At Gisou, we are passionate about our Mirsalehi honey bees. The Mirsalehi honey bees are at the core of who we are and what we do, and we strive to give to them as much as they give to us. Unfortunately, honey bee populations are in decline. But there are ways you can help. As part of our Gisou Bees Project, which is an initiative to show our support of beekeeping efforts worldwide, we gift wildflower seeds to our Gisou Community at special moments during Bee Season to support the honey bees.  Follow the sowing instructions below, and support the honey bees with us!  Help Save the Honey Bees By sowing Gisou Flower Seeds, you can help support the honey bees. Honey bees depend on wildflowers for nectar - their main source of food. Honey bees also pollinate the flowers they feed on. They transport pollen from plant to plant, which allows flowers to produce fertilized seeds to continue their lifecycle. Now it’s your turn - help fight the negative effects of climate change and habitat destruction and enjoy the colorful and fragrant flowers as you support the full honey bee harvesting cycle.  How to sow Gisou Flower Seeds Have you received Gisou Flower Seeds with your gisou.com order? For the best results, follow the sowing instructions below. Choose a sunny spot in your garden, on your terrace, or your rooftop. If you are sowing the seeds in your garden, make sure the area will not be mowed in the summer and avoid highly planted areas to avoid disturbing a natural ecosystem. Prepare the soil in a couple of pots or in an area in your garden to fill 4m². Remove any roots and existing vegetation, as any remaining plants will compete with the seeds for nutrients and sunlight. However, it is better to allow steady plants with flowers to continue to grow. Loosen the soil a bit with your hands or a rake. Disperse the Gisou flower seeds around the sowing area. Feel free to scatter more garden soil for extra nutrients. Cover the Gisou flower seeds with soil and gently pat down into the pots or the ground.  Water the soil well. In case of dry weather, make sure to water the seeds more frequently. Keep a close eye on the seedlings as they grow. In case you see your old plants come up, remove them to give the seedlings a chance to grow. Unfortunately, climate change and habitat destruction have decreased the diversity of flowers available to bees. Sowing a wide array of bee-friendly flowers and plants in gardens and on terraces is one way we can all help save the honey bees.  Honey Bee Wildflower Mix Welcome honey bees to your garden, terrace, or rooftop with this diverse mix of wildflowers. Enjoy the colorful and fragrant flowers as you help save the honey bees. FLORAL COMPOSITION Phacelia, buckwheat, white mustard, coriander, alexandrian clover, incarnate clover, marigold, caraway, leaf radish, cornflower, cumin, dill, wild mallow, fennel, borage. Flowers are vital to the existence of honey bees, as nectar is their main source of food. But honey bees not only need a flower-rich but a flower-diverse habitat as well to survive. Having a mix of plants that flower throughout the bee season ensures that honey bees have a continuous source of pollen and nectar.  This mix of Gisou flower seeds produces attractive flowers for honey bees throughout the summer!

The Gisou Bees Project is a special Gisou initiative in support of urban beekeeping practices to fight the declining bee populations worldwide. With this project, we show our support to urban beekeeping efforts by placing urban Gisou beehives in major cities around the world. Urban bees vs rural bees As an endangered species, bee populations are declining worldwide. At Gisou, it is our main focus to support bee populations in any way possible. Contrary to the belief that bees only thrive in rural areas, beehives in urban areas produce healthier bees because they have access to greater biodiversity and are not exposed to the harsh chemicals often used in agriculture.  As such, urban beekeeping is one way through which the health of bee populations can be strengthened. Aside from that, urban beehives contribute to the health of cities -  trees, shrubs, gardens and parks wouldn’t exist, let alone thrive in urban areas without healthy bees to pollinate them. Urban beekeeping doesn’t just support healthy bee populations, but also the communities the urban bees live in. The Gisou Bees Project For The Gisou Bees Project, we work together with local beekeepers who look after the Gisou bees on our behalf. Not only do we support urban bee populations this way, but we also support local beekeepers who continuously care for the bees and raise awareness in their local communities.  As we place our Gisou urban beehives in a city to improve the health of the city’s ecosystem, we therefore concurrently aim to carry out part of our mission - to raise awareness for the importance of bees.  The Bees Project in Paris  To launch our first Gisou Bees Project in June 2019, we brought a piece of the Mirsalehi Bee Garden to Paris by installing the honorary ‘Gisou at Galeries Lafayette Champs-Élysées Beehives’ on top of the urban rooftop garden of BHV (part of the Groupe Galeries Lafayette).  Today, our beehives in Paris contribute to the health of the Parisian ecosystem as they remain under the care of seasoned urban beekeeper, Gaël Cartron from Sous Les Fraises. The hives at BHV are surrounded by the urban Sous Les Fraises rooftop garden.  The Bees Project in New York  In New York City, we chose to work with beekeeper Andrew Coté, president of the New York City Beekeepers Association and founder of Andrew's Honey. In August 2019, we installed Gisou Beehives on a rooftop near Union Square together during our Take Out & Refill Pop-Up.  The installation of our beehives took place on August 17th 2019, in honour of National Honey Bee Day. Andrew Cote continues to care for the Gisou Beehives on our behalf, helping us to contribute to the livelihood of the bees and the overall urban ecosystem of New York City.  