too concentrated, and the other thing is, they don’t give you the whole spectrum of the herb. So herbs have so many great, um, components to them, and when you take the, only the essential oil, you’re only getting one of those components.

It’s kind of like, um, like orange juice versus eating the whole orange. Like if you want, you know, you juice an orange, you get this much orange juice, you’d have to juice 15 oranges to get a glass, and then at that point, it’s just not. always as good for you because you’re getting, you’re not getting the whole orange, all the fiber and everything.

And that’s kind of a analogy I guess you could use with essential oils. Instead of getting, you know, the whole goodness, you’re just getting one aspect. Plus they’re volatile, meaning that they break [00:17:00] down with heat and light. And so it just really makes it made sense to me that if you’re going to put something on your skin, you don’t want to go out in the sun and have it break down because that can cause oxidation, can cause aging.

Um, just all host of other problems and, you know, like I said, when I did that kind of rabbit hole deep dive and then learned about herbal infusions, it just really made sense to me that, you know, taking the time to infuse them with the whole herb, it’s very natural, it’s um, very gentle on the skin and to me very effective.

Leigh Ann: This was something, because I had previously been using a different Talo brand before I had even heard of you, who used essential oils, and I guess, I think when you’re coming from conventional skincare, the fact that someone would be using only essential oils versus nothing else that, that’s toxic is really exciting because you’re like, okay, thank, you know, thank God finally someone who’s not putting fake fragrance, fragrances and all these different things in there.

But, so I was [00:18:00] using that for a bit and loved it. However, I got to a point in like 2021 where I just really feel like I started reacting to the essential oils and in weird ways, too, where I just, my skin would feel kind of burny, but even to the point where I was having bad odor. Like bad armpit odor, and as soon as I cut all of the essential oils out, and I was big in it too, you know, I would diffuse them, they’d be in all my skincare.

Um, when I cut the essential oils out, the odor went away, the skin irritation went away, and that just for me was kind of that sign of, okay, yeah, it is, at least for me, a little too intense. And so when I found Honeybee Hippie, I was I haven’t found another tallow product that I know of that infuses and doesn’t use essential oils.

So it’s, you know, it was so exciting for me. And to your point, I think it is so, so gentle. And I didn’t even know that piece about the essential oil is just a product. [00:19:00] component of it, you’re missing out on so many other nutrients when you actually diffuse it into an oil versus when you distill the whole herb.

But I really do feel like your products are so gentle. I mean, I’ve used them for over a year now and have never had a single issue.

Jill King: I get a lot of people actually that give me kind of that same story that they’ve used other products and either gotten rashes, broken out, felt their skin burning, um, one girl even had like a huge, um, gash or something on her forehead and she said it was another tallow product that used essential

Leigh Ann: Oh my gosh.

Jill King: And I think the reason is because a lot of people want to cover the smell of the tallow because, you know, it’s a natural beef product. And so in order to use essential oils for a smell, you have to put a lot in there to get that, you know, people, first thing they do is open something up and smell it.

When you have that strong smell, even though, like you said, it’s not a fragrance, it’s essential oil, you have to use quite a bit to get that, that strong scent and it just can be too strong and too [00:20:00] powerful for the skin.

Leigh Ann: Well, to that end, how do, how do you, how do your products not have a smell? Cause there’s no, no bad smell to it. They’re amazing.

Jill King: Um, the herbal infusion really does, it naturally just

Leigh Ann: Oh, that’s amazing.

Jill King: smell. I call it a fresh smell because you don’t really smell a certain herb necessarily to me, but it just kind of has that, that fresh smell and it is, it is from the infusion.

Leigh Ann: No, the honey, I mean, the honey one, I feel like I actually can ever so slightly smell the honey in it and I’m just Absolutely obsessed. Like I said, I use it everywhere. So that’s amazing. Let’s talk a little bit about some of the other, some of the other products. So the tallow balms are your main products.

Again, it’s tallow infused. Oh, this is what I wanted to ask. I remember. Tell me about the infusion process though. I mean, how does that even work? Are you, how do you get that in the tallow? Cause the tallow is, I think initially kind of hard.

