Heritage
A house, in its own words
The story starts with Burt Shavitz, a photojournalist turned beekeeper living in Maine, and Roxanne Quimby, a single mother with a fine arts background who had moved north from the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1984, Shavitz picked up Quimby while she was hitchhiking in his yellow Datsun, and the two struck up a partnership that would define natural personal care in America. Quimby began molding candles from beeswax scraps that Shavitz had no use for, selling them at craft fairs and to local shops. The candles took off, and by 1989 the pair were shipping hundreds of products weekly out of their Bangor, Maine operation. The 1990s brought expansion into soaps and the now-iconic beeswax lip balm, which turned a small regional business into a national name. Quimby drove most of that growth, while Shavitz remained the face of the brand until tensions over direction led to his departure. In 2007, the company entered fragrance with Natural Cologne, extending its nature-based ethos into a new category. Shavitz passed away in 2015 at age 80, by which point Burt's Bees had become a household name far beyond the backroads of Maine. Burt's Bees was built on the principle that what you put on your body should be as close to nature as possible. From the earliest beeswax candles to the 2007 Natural Cologne, the brand has approached formulation with a simple idea in mind: ingredients sourced from the natural world, with minimal synthetic interference. Quimby and Shavitz did not set out to launch a beauty empire. They set out to use what the bees gave them. That grounding in utility rather than image has shaped every product the company has released. The fragrance line carries that same sensibility. Natural Cologne was conceived as an accessible, earth-derived scent for everyday wear rather than a statement of luxury. The brand's commitment to transparency about ingredients, and to formulas that lean on plant-based components, reflects a belief that natural personal care should be the baseline, not a niche premium.