This bee season, Andrew added new hives, as the bees started to swarm meaning that the colony is thriving and expanding!  The Bees Project in Melbourne After our first beehives in Paris and New York, what better way to launch our third Gisou Beehive than with our fellow beekeeper Nicholas Dowse AKA @honey_fingers - an extraordinary beekeeper in Melbourne, Australia who’s efforts we’ve admired for years. Together, Nic and fellow beekeeper Georgah (@georgahcrane) take care of the Gisou bees on a rooftop in Fitzroy, Melbourne.  Honey Fingers is more than an urban beekeeping network - it’s a creative project that explores the intersections between farming, food, art, history, design and education, with bees taking the center stage.  The Next Step Moving forward, our intent is to expand the Gisou Bees Project to other cities around the world. By placing our urban beehives in any city, we contribute to the health and beauty of its ecosystem, show our support for urban beekeeping efforts and aim to raise awareness for not only urban beekeeping initiatives, but the welfare of bees overall.  Keep an eye out on our Instagram to stay updated about The Gisou Bees Project!

On Earth Day 2019, we started a tradition with our first Gisou Sustainability Promise - a promise to work on becoming a more sustainable and transparent company. With various goals in mind, we set out to work towards a cleaner & greener Gisou, promising to stay accountable and to never stop improving. On Earth Day 2020, we renewed our commitment with an updated Sustainability Promise. Today, on Earth Day, we are taking a look back at some of the improvements we have made in the past year and looking ahead at those to be made in 2021. RECAP & LOOK AHEAD 1. IMPROVE OUR BEE-CENTERED APPROACH IN THE MIRSALEHI BEE GARDEN  We always prioritise bee welfare and let the bees guide our beekeeping practices to derive Mirsalehi Honey and Mirsalehi Propolis, our key ingredients, in a bee friendly and sustainable manner. For instance, as we are growing, we will be expanding not only our Gisou team but also the number of bee colonies.  In 2021, we will expand the Mirsalehi Bee Garden with a second location, under the supervision of Negin's Dad.  2. RAISE AWARENESS FOR THE IMPORTANCE OF HONEY BEES In addition to taking care of the Mirsalehi Honey Bees, our mission is to raise awareness for the importance of all bees to our ecosystem.  To raise awareness for the bees last year, we shared weekly posts and a series of BeePeeking episodes via @gisou which reached nearly 2.7M. Since honey bees rely on flowers for nectar - their main source of food, we included sachets of Honey Bee Wildflower Seeds with each order placed during Spring/Summer. These were created so that you could support the honey bee life cycle by sowing wildflowers and sharing this with the rest of the community. For bee season this year, we have exciting plans to get you even more involved in supporting the bees.  Although we continue to support our beekeepers in Paris and NYC, we weren't able to expand our Gisou Bees Project (a special initiative in support of urban beekeeping practices) due to COVID-19 last year. We hope to make up for it by installing more hives in select cities within our global community! Next to the importance of honey bees, beekeepers are crucial for maintaining bee colony health. Going forward, we want to encourage more young people to explore what beekeeping is all about. We will be offering fun, interactive sources of information and initiatives with you very soon. Stay tuned!  3. INCREASE PRODUCTION TRANSPARENCY We strive to be transparent and keep you updated on all sustainable improvements and choices we make. In 2020, we launched our new website, and because you asked (and we listen!) we made sure that you can find all of the necessary Gisou product information there.  All of our packaging now includes a call to action to recycle. We’ll be sharing instructions on how to separate & recycle our products soon.   Continuing on this transparent note, we’re proud to share that our main manufacturing site is carbon neutral, fully powered by solar energy and actively works to reduce trash and water wastage.     4. GREEN OUR PRODUCT FORMULATIONS Without compromising on function and quality, we continually strive to make our formulations greener. After working with external experts, we’re proud to share that a formulation expert has joined our in-house Product Development team. With her ingredients expertise and knowledge of the natural world, she'll be optimising our current and future healthy hair formulations. 5. IMPROVE THE SUSTAINABILITY OF OUR PACKAGING Work with more recycled, recyclable and biodegradable packaging materials. Sustainable packaging highlight: After 2 years in the making, we are proud to have launched our limited edition Curling Tool fitted in a 100% sustainable tool case. Made entirely of paper pulp, this custom-made case is fully recycled and recyclable. Additional packaging updates you may have noticed: We’ve switched over to FSC-certified paper (paper from sustainably managed forests), and downsized the packaging of our Honey Infused Hair Oil & Perfume to save on materials and make shipping more sustainable.  We also close all of our shipments with paper-based tape and our EU shipments no longer include packing slips. In addition, all of our product samples are packaged in fully biodegradable sachets.  We’ll continue to make sustainable packaging a top priority as we source new innovations.    A MORE SUSTAINABLE GISOU IN 2021 We look back at 2020 proud of the progress we made and determined to make even greater improvements in the year ahead. Sustainability remains an ongoing priority at Gisou with no finish line. We know we are not perfect, but we are passionate about improving and working hard to do so. Please follow along our journey to a more sustainable Gisou.  Likewise, we always welcome your feedback and ideas. Please feel free to share your thoughts with us via email at info@gisou.com.