Jill King: Correct. So there’s [00:21:00] two ways to infuse. There’s cold infusion and then there’s a warm infusion. So oils that you don’t want to bring to a high temperature, um, that you do a cold infusion. So basically. filling the jar with the herbs, putting the oil over the herbs, and then just letting it sit, and it just, it does its work to extract it.

Kind of like you would, well, the cold infusion is different, but the, the warm infusion, which is what I do with the tallow, is kind of like making tea. You know how you, you get the herbs, you pour the hot water. Basically, tea is an herbal infusion, if you really think about it. And then you drink the tea, you get all the benefits from the herbs, but you strain the herbs out.

And so the infusion really is a extracting the benefits, and then taking the actual herb doesn’t stay in the product. Um, sometimes I see things like infused with, I even see words like infused with essential oils, and I’m thinking, you don’t really infuse them, that just means they’re added. I think the word infused sounds so fancy that a lot of people like to use it.

But a true infusion, you’re getting the components out, and then you’re straining the, you know, the herb out, and [00:22:00] you’re, You’re keeping the

Leigh Ann: Mm hmm.

Jill King: So, the tallow is a warm infusion because tallow is, um, a product that is not sensitive to heat. That’s why it’s great to cook with. And so with the tallow, what I do is with a double boiler, putting the herbs into the tallow, heating that water up underneath it, getting the tallow to melt with the herbs in it, keeping it on a simmer for a while, and then I actually turn it off.

And I let it sit for a few days because it takes a tallow a while and it’s liquid and let the herbs extract out of there, but it’s much quicker with a, with a warm infusion. So with the warm infusion, you can do it, you know, even a couple hours or like I said, a few days with the cold infusion. I like to let my cold infusion sit for usually about a month, sometimes two weeks, but usually about a month is what I like to shoot for just to get that full goodness out of the herb.

Leigh Ann: Yeah.

Jill King: So like the castor oils are a cold infusion. Anytime I would infuse into, you know, um, castor, um, jojoba, olive oil, those are all done with a cold infusion.[00:23:00]

Leigh Ann: hmm. And then, you know, it’s funny because I follow you, of course, on Instagram and I see your beehive. Is that where you’re getting your honey from? Or no, it doesn’t produce that much to actually get the honey for your

Jill King: Yeah, it doesn’t produce enough. And we had the beehive was literally like, Ten feet outside my kitchen window and my back door and it was amazing like just watching it But my grandbaby moved here from Texas. They lived with us for about two months So right now the bees are with a beekeeper at some point We want to get them back and try it again But just with him coming over all the time and living here, we don’t have the bees right now But it is we did that for a couple years.

It’s an amazing

Leigh Ann: Oh, yeah.

Jill King: I’ve learned so much and just really just appreciate you know Bees beekeepers, um, honey, so much more. But I do get my honey from a local beekeeper. Um, and it is raw honey in Orange County.

Leigh Ann: Yeah, can we talk about some of the honey products? And again, just for any who might not be familiar, [00:24:00] benefits of honey for the skin. And then, yes, I want to talk about some of the honey products that you have that are more like, I know you have the face mask, you’ve got the face wash we mentioned.

Jill King: Um, well, just like tallow honey is great for the skin too. It’s a natural product. It actually never expires. Honey is, it’s been used for thousands of years as a medicinal product and it has so many vitamins, minerals, nutrients, and it’s just, it’s great for your inside.

It’s great for your outside. It’s antibacterial, antimicrobial, great for acne prone skin, really any skin. It provides hydration, nutrients, and really just cleans the pores. It’s a It’s a, it’s a wonderful, I mean, just, it’s so, it’s so good. And, you know, learning how, what you can do with it, with the skin, just, it really excited me that you could, you know, just put something so natural and so beautiful onto the skin and to have it

Leigh Ann: yeah, we really don’t have to over complicate things,

Jill King: I

Leigh Ann: you know, I think so much [00:25:00] of modern beauty modern skincare is Weirdly over complicated where it’s actually like nature has given us Really everything we need need of course now, maybe beauty standards are a little different So we feel like we need more but it’s so simple and so nutrient dense and that’s the beauty of it

Jill King: Correct. And I like that anybody could do it. You know, if somebody really wanted to, it’s not something that’s so proprietary that you have to have all these special equipment and special machines. If anybody wanted to, you know, get in their kitchen and mix up some honey, throw some herbs in there, make themselves a, you know, a DIY face mask.

