What we leave out, and why.

The list of things NOT in Sunnbalm is longer than the list of things in it. Some of those exclusions are obvious (no parabens, no synthetic dyes); some are less obvious. We thought it was worth being explicit about a few of the harder ones.

No fragrance, synthetic or natural. Most 'fragrance-free' balms still have a 'masking fragrance' — a small percentage of essential oil or aroma compound that covers the natural smell of the base. We don't add any. The cocoa-and-honey scent you'll notice when you open a fresh tin is the cocoa powder and the beeswax themselves. Nothing added. People with fragrance sensitivities tell us this matters.

No essential oils. Essential oils are sometimes marketed as 'natural fragrance,' but they're concentrated plant compounds that can irritate skin, especially over time and especially in concentrated formulas like ours. Citrus oils are phototoxic. Mint oils irritate eye-area skin. Lavender, despite its reputation, is one of the more common contact allergens. We left them all out.

No preservatives. Preservatives exist to prevent microbial growth in water-containing products. Sunnbalm contains no water. There's nothing for microbes to grow on. We don't need preservatives, so we don't add them — not parabens, not phenoxyethanol, not benzoates. The product is shelf-stable for about twelve months unopened, twelve months after opening, in a sealed tin.

No emulsifiers. Same reasoning. Emulsifiers exist to mix oil and water phases. Sunnbalm is a single-phase oil. We don't need polysorbates, sodium lauryl sulfate, or PEG-based emulsifiers, so they're not in here.

No silicones. Dimethicone, cyclomethicone, and other silicones are extremely effective at creating a smooth, silky feel on skin. They're also non-bioavailable plastic-adjacent compounds that build up in some users and don't biodegrade. We don't use them. Sunnbalm gets its texture from tallow and beeswax, not from silicones.

No mineral oil or petrolatum. Petroleum-derived ingredients are stable, cheap, and effective occlusives — that's why the industry uses them. We don't, because they create a different kind of skin barrier than the breathable lipid layer we wanted. Many people have no problem with petroleum-based products; we just didn't choose them for Sunnbalm.

No vitamins added beyond what's already in the ingredients. Lots of 'clean beauty' products tout added vitamin C, vitamin E, retinol. We don't add any of those. Tallow already contains vitamins A, D, E, K naturally; beeswax contains vitamin A. Whatever's in the ingredients is in there because the ingredients carry it. We don't fortify.

No 'natural' pigments we can't identify. Iron oxides are common in tinted skincare and are generally considered safe; we still left them out because we wanted a four-ingredient label. The shade comes from cocoa alone.

No 'active' ingredients besides zinc oxide. No retinol, no niacinamide, no acids, no peptides, no growth factors. Those are great ingredients in dedicated products; they're not what Sunnbalm is for. If you want a serum, get a serum.

No animal-testing — not in our process, not in our supply chain. Verified per supplier.

What we DO have: four ingredients you can pronounce, sourced from suppliers we've met or talked to directly, made in one Minnesota facility, in batches of a few hundred at a time. That's the whole thing.