On World Earth Day in April 2019, we introduced our 2019 Sustainability Promise, in which we promised to work on becoming a more sustainable company. With various goals and points of improvement mentioned, the promise served as a guiding light throughout the year in our ongoing journey towards a cleaner and greener Gisou. On World Earth Day this year, we’re taking a look back at 2019 and a look forward to the rest of 2020. Gisou Sustainability Promise Recap & Update 1. Focus on continuously improving our bee-centered approach in the Mirsalehi Bee Garden At Gisou, the welfare of the Mirsalehi Honey Bees has always come first - with a bee-centered approach to beekeeping and a strict product development policy to only ever take surpluses of honey, if and when appropriate. However, we sought to continue to improve upon our bee friendly and sustainable approach to beekeeping in 2019 and moving forward in 2020 as well. For instance, since April last year, we planted new fruit trees in the Mirsalehi Bee Garden to expand the biodiversity and health of our bees. In 2020, the welfare of the Mirsalehi Honey Bees will continue to remain our top priority as the product development cycle will continue to adjust plans as necessary to avoid taking stores of honey the bees need for themselves.  2. Raise awareness for the importance of honey bees In addition to taking care of our Mirsalehi Honey Bees, our mission is to raise awareness for the importance of honey bees to our ecosystem. In July, we dedicated our pop-up at Galeries Lafayette Champs-Élysées to education about the bees - teaching customers the importance of minding the existence of bees no matter where they live - urban, suburban, or rural. Gisou Flower Seeds We gave all customers in-store and online bags of mixed flower seeds so they could plant more bee-friendly flowers in their garden or on their terrace or rooftop. In turn, customers had a chance to help us counteract the negative effects of climate change & habitat destruction endangering bees throughout the world by providing their local bees with a source of pollen and nectar. In 2020, starting on World Earth Day, we will include a bag of mixed flower seeds with all online orders until the end of beekeeping season (August 31, 2020) to drive our customers to plant wildflower seeds to increase biodiversity in their local area and thereby help support the livelihood of honey bees.   Gisou Bees Project As urban beekeeping produces healthier bees than beekeeping efforts in rural areas, last year also marked the start of the Gisou Bees Project, a new Gisou initiative in support of local urban beekeepers and urban beekeeping efforts. So far, the initiative has been brought to Paris (where Gael Catron continues to look after our bees) and NYC (where President of the NYC Beekeepers Association, Andrew Cote remains to be the beekeeper in charge), and we’re planning on extending the initiative to other cities in the next few years.  3. Increase production transparency Aside from improving the welfare of honey bees, improving the sustainability of product packaging continues to be another high priority, with several adjustments already carried out at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020. For instance, in the name of sustainability and production transparency, we switched out all paper packaging, whether that be for shipment or the products themselves, for FSC-certified paper guaranteed to come from sustainable sources only. Upon customers’ request, the Honey Infused Hair Wash & Conditioner, which was previously packaged in plastic doypacks, has since been fitted with more sustainable, FSC-certified outer packaging. 4. Improve the sustainability of our packaging Furthermore, in January of this year, we replaced the Honey Infused Conditioner tube with one made out of sugarcane. Our next product launch will boast packaging made of cellulose fiber instead of plastic. In the upcoming year, we will continue to make sustainability a top priority when it comes to designing and sourcing of product packaging - it’s not a question of whether packaging will be sustainable, but how we optimize design and functionality in light of sustainable packaging materials.  