Introduction
Happy new year everyone, hope you all had a great time over the festive period enjoying the holidays with your loved ones. This is my first review of 2023 and to be honest with you, I am finding it hard to find the motivation at the moment because of so much happening in my personal life. I’m not going to tell you the most personal things but put it this way in the space of a day I have had to get a new dryer, a new washing machine and a new projector, multiple companies have delivered the wrong items or/and damaged items to us and that is just the tip of iceberg.
I am keeping my head up and hoping that this is all the bad luck we are going to have in 2023 and from now on it smooth sailing, with a shit ton of reviews and blogs coming your way branching out into new products and areas making it more interesting and intriguing to keep coming back to your favourite ginger. This review today is about Beard and Bones beard butter and their Kreed scent, and I’ve got a lot to say about this product and scent.
check out my last review here if you haven’t been up-to-date lately.
Beard and Bones
In July 2018, Dan and Jake started talking about the Beard Care products. We both agreed about how all the products have same smelling boring fragrances and the packaging all look very similar. We wanted to change that.
We questioned “Why didnt any company use better looking bottles?”
They are many great looking mens cologne bottles which looked unique, even if it was empty. We kept the bottle. Then, we said “why dont we create our own Beard Care products with cool packaging with great scents?” That is what we did.
Dan was a business graduate from Plymouth University, he put together the business plan and starting developing the website. Jake was a illustration graduate from Plymouth College of Art, He started drawing mock-ups of the Logo and researching packaging types.
While researching for the business plan, Dan realised we needed to create the beard products ourselves. This way we can always listen to feedback from our customers about what they like/dislike. Then, we can find ways to improve it.
The first product we found was the Cool Glass Beard Oil Skulls. We knew that we had never seen these in the beard care industry. It would help stand out as a company. Dan had researched for months about creating a perfect blend carrier oils while finding great and unique fragrance to go with these. As all we could find on the market was just a woody/earth scents, we went a different angle. We decided that needed a range of scents for everyone. These include fruit, sweet and masculine scents. We today have a range of 8 scents. Including Bubblegum, sweet rum and many more.
September 2018 – Our different range of skulls. We spray painted them ourselves in Gold, Matte Black, Silver and White.
About the Co-Founders and important people involved.
Dan Henders – Dan, graduated in 2017 from Plymouth University, studying (BSc Hons) Business Management and Marketing. When Dan and Jake became friends, Jake mentioned to Dan about his idea for “cool beard company” which was later called Beard and Bones. Dan used to run his own online business and he has used all of the experiences and mistakes to do his best to make sure this one succeeds. Dan is the cook behind the all the products, he worked hard to perfect the recipe which is used by many bearded men daily. He worked alongside George Richards to build the first website So, Thank you must go to George for all the help he has given and continues to give.
Jake Grant-Jones – Jake Grant- Jones graduated from Plymouth College of Art in 2017 with a BA (Hons) illustration degree. He has always had the passion for drawing alongside a massive beard. You can see the incredible hand-drawn designs on our Instagram, if you scroll to the bottom, you can see the progress from these images into the logo. He is from Weymouth and grew up on a farm where he had access to Beezwax, which we used to make our very first balms. These images are seen on our instagram, plus tools which he uses to create various products like the stand we made for our partner studio 28 (instagram). A Great combination of Expert craftsmen and an incredible artist comes in handy when building a business.
We must also give credit to Tamara Davies. She has helped and continues to help us so much behind the scenes to build Beard and Bones UK to the company it is today. The amount of skill and effort, which she has brought to the company, the skills such as photography, design and countless hours she puts in. If you have seen how incredible our products look on Instagram, you will understand why she is so important, Also, now you will know who is behind the camera. If you have not seen it yet check us out at BeardandBonesUK
In April 2019 – Jake left the company due to personal Reasons.
Dan continued working at Beard and Bones, As he was one of the created the formulas for all the products.
Beverley Finnigan – (Dan`s mum)
Bev has helped Dan so much since 2019, as Beard and Bones has grown. It would be an impossible job without her. The work she does from labelling tins, putting together the oil tags with the string and the Beard Oil skulls in the bag for Dan to fill up. Plus getting orders picked and packed on certain days. They are extremely time consuming and without her, this business would not be able cope.
All 5 people together have built this business but we all can’t take credit, everyone, that has interacted with us – our brand ambassadors who help us promote our brand on their social media pages and give us feedback about future fragrances. A massive thank you must go to them.