I mean, I encourage people, it’s not that hard. It’s, it’s fun, it’s so, um, rewarding, and I, I love seeing people, you know, even reach out sometimes. I’m trying to make my own thing, can you help me? And I’ll, sure, try this, add this, try blending it this way. It’s just, it’s amazing.

Leigh Ann: I absolutely love that. Tell us about, cause you have a honey face mask and [00:26:00] I’m not recalling right now. Is that actually a raw honey face mask or with the infusion process, do you, does it, do you have to heat it up a little bit so it’s not raw anymore?

Jill King: So that one’s actually not an infusion. It’s actually the herbs just added to it. So it’s, yeah, so it is raw honey. It has, um, cinnamon, which is great for, um, anti inflammation, anti inflammatory, really good for, um, detoxing the skin. It has bentonite clay in it, which is also great for pulling toxins out of the skin.

Um, trying to think what else calendula powder and a little castor oil. So really it’s designed to hydrate, but. Really just to, um, just to pull those toxins out and to detoxify the skin.

Leigh Ann: Yeah. Again, I just love it so, so much. And then there’s one other honey. Oh, your honey, your honey face wash. Mm

Jill King: so there’s the Honey Glow Face Wash, the, the Honey Mask, um, there is Manuka Honey in the Honey Hydrate, which is the one you like, and also in the Lip Butter.

Leigh Ann: Oh, yes, yes, [00:27:00] yes, yes. Okay. Amazing. And then I also wanted to, because these are newer products that I haven’t tried or maybe they’re just seem new to me and I haven’t tried them yet. I would love to learn more about the Miracle Mud.

Jill King: The Miracle Mud is an amazing product. That’s another one I get a lot of people, um, coming back to me and saying that it’s helped their eczema.

Leigh Ann: Uh huh.

Jill King: So, the Miracle Mud has the same herbs as the natural Mamatalo. It’s infused with, um, Um, Lavender, Calendula, Chamomile, and Marshmallow Root.

But it also adds the Bentonite Clay. And again, Bentonite Clay is a detoxifier. It binds to toxins and pulls them out of the skin. So it has the Bentonite Clay, um, some Beeswax. Beeswax is another just amazing skin healing, um, product. Um, I use that in a lot of, um, A lot of the products have a little bit of beeswax, um, not just to help with the consistency, but also because it is so great for the skin.

Leigh Ann: Mm hmm.

Jill King: And then, trying to think what else [00:28:00] is in there. There’s, I think there’s some shea butter in the, in the Miracle Mud. And it’s great because it started out as a baby, I called it Baby Bum.

Leigh Ann: Oh, yeah.

Jill King: And then I wanted, well, I want people to be able to use it on more than just a diaper rash. And so that’s when it kind of transitioned into Miracle Mud.

So I try to let people know this is a diaper rash balm, but you can use it anywhere. You know, eczema, um, cradle

Leigh Ann: Mm hmm.

Jill King: cuts, scrapes, um, bug bites, you know, anything, any kind of skin lesion.

Leigh Ann: And then is it something that you’re leaving on or is it more like a mask that you’re taking it off?

Jill King: You can leave it on. Yeah.

Leigh Ann: Okay. Um, yeah, that’s one of the ones that I’ve, I’ve seen recently that I haven’t gotten to try. And then just as I’m going through your hydrosol.

Jill King: That one is actually a new product we’re announcing today. I didn’t even know that it was active on there yet. to talk to my daughter. She was supposed to put it on there, and I’m gonna get on and get all the descriptions on

Leigh Ann: Yeah, it’s up there. I guess it says [00:29:00] sold out. So maybe she has to put it in

Jill King: yeah. Yeah, so it’ll be, it’ll be ready tonight.

