According to the Burt's Bees website, their history is a lot of "minding their own beeswax." Roxanne Quimby relates how she struggled to support her three children by "buying low and selling high at flea markets" and how Burt was similarly just getting by, selling the honey his bees produced from the back of his pickup truck. One day, Burt showed Roxanne that he had been storing all his beeswax in a shed, thinking he'd "get around to" using it for "something" one day. The pair decided Roxanne could make candles from the wax, and after making $200 at one county fair selling beeswax candles for $3 a pair, the duo knew they were on to something. They rented an old one-room schoolhouse from a friend for $150 a year, which gave Roxanne and her children somewhere to live other than a tent, and also became the "corporate headquarters" of the now successful Burt's Bees.

Although Roxanne insists that, other than Burt buying a classic motorcycle with his earnings, nothing much has changed at Burt's Bees, the company certainly has a sterling international reputation as an all-natural, sustainable brand. The emollients in natural beeswax, the lack of artificial chemicals, the simple, not-at-all-flashy packaging, the decent prices, all make Burt's Bees a favorite, especially for quality lip balm. The company remains small and "nimble" with a fanatic devotion to environmental causes and "reducing, reusing, and recycling."

Over half of the over 150 products available from Burt's Bees are 100% natural, and the company is constantly researching ways to make their remaining products 100% natural as well. All containers, which are made from recyled material, are labeled with a "natural bar" telling the consumer exactly how much of the product is natural. All colors used by the company are from natural plant dyes, with no artificial colors or chemicals. Burt's Bees does not do animal testing of any kind.

According to Market Watch, Burt's Bees grossed some 170 million dollars in 2008. That is a long way from a family living and working in an old school house with no water or electricity. The values that made Burt and Roxanne so determined and hardworking seem to be values that the average American agrees with, to the tune of millions of dollars!

Burt's Bees continued to spend a lot of its profits on further research and development to find new ways to create all natural products, and they are still the best all-natural option for lip balms, skin creams, and shampoos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt's_Bees

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Burt's Bees
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Burt's Bees is an American personal care products subsidiary of Clorox that describes itself as an "Earth friendly, Natural Personal Care Company” making products for personal care, health, beauty, and personal hygiene. As of 2007, they manufactured over 197 products for facial and body skin care, lip care, hair care, baby care, men's grooming, and outdoor remedies distributed in nearly 30,000 retail outlets including grocery stores and drug store chains across the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Hong Kong, and Taiwan from their headquarters inDurham, North Carolina.
Burt's Bees manufactures their products with natural ingredients using minimal processing such as distillation/condensation, extraction/steamed distillation/pressure cooking and hydrolysis to maintain the purity of those ingredients. In addition, every product has a "natural bar" which gives a percentage of natural ingredients in that product, often with detailed ingredient descriptions.
Burt's Bees operates under a business model referred to as "The Greater Good," which outlines that all company practices must be socially responsible. To reflect this philosophy, Burt's Bees uses all natural ingredients, engages in environmentally friendly business practices, and extends its humanitarian efforts to the community at large.
Originating in Maine in the 1980s, the business began when co-founder Roxanne Quimby started making candles from Burt Shavitz's leftover beeswax. Their attention to quality brought success and eventually led to the bottling and selling of honey, a practice that slowly diminished as the company evolved as a corporation. Eventually, other products using honey and beeswax, including edible spreads and furniture polish, were sold, before moving into the personal care line.
In late 2007, the Clorox Company purchased Burt's Bees.
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Timeline
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1984-1998
* 1984: Burt's Bees originated in Maine as a candle making partnership between Roxanne Quimby and Burt Shavitz in 1984. Shavitz had a honey business which provided the excess beeswax needed for the candles and Quimby's focus on maintaining high quality helped to grow their business from an initial $200 at the Dover-Foxcroft Junior High School craft fair to $20,000 by the end of their first year. Their first headquarters was an abandoned one-room schoolhouse rented out from a friend for $150 a year. * 1989: Burt's Bees increased production after a New York boutique, Zona, ordered hundreds of their beeswax candles. Forty additional employees were hired and an abandoned bowling alley became their new manufacturing location. During this time, Quimby found a 19th century book of home-made personal care recipes and Burt's Bees entered into the personal care products industry. * 1991: Burt's Bees became incorporated and had a product offering including candles, natural soaps, perfumes, and eventually lip balm, which became their best-selling product. * 1993: Quimby bought out Shavitz's shares in the company. Increasing demand and product offerings necessitated a move from Maine headquarters to North Carolina where other personal care product manufacturers were also situated. Burt's Bees changed its focus to exclusively personal care products. * 1994: The new manufacturing location was in an 18,000-square-foot (1,700 m2) former garment factory in Creedmoor, North Carolina. Automated machines, such as a former cafeteria mixer from Duke University, were introduced to increase production, although Burt's Bees continued to focus on the "home-made" product theme. Chapel Hill was the site of the first Burt's Bees retail store which offered 50 natural personal care products. Distribution and demand of products had also reached the Japanese market. * 1998: Burt's Bees was offering over 100 natural personal care products in 4,000 locations with sales in excess of $8 million dollars. Distribution had reached higher-end national retailers such as Whole Foods Market and Cracker Barrel. New product offerings branched into travel-sized skin care and hair care products. * 1999 :Again, with increasing demand and an increase product offering including sugar and milk-based body lotions and bath products, Burt's Bees relocated to Durham amongst many other high-tech companies and enterprises in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. An eCommerce website was launched allowing distribution in a much larger, nationwide scale. * 2002–2003 :Burt's Bees launched its first toothpaste, first shampoo, and successful Baby Bee product line of infant personal care products. The founder, Roxanne Quimby, also used company-earned profits to preserve 185,000 acres (750 km2) of forest land in Maine, marking the beginning of a relationship with The Nature Conservancy, an international organization engaged in environmental protectionand conservation. * 2004 :Private equity firm, AEA Investors, purchased 80% of Burt's Bees for $173,000,000 USD, with co-founder, Roxanne Quimby, retaining a 20% share and a seat on the board * 2005 :Douglas Haensel, a former GE executive with CFO experience also at The Athlete's Foot Group and 21st Century Newspapers, Inc. joined Burt's Bees in May as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.Michael Indursky, a former Garnier and Unilever executive joined Burt's Bees in July to head Burt's Bees marketing and public relations group. * 2006 :John Replogle, a former general manager of Unilever's skin care division, became the Chief Executive Officer and President, effective from January 19, 2006. Prior to joining Unilever, Replogle served as President of Guinness Bass Import Company, Managing Director of Guinness Great Britain and had several roles in Marketing, Sales and Strategy with Diageo. Replogle left to become CEO and President of Seventh Generation Inc. in February 2011. * 2007 :Burt's Bees currently offers over 150 natural personal care products in 30,000 retail locations and sales in excess of $250 million (2006) with satellite offices across the United States, UK,Ireland, Canada, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. In late 2007, the Clorox Company acquired Burt's Bees for the reported sum of $925,000,000 USD. The company subsequently released a statement to their customers. * 2011 :Nick Vlahos, a 15-year veteran of The Clorox Company was named Vice President and General Manager of Burt's Bees, effective April 2011. Vlahos is an Indiana University graduate who joined Clorox in 1995 as a sales manager. He previously was vice president of the company's Laundry, Brita and Green Works brands.