Since 2019 – A lot has changed, we have grown a lot. We have expanded our Product Range to not only Beard Care products but expanded into jewellery with high quality gothic themed products such as bracelets, Necklaces and Rings.
We have still keep with the original plan of creating new colour skulls: Since then we have released 5 more colours: Orange, Red, Sapphire, Green and Purple – Bringing the making a total of 10 Different colour skulls used over the past 3 years. This bottles are released with limited edition scents every year.
This was ripped straight from the website and gives you the most detailed answer to who and what beard and bones are compared to how I would put it in my own words
Website
The website is pretty awesome giving you what you want straight away with the products advertised beautifully yet simply, there is also an interactive chat, I used this chat to find the about us section on the website because in all honesty if you are looking for a drop-down menu to find something other than products I bloody couldn’t find one. There is a reward scheme for loyal customers and I personally love it when a company offers this reward based scheme, plus all products details are clear with good description and in large bold writing.
There is basically every bit of information you ever need right down to shipping information, it could be more obvious to find though
The Butter
The butter is a white soft set poured product which still has small butter pellets in the mixture, when you rub the butter in your hands it is very soft and emulsifies very quickly but does leave a greasy residue on your hands. However, it does flow through the beard quite easily giving an instant moisturised feeling to the beard and skin, but again it leaves that oily residue on your beard hairs. I definitely have a reason for the oily residue or greasy residue as people would refer to it. The ingredients for the butter are as follows:
- Shea Butter
- Mango Butter
- Sweet Almond Oil
- Fragrance Oils
I think the high concentration of sweet almond oil and shea butter is responsible for the residue being left on the beard hairs, but it could also be other factors like how it is made and where it is stored/what it is stored in. Now you guys can judge what you like about the residue I’m 50/50 on it and I will tell you why, first of all once you apply your product whether it be oil, balm or butter to your beard you aren’t supposed to touch your beard after it. But let’s face it we are majestic facial hair touchers we can’t help but stroke our own magnificence, this residue is giving your skin and beard hair a longer coating of the butter giving you longer lasting hydration and benefits. The more you touch your beard running your fingers through it, the more you take off your beard, not giving the product the best chance to do it’s job. This product easily gave me over 12 hours of conditioning and even held up well in my warehouse job and sometimes held its own against light rain and wind.
Kreed
Here we go the scent profile I am telling you now it is absolutely amazing and reminds me of a certain company scent called Viking Storm, anyone who knows me knows I absolutely love the Viking Storm scent it is an aftershave scent and is so captivating and since all my drama lama with The Beard Struggle in early 2021 I have been looking for a company that comes close to the scent profile, and I’ve finally found it in Kreed. The scent profile is :
- Pineapple
- Bergamot
- Oak moss
- Vanilla
- Musk
The Musk is the strongest scent you can identify, followed closely by oak moss, bergamot and pineapple, they all linger underneath the musk and if you take that long sexual controlled whiff you are able to identify the scents. The one that eludes me is vanilla, but I am sure other people could identify it, in my experience vanilla brings a warm smell to the mix. The scent lasts a good 8 hours and sometimes 10 hours depending on what you do throughout your day, weather conditions and so on, again, work conditions factor into the scent longevity and Kreed dropped its ability in my work environment holding its own against dirt, dust and sweat.
Please note that the scent is made up of fragrance oils, please read further on to why that is significant to the review.
CPSR
Everything beard and bones releases is CPSR tested and certified legal and safe to sell, their labels are nearly spot on with one thing missing which is the batch number. Apologies if I am being thick and missed it on the label, but I just can’t find it, but there is a reason I wear glasses.
Their bottles are skull designed and coloured in specific colours, and they have metallic tins to store balms and butters. Although the tins have labels on them, the bottles do not because of the skull design and the information is provided on a card that comes with the packaging the bottle is in.
Conclusion
For £14.99 for a 100ml sized beard butter that gives you scent longevity of between 8–10 hours and beard conditioning for 12 hours you really can’t complain, the only thing you can knit pick at is that it is fragrance oils used in the scent profile and not essential oils, the difference is just basically a higher concentration of scent but fewer benefits which is why most small batch business owners favour because of the added benefits that essential oils provide to the carrier base. But not only do they beard care products but also jewellery and beard grooming kits amongst other things.
Check out their website and products right here and go get yourself some awesome products with great long lasting scents
Stay Safe, Stay bearded and Stay Fire