Leigh Ann: All the details. Oh, that’s amazing. Yeah. I mean, I just, I’d love to hear more of what goes into choosing, you know, because I do think as a business owner, it can be so easy to just go, okay, what’s. What’s the trends? Let’s just make trendy products. What are the trendy ingredients right now? And I know that’s not the process.

And you already said, even to some extent, I make the products I want to use. But even, for example, with this butterfly pea hydrosol, what, how do you make that decision of, Okay, this is of the thousands and thousands of hydrosols I could make. This is why I want to choose this one.

Jill King: You know, I just love to learn about herbs, and then periodically I’ll learn about an herb and just fall in love with its benefits and just I started drinking butterfly peaflower tea and then my son was making some butterfly peaflower lemonade and I started looking into, I wonder what it, you know, it’s such good, great skin benefits and that’s how that one was born.

It [00:30:00] also has, um, helichrysum in it.

Leigh Ann: don’t know what that is.

Jill King: helichrysum is another herb that is really good for skin healing. So that, yeah, so that hydrosol is butterfly peaflower and helichrysum.

Leigh Ann: Mm hmm.

Jill King: And I’m really excited about it. Hydrosols are amazing because they’re actually made, uh, steam distillation of herbs. And so you take the herbs as a copper still, and the water, you know, steams up, goes in, and then recondenses and comes out as the hydrosol.

And it’s really great, like I said before, to use. prior to using, um, the tallow, any of the lotions or any oils because our skin needs both. Our skin needs water moisture and it needs oil moisture. And so when you get a lotion, that’s kind of what a lotion is. It’s a water and oil mix, but obviously water and oil don’t mix unless you have chemicals.

So what this does, it just separates the two without having the chemicals to have a mix. It separates the two. So you get the water moisture and then you kind of seal it [00:31:00] in with the oil moisture of the tallow.

Leigh Ann: Okay. I’m so glad you’re saying this because I just use the tallow and you’re making me want to experiment with the hydrosols a little bit. So that’s just quick spritz, you know, whatever morning or evening before you put on whatever the other things are.

Jill King: yes, perfect before using. So you just spritz your face, your face is a little moist, add your tallow on, and then I just keep one in my kitchen. I love to just walk by and like, you know, a little refresher spritz here and

Leigh Ann: All day long. Yeah.

Jill King: And you can use it on your hair, you know, you want to refresh your hair, you spritz it, you know, you have straight hair, but with curly hair, it’s always like scrunching it up, you know, spritzing it.

That’s why when you live in like a human environment, a humid environment, you’ll hear people that live in like Arizona. It’s like my skin’s just so dry because they don’t get that water based moisture. That’s just in the air.

So yeah, our skin really benefits from both. We need water, water, moisture, and we need. a oil moisture and so that’s why it really makes sense too to use the hydrosol prior because your skin will kind of [00:32:00] absorb the water moisture more and then once you put that oil moisture and especially the tallow, the tallow really helps to, um, build the skin, um, protective barrier and it really seals in that water moisture.

So it works great together.

Leigh Ann: yeah. And you know what I will say is the Talo is such a good, um, even like makeup base. I just use, I don’t really use makeup, makeup. I use like a tinted sunscreen, a tinted like zinc sunscreen on my face. That is basically my daily makeup and it makes it go on so smooth.

Jill King: Yes. I always, being in 50, I like to say it kind of fills in the little, you know, wrinkles right here. I’ll kind of like dab it around my eyes and then put a little powder or something. And yes, I agree. It, it really does help with the smoothness and, and kind of glowing of the skin.

Leigh Ann: Oh my gosh. So has your life just changed so much these last two years? I mean, you were a mom, it sounds like, you know, it sounds like your four kids were out of the house, [00:33:00] going off into their adult lives, maybe for the most part, and now you’re just like this full time amazing chemist basically over here mixing up these amazing concoctions.

