About Us
BumbleBalm started with dandelions and a problem that wouldn't quit.
Mark's hands have always been a mess. Classic combination — eczema, sensitive skin, the kind of cracked fingers and heels that show up every winter and refuse to leave. He'd worked through the standard pharmacy options. They either didn't work, smelled like a hospital, or had ingredient lists that required a chemistry degree to evaluate.
Mark came to that conclusion the same way he comes to most conclusions — by questioning everything and testing what holds up. His whole working life has been organised around a single, uncompromising question: does this actually do what it's supposed to do? He started as a construction surveyor where the difference between right and nearly-right had real consequences, retrained as a programmer, moved into quality assurance, and eventually built the technical systems the City of Ottawa uses to track and audit its infrastructure. The pharmacy balms didn't hold up. So he stopped buying them.
Evelyn spent twenty years in product marketing, working alongside the teams who built software products and the customers who used them. Her job was to understand what customers actually needed, figure out whether the product delivered it, and be honest when the answer was no. Product teams relied on her to tell them what customers would actually value — and what they could live without. She got good at spotting the gap between what something claimed to do and what it did. Evelyn knows that no amount of flashy marketing can hide a bad product for long.
She applied that same critical eye to skincare. Most products didn't survive it. Too many steps, too many fillers, too many claims that dissolved the moment you asked what they actually meant.
What she brought to the formulation bench runs deeper than any course or certification. Evelyn's mother grew up spending summers on her grandparents' farm — no hot water, no indoor plumbing, and no patience for things that didn't work. She learned to keep bees, forage what the land offered, and treat common ailments with whatever the garden and hedgerow provided. Not as a philosophy. As a practical matter. You used what you had, you understood why it worked, and you didn't add anything that didn't earn its place.
That attitude — and the specific knowledge behind it — has been passed down and built on ever since. Evelyn grew up understanding what certain plants were for before she knew their Latin names, and with a deep instinct to pull things apart and figure out how they actually work. When it came time to make something rather than just critique it, she had a place to start.
So she started formulating. First product: a balm built around locally foraged dandelion, chosen because it reduces inflammation and supports skin barrier repair — not because it took over the lawn that spring. Mark's hands got better. His heels got better. He started using it every day, which for him is the highest possible endorsement.
The two of them make an unlikely cosmetics company. Neither has any patience for trends, and both are instinctively suspicious of brands that lead with aesthetics and jargon. Mark's instinct is to verify — to ask whether it performs the way it's supposed to. Evelyn's is to interrogate the claim before the product gets made. Between the two of them, every formula gets looked at hard from two different directions before it reaches anyone else.
We build every product the same way.
Start with the problem. Find the plant that addresses it. Use as few other ingredients as possible, and only ones with a clear job. Write the label so you can actually read it.
That's it. No proprietary complexes, no mystery blends, no artificial additives, no ingredients listed by their least recognisable name to sound more sophisticated than they are.
We use herbal ingredients because of what they do, not because of what they look like. Dandelion because it's anti-inflammatory. Horsetail because it delivers vitamins directly to the follicle. Wild yarrow because inflamed, sensitised skin needs both an anti-inflammatory and an astringent and yarrow does both at once. Red clover because it supports the skin changes that come with age in ways that most ingredients don't address at all.
We make everything in small batches in Ontario. Small batches mean fresher product, tighter quality control, and the ability to change a formula when we find something better. We've done it. We'll do it again.
What we're not.
We're not a lifestyle brand. We don't have a fancy routine to sell you. We're not going to suggest that better skincare will make you a better person, or that our ingredients were sourced on a particularly meaningful Tuesday.
We're also not trying to replace your dermatologist. If your skin has a serious medical condition, see a professional. Our products are for everyday protection, repair, and maintenance — the kind of skin problems that don't need a prescription, just something that actually works.
We're not for everyone. If you want a ten-step routine, a luxury unboxing experience, or a brand with a chakra alignment philosophy, there are plenty of excellent options. We genuinely mean that — go find the one that's right for you.
If you want to know exactly what's in the jar and exactly why, you're in the right place.
We also work with businesses.
If you buy products in bulk for a commercial operation, source gift sets for employee recognition, stock a retail location, or want a private-label option for your brand — we're set up for that.
We manufacture in Ontario, work with Canadian ingredients wherever possible, and can produce custom formulations, unscented variants, and branded packaging for wholesale accounts. Minimum order quantities are reasonable. We're not trying to be your biggest supplier, just a reliable one.
What we won't do: reformulate a product to hit a lower price point by swapping in inferior ingredients. If your budget requires that, we're probably not the right fit, and we'll tell you so upfront.
If you're the right fit, learn more about commercial and wholesale.
— Evelyn & Mark
Founders, BumbleBalm
Ontario, Canada