Bubbles & Balms

After a long, and sometimes painful, search for personal care products that didn’t anger our skin, we (Judith & Justin Sweeney) found safety in simple products made with a handful of raw & natural ingredients. It was 2012, and a moisturizer made with whipped cocoa butter had given us a new sense of comfortable skin.

We adopted oil-based products into our routine, but we struggled to find a consistent source that provided transparent label information when we moved to southern Alberta in 2014. We grew up in entrepreneurial families, so it felt natural to create a solution for a problem we saw. About 3 months of reading, trial, and error later, we took our first products to a nearby market.

As we shared our angry skin stories with our community members, we found out we weren’t alone! In fact, a 2019 meta analysis that reviewed self-report studies including more than 50,000 participants found that 60-70% of women and 50-60% of men report some level of skin sensitivity. We didn’t have those numbers in 2014, but with the local demand from our market experience, we knew we could create comfort for a lot more people than just us.

We co-founded Bubbles & Balms in December of 2014 and started by selling a small catalogue of bath, body and personal care products that didn’t include irritants. Our products were made with vitamin- and antioxidant-rich butters, nut and seed oils, clays, bee and plant waxes, natural preservatives, and plant-based aromatics from essential oils and botanical extracts.

Our product philosophy was that guilt-free, good-for-you, good-for-the-planet cosmetics would help people with uncomfortable skin feel good, do good, and better each day. And since that very first bar, we’ve been certified cruelty-free with Leaping Bunny as part of our commitment to making every Bubbles & Balms product a guilt-free one!

We sold our products exclusively through our own small boutique from 2014 to 2020. During this time, we worked hand in hand with our community and made hundreds of product variants. We would often work by request, taking every opportunity to study another aspect of the daily care of sensitive skin. We studied with two schools of aromatherapy, another for product development, and then under a world-renowned cosmetic scientist to refine our understanding of derm-safe formulations, regulatory compliance, hurdle technology preservation methods, blending aromatics for fragrance and function, and quality-assured manufacturing and storage techniques.

Bubbles & Balms moved to 17 Route 845, Lower Norton, New Brunswick in 2020 and into a renovated production studio and office. This became home, and our team took the light and airy pastels of our boutique and created our website. This was a digital space for our community to engage with us and find our products throughout the pandemic.

In this production studio, we further refined our focus on making sensitive skin-friendly cosmetics. We removed all simple alcohols, and worked through the material data sheets on all ingredients to ensure sources were free of heavy metals and solvents. We moved away from micas that were either synthetic or risked poor mining practices and adopted clay and mineral colourants. We brought on the Good Face Formulator to hold ourselves to the highest standards of safety by pushing all formulations through the most stringent 3rd party clean beauty standards for 15 dimensions of safety and efficacy.

Our promise to our community is the best-smelling, guilt-free products for the daily care of dry & sensitive skin, and we will do everything in our power to deliver on that promise. We have a history of delivering on promises, including our zero-waste pledge. During this pledge, we eliminated all remaining plastic packaging and shipping materials. Our products in tubes and jars were relaunched in an innovative paperboard packaging that used a wax liner to retain integrity. Our anhydrous (oil-based) products were a perfect fit. We are committed to innovating in our packaging, products, and processes to deliver better each day for people and planet.

Our values guide our daily operations and business decisions. We are cruelty-free so no person, animal, or environment will be knowingly harmed from our decisions or operations. We only use the best raw and natural ingredients supported by leading independent research so people with sensitivities can enjoy luscious self-care routines that boost confidence with calm, comfortable skin. Every Bubbles & Balms product is to have a clear path to circularity and pose no environmental risk, so future generations can inherit a healthier planet. We also elevate our attention to detail and intimate ingredient knowledge by crafting and producing each product in-house.

Bubbles & Balms is on a mission to calm and comfort sensitive skin so it doesn’t hold anyone back from doing great things with their day. Join us, and better each day!