Jill King: Yeah, it has changed. I still have a 14 year old at the house and he is homeschooled right now. So there’s, you know, making the products is still, I guess you’d say a part time, but it, it has been so much, it’s been so much fun. Um, my daughter, she runs the social media, she’s a photographer, so she really helps me with a lot of the marketing.

It’s been kind of a family affair and it’s just been, it’s been amazing.

Leigh Ann: It’s so special. I love that. But you know, it’s just so fun to when you zoom out and you go, I don’t know, five years ago, would you have ever guessed this is where you’d be?

Jill King: Definitely not. Yeah, I would, I would have never guessed it. It really did happen very organically and it’s, um, it’s, I call it my passion project. So,

Leigh Ann: I mean, those are, those are the best ones so often. And, and I think the most sustainable ones too, because [00:34:00] it’s coming from such an authentic place and you feel that I, I, I feel that when I use your products, that there is so much care and intention that goes behind it.

Jill King: Thank you. That’s definitely the, I mean, I pray over my products. I, I really do just, I really want to help people, especially, you know, knowing where I was with my skin and I had dabbled in the toxic skincare, toxic, you know, Botox and fillers years ago and really just wanted to get away from that and trying to, um, just help people, you know, this graceful aging is so much nicer and being okay with.

You know, as you’re aging, it’s like we don’t have to have zero wrinkles. It’s just part of nature. You know, it’s

Leigh Ann: yeah. And also you don’t need 10 products

Jill King: agree.

Leigh Ann: to age gracefully. You just need maybe like two or three really high quality ones, really

Jill King: Simplicity is simplicity is very important to me and that’s why I don’t want to do an eye cream and [00:35:00] I really kind of control myself as sometimes like, Oh, it’d be really cool to make this, but The products are so versatile like you said you can like there’s a hair oil that you can use on your eyelashes your eyebrows Your skin even it’s just it’s herbal infused.

So it’s just it’s so nice You can put it on your hair and I try and make Just a very made a simple product line that like you said you can use for multiple things Without feeling like you’ve got to go buy, you know, all these different things for your Your eyes, and your lips, and your this, and you know, your neck has to have something different than your body.

It’s, no, you can just use it for

Leigh Ann: Yeah, yeah. Well, to that end, you know, such a versatile product in some ways is like a marketing nightmare because you can’t just list it’s for everything,

Jill King: Right. Yes, you’re

Leigh Ann: even though it really is. I mean, this is I know exactly what this is like, in some ways, and what I do with, you know, my Evox and the subconscious work where it’s like, it’s like, Yeah, I could, I can work with just about [00:36:00] any person, whether it’s anxiety, depression, cancer, chronic illness.

But you do, you know, it’s hard to market that. You want to be more refined at it.

Jill King: Right. Yeah, you’re, you’re very correct. It is, and like, even with the hair oil, it’s called hair and beard oil. And part of me thinks, oh, if it had just a beard oil, probably more men would buy it. Or if it was just a hair oil, maybe more women would buy

Leigh Ann: Yeah, or eyelash serum. Okay, then that’s a whole different thing. Yeah, it’s all of that in one completely. Okay, well take us through your like daily honeybee hippie routine. Like, what does a day in the life of Jill look like when she’s using her Honeybee Hippie products?

Jill King: As far as what I use on

Leigh Ann: Yeah, totally, totally. And how you use them and in what order.

Jill King: Okay. Um, like you said, I make things that I want to use, so I pretty much use all of , all of them. My go-to when I leave the house is the towel bar and the lip butter. I make sure to [00:37:00] keep that with me because Tell Bar is so versatile. You can rub it on your hands, put it on your lips, use it.

on your face. If you want to do that. I mean, it’s, it’s a great product and the lip butter. My lip butter is my go to because I don’t really use lipstick or anything. I just put the lip butter on. But as far as a daily routine, um, I’ll start with, I guess the night I would shower and wash with the Honey Glow, get out, spritz with the Hydrosol.

I have the Rose Hydrosol and then the Butterfly one coming out. And then use one of the Talos, either the Honey Hydrate or the Natural Mama on my face. And then before I go to bed, I’ll typically take the hair oil and I’ll put it, you know, on my eyelashes and eyebrows. Um, sometimes I’ll, you know, just do the tips of my hair.