5. Green our product formulations In terms of product formulations, we launched the new Propolis Infused Polishing Primer in July of last year, which consists only of ingredients that satisfy our new, stricter ingredient protocol. Moving into 2020, we’ve been improving the formulations of some existing products, without compromising on the function they are known for. This year and following, we plan to build on and adhere to our stricter ingredient protocol to create products Gisou customers can feel good about, without sacrificing their efficacy. One of the first changes we’ve carried out is that we’ve replaced Gisou’s signature Honey Infused fragrance, found in all of our Honey Infused products, for a nearly identical 100% natural variant. In the upcoming year, we are working on finding a 100% natural replacement for the Propolis Infused fragrance as well.  6. Engage our audience to make sustainable improvements with us To try to engage and include our audience on our sustainability journey, we gave our customers from NYC the opportunity to ‘reduce, reuse & refill’ their empty Gisou product bottles at our NYC pop-up store, Gisou’s Take Out & Refill last September. Nearly half of all customers that visited took the opportunity to refill the Gisou product they already owned. Additionally, we made sure that all design elements to make the pop-up come to life were made of sustainable materials, from biodegradable cups and straws to 100% recycled paper shopping bags. Our previously mentioned seed initiative is just another way we try to promote sustainable efforts on the part of our audience as well.  What's next? Although we take pride in the sustainability developments we have made in 2019 and so far in 2020, we’re not planning to stop anytime soon. We know we’re not perfect and we’re the first to admit that we have a way to go, but we promise we’re continuing to make it a priority for the future to come and to update you along the way. 

In honor of Earth Day, we present our 2019 Sustainability Promise: Gisou is committed to becoming more sustainable all-around, and we would like to bring you along every step in the greener direction we take.  At Gisou, sustainable beekeeping and the welfare of the Mirsalehi Bees have always come first, but from this year, we are committed to becoming more sustainable all-around. Gisou's sustainability commitments 1. Focus on continuously improving our bee-centered approach in the Mirsalehi bee garden We always prioritise bee welfare and let the bees guide our beekeeping practices to derive Mirsalehi Honey and Mirsalehi Propolis, our key ingredients, in a cruelty-free manner.  Gisou is born out of six generations of passion for honey bees. Negin, her father, and the generations before them have always taken a bee-centered approach in their Mirsalehi Bee Garden. Starting Gisou wasn’t meant to change that for the Mirsalehi honey bees. Altogether, we are committed to a sustainable and cruelty-free production method that puts the Mirsalehi honey bees first, not only for the sake of the Mirsalehi honey bees but the greater ecosystem as well. Our bee-centered approach: We continue to let the bees guide our sustainable beekeeping practices and derive Mirsalehi Honey and Mirsalehi Propolis, our key ingredients, in a cruelty-free manner. Aside from taking care of them by giving them a flower-rich environment to thrive, we let the bees be and only take the leftover Mirsalehi Honey, if and when appropriate.  The Mirsalehi honey bees are at the core of who we are and what we do at Gisou, and we strive to give to them as much as they give to us. 2. Raise awareness for the importance of honey bees We want to educate you about the importance of honey bees and support honey bee conservation efforts. What you can expect:  More events dedicated to Honey Bee education, just like our Gisou at Angelina event in Paris last September, which featured our own Honey Museum. 3. Increase production transparency We want to give it to you straight and keep you updated on all sustainable improvements and choices we make. Behind the scenes at Gisou: We listened to your feedback and are working on a sustainable packaging alternative for our Honey Infused Hair Wash and Conditioner - we won’t reproduce until we have one. 4. Green our product formulations Without compromising on function and quality, we strive to make our formulations greener. At Gisou, we are just as passionate about our Mirsalehi honey bees as we are about our products. Just like Negin’s mother set out to do 30 years ago, we wish to develop effective haircare with as many natural ingredients as possible.  To complement the natural key ingredients from the Mirsalehi Bee Garden, we choose supporting ingredients in Gisou formulas based on our belief that the effect and quality of our products are just as important. What we mean: We’re working on reformulating and further developing as we speak. Spoiler alert: look out for a new product launch with carefully selected ingredients. 5. Improve the sustainability of our packaging To allow our passion for the Mirsalehi honey bees and the greater ecosystem to carry further than the Mirsalehi Bee Garden, we are committed to reducing our impact on the environment and looking for ways to improve our packaging by working with more recycled, recyclable, and biodegradable materials. A little taste of what that means:  Potato starch isn’t just for food - We will introduce shipment box filling material made of 100% natural, biodegradable potato starch for a special campaign in honour of World Bee Day on May 20th. We invite you to follow us along @gisou to follow our progress throughout the year to a greener Gisou.