NATURAL WOMAN
Fogo Island Inn is located on a remote island off the northern coast of Newfoundland—two flights from Toronto, an hour-long ferry ride and a two-hour car ride kind of remote. The property is unabashedly luxurious and architecturally mind-blowing (propped up on stilts, it looms over the Atlantic), and its owners are firmly committed to social and environmental responsibility, an ethos also embraced by Burt’s Bees. That’s why the natural beauty brand chose this locale to present its newest innovations and why I’m in the inn’s movie theatre wearing an apron and whisking together a nourishing formula of oils, iron oxide and beeswax. “The skin on your lips is very thin compared to anywhere else on your body,” says Abina Antwi, senior innovation scientist for Burt’s Bees, as she encourages me to keep stirring. These ingredients make up the new Tinted Lip Oil ($12), which was designed especially for dry lips. Each of the six shades provides a sheer wash of colour—from peachy nude to rosebud pink—and hydrates lips for eight full hours. The longevity is thanks to the beeswax, which thickens the formula to help keep the moisturizing oils contained on the lips. All of the brand’s beeswax is sustainably sourced; half is from Uyowa, Tanzania, where hives are kept 40 kilometres outside the city in the Moyowosi-Kigosi Game Reserve to protect them from pollutants. “When you look at our skincare philosophy, we don’t put silicones in the products and then drop in a bit of sunflower oil and just call it [natural],” says Antwi. To wit, the lip oils are free of parabens, phthalates and petrochemicals. Naturally.