I tend to have very, you know, dry, frizzy, curly hair. And then I’ve been using the, um, menstrual relief, um, castor oil at night. And so I’ll put that along for me, for it’s not for menstrual, it’s for menopause.

Leigh Ann: yeah.

Jill King: cause it [00:38:00] helps with all the women’s, you know, balancing of hormones and

Leigh Ann: Oh, amazing.

Jill King: I’ll put that on periodically.

I’ll use the digestion one. And I’ll, you know, lay the cotton packs over and just go to sleep with those

Leigh Ann: That is such a good idea. I love that, you know, when I, in 2020, had my early stage breast cancer diagnosis. Castor oil packs were something my doctor wanted me to do. But it was honestly such a nightmare and such a mess. That I just was like, I don’t know how to make this work. Now I think in the four years since then things have changed and there’s so much more usable, but you’re kind of, again, like, I’m so glad we’re having this conversation because so many of the new products you have, I’m like, Oh yeah.

Okay. That feels more accessible now. Yeah. I should try that. Especially sleep. I, I’m, I love. optimizing sleep because it’s like however much I can get done in this time that I’m just laying here not moving for eight hours.

Jill King: Yes.

Leigh Ann: Why not? So I love that you’re doing the castor oils at night.

Jill King: And [00:39:00] then that’s for my, like, face, for my body for the castor oil, but then the other thing I use at night before I go to bed is I’ll, you know, get out of the shower, do the California sunshine on my body. Sometimes I’ll use that for my face if I, I kind of switch back and forth between the, the balms and that for my face.

And then the magnesium butter. I put that on my legs and my feet every night

Leigh Ann: yeah. Let’s spend a second there on both of those, particularly the magnesium because, well, I’ll let you explain those products to us and why you wanted to create them.

Jill King: Well, okay, so I’ve bought magnesium oil before and basically magnesium, uh, topical magnesium is magnesium chloride. It’s the same magnesium you’d get from the

Leigh Ann: Mm hmm.

Jill King: to, um, our bodies need magnesium for pretty much every function. Like it supports, I want to say like over six or 700 functions in the human body rely on magnesium.

Our heart, our brain, our sleep, our hormones, everything relies on [00:40:00] magnesium. Well, when we’re under stress, magnesium is one of the first minerals that’s depleted. And it’s like, who’s not under stress, you know? So, so pretty much we’re all deficient in magnesium. And so you can take an, there’s many different types of magnesium.

And you can take an oral magnesium, which can be very beneficial. But, a lot of people get stomach upset from them. And it’s also hard to give to a child, you know, give them an oral magnesium. So using a topical magnesium chloride is just a really great way to just get that added. Benefit of magnesium into your body and topical absorption, I mean, we know that anything you put on your skin gets absorbed straight into the

Leigh Ann: Mm hmm.

Jill King: into the bloodstream, and so there’s, um, there’s magnesium sprays, and I’ve used those in the past, but they’re, um, basically it’s magnesium chloride and water, and it turns into like an oily substance when you mix them together, but when you use the spray, it’s very, the, Stings the skin a lot of times.

It’s very drying and it just doesn’t feel, it’s like sticky and it doesn’t, it just doesn’t feel nice on [00:41:00] the body. And so what this does is this mixes the magnesium chloride and water, which is the magnesium oil, with a tallow base and then there’s some cocoa butter and um, olive oil and, I’m trying to think what else is in there, um, sweet almond

Leigh Ann: Mm hmm.

Jill King: And so it’s kind of a lotion y consistency, and it’s a great way to get that, and it has a lot of the magnesium chloride in there. So it’s a great way to get the magnesium chloride topically. And it’s, to me it also increases the absorption because it also has some castor oil in it. And castor oil penetrates deep into the body, um, tallow is readily absorbed.

And so it’s a great avenue to get the magnesium chloride into the, you know, on the skin into the body. And at the same time, you get this, you know, great lotion, hydration, so really you don’t need to use anything else on like your legs and feet or wherever you’re using it. And it can be used on achy muscles, on joints.

I just had a lady send me a message yesterday and said I use it, she uses it after she works out and she [00:42:00] goes, it’s like I didn’t even work out, I’m not sore

Leigh Ann: Oh my gosh.

Jill King: a lot of different

Leigh Ann: Yeah. Well, to, to your point, let’s, let’s multitask as much as we can here. Just a simple magnesium spray. Yeah. Maybe that’ll do the trick, but then you’ve got to go then on top of that and put your lotions or your whatever it is. So to be able to just one and done with the lotion or with the, yeah, the magnesium tallow.

Completely. And then tell us about the Sunshine because that was a new product this year. Are we going to get that year round or is that just a summer product?

Jill King: No, that’s year round. Yeah, that’s year round. So, people were asking for a bigger jar of the tallow butters. And, I’m like, I just like to pump something. It’s just, to me, it’s so much easier to spread all over your body instead of, you know, digging into the jar and stuff. And so, that’s kind of how that one was born, is I wanted something that I could, you know, for a body, body oil or body lotion.

And so, that has the tallow and it’s herbal infused with jasmine [00:43:00] and orange. And then it’s mixed, the tallow is mixed with, um, castor oil with sweet almond oil and jojoba oil. And so it has that lotion y feel, lotion y oily feel, I guess, a little thicker than an oil. And, um, yeah, I mean, I, I love that product.

I mean, the orange brings extra, you know, vitamin C nutrition and it just, like I said, you can use it on your face. It’s a body oil, but you could use it on your face as well. None of the oils are comedogenic and I do like that for my face as

Leigh Ann: Yeah. Ooh. I’ll have to try that sometime on the face. To your point, having the pump is so much easier and I use it so much more for the rest of my body. And also, yeah, the little

Jill King: And it spreads easier because it’s a thinner consistency. It spreads nice on the

Leigh Ann: Yeah, yeah, completely. I’m trying to think, I know I’ve already talked so much about my favorites, but I use, yes, I use the honey hydrate every single night, and then I have the magnesium butter and the California sunshine ones that I use [00:44:00] on my body, and then the lip balm, um, or whatever, whatever it’s called.

That, like, comes with me everywhere. That’s like my security blanket. I do not go anywhere without that. It’s so, so amazing. Those are, those are, I think, the ones that I use. Every single day. Yes!

Jill King: some of the other things to

Leigh Ann: Oh, I know. Yes, that’ll be so fun. I think that’ll be really good. And you know what’s really funny about the hydrosol, particularly the roses?

Like there’s something in my orbit with roses like rose stuff just keeps popping up, you know Whether it’s like on a feed or a friend talking about it. I’m like, okay, there’s something with roses I’m smart. I’m supposed to like look into even just the symbolism right in in depth psychology, which I’m studying

Jill King: Mm hmm.

Leigh Ann: We believe in synchronicity.

We believe in like if If something keeps coming to you, there’s a message in it, or there’s something there for you, so look into it. And there’s just been a lot of rose stuff coming to me lately, so I’m like, okay, what’s the symbolism of rose? I need to look into this a [00:45:00] little bit. But it’s also just so nourishing.

Jill King: Yes, absolutely. Very, very good for the skin. Um, roses are very hydrating, help to build collagen. They’re wonderful. And they’re also, I do infuse the rose into the honey hydrate, which is the one you

Leigh Ann: Oh my gosh, yeah. I mean, that’s just like the end all be all Holy Grail for me. I love it so much. My sister in law loves the natural mama. And she, she’s same. Like, she uses that on everything. And when she had her first I think she got herself a cute little like honeybee hippie kit with all the essentials and she absolutely loves it.

So anything new, exciting, what’s on the horizon for you? I mean, I feel like that’s, it’s so soon to ask that because you’re still so early into everything, but any other things that you can share with us to look forward

Jill King: the butterfly hydrosol, like we talked about, is going to be on the website tonight and we’ll announce that on the Instagram. Um, 2025 probably won’t [00:46:00] come out with as many new products Really just kind of working on everything else getting systems going But people are asking for tallow deodorant, so you never know you never know

Leigh Ann: You’ve gotta let me know!

Jill King: play with that one for a while because that is another product That’s hard to find not full of essential oils because they everybody wants it to have that strong smell so I want to really think about what herbs would be great to infuse into it

Leigh Ann: Oh my gosh.

Jill King: of play with the recipe and stuff.

Leigh Ann: That was like the best thing you could’ve said. I can’t wait. Yes, you’ll have to let I will test anything for you. I

Jill King: And then, you know, there’s also a new herbal sitz bath for the postpartum

Leigh Ann: Oh, amazing.

Jill King: And that’s a great

Leigh Ann: are the bath soaks?

Jill King: Well, there’s no, there’s the bath soaks which have the dead sea salt in it, but there’s also, it’s called an herbal sits bath, and it comes in a bag and it has five, um, bags of herbs that moms [00:47:00] can use for a sits bath, for a, like they can put a, make a tea and put it as a spray or put it in their peri bottle after giving

Leigh Ann: Oh, that’s so amazing.

Jill King: that comes in the mama bundle as well. So, yeah, that’s a, that’s a fun product, I love that

Leigh Ann: I know.

Jill King: trying to get that information out for the new

Leigh Ann: Yeah. Oh, you should. I mean, we could do a whole episode on just mother support

Jill King: Mm hmm,

Leigh Ann: and how so much of this can go into mother support. But yeah, the natural mama bundle, you guys. Is such a great gift. We’re coming up into the holidays, so a great holiday gift. But also any new mom, any expecting parents, that’s such an easy little like super clean nourishing gift to give. I love it so much. Well, thank you. This has been so fun. Like I said, I was, I was really excited to hear some of the backstory to the origin of Honeybee Hippie. And I know I really encourage guys follow, follow Honeybee Hippie on Instagram because you do have pop ups. You do a lot of fun events. It’s super informative.

I, you have such a great Instagram. [00:48:00] Your daughter’s killing it with the photography, by the way.

Jill King: oh, thank

Leigh Ann: Yeah, it’s amazing. Yes. Well, thank you so much. Can you tell people, I’ll make sure it’s all linked below, but tell people where they can find you, website, Instagram.

Jill King: The website is honeybeehippie. com. Instagram is shophoneybeehippie. Um, if you’re local to Orange County, the Fillip Buttercup, like I talked about, they have the whole product line. Um, most of the product line is also at Reformation Refill in Glendora. It’s another refill shop. Um, there’s many products now at the Ecology Center.

Um, there’s some other, you know, places in New York and Oregon and some different, um, I’m trying to think where else. Some yoga

Leigh Ann: Amazing.

Jill King: estheticians now that are starting to carry a few things. But if you’re looking just to get like the whole product line, Philip Buttercup or Reformation Refill, which is the one not in Orange County, would be the places to go

Leigh Ann: Yeah. As a side note, have you talked to Fermentation Farm at all?

Jill King: You know, I [00:49:00] haven’t, but I would love to. So if you know anybody there, let me know.

Leigh Ann: I mean, indirectly, not directly, but that just seems like a no brainer

Jill King: Yeah, I have been asked that before, and that would be a very

Leigh Ann: that’d be so fun. And I’m partial to that. Well, I have the ecology center right by me, so I can get your stuff there if I really need to, but they just opened up the new firm farm over

Jill King: Yeah, I know I want to make it out

Leigh Ann: Oh, it’s so fun.

That’s such a cool shopping center. So we’re getting on a, on a tangent, but yeah, I think that’d be such a great. You know, kismet connection for you guys, too. Well, thank you so much, Jill. Like I said, for the listeners, everything will be linked in the show notes, especially my favorite products. I’ll make sure those each have their own link.

But definitely, you know, go through the website, try something. You guys are going to love it.

Jill King: thank you so much for having me on this opportunity to, to share

Leigh Ann: Oh, it’s so, so fun. I’m so grateful for the time to get to chat.