From a Passion to a Lifestyle: Why Waxing Kara Became Bee Inspired

Aligning the brand with my journey toward an inspired life

People still ask me why Waxing Kara became Bee Inspired. It’s a fair question, and the honest answer is a story about bees, a pun that outgrew itself, and three lessons I learned the hard way:

• Lesson #1: In the English language, the same word may have wildly different meanings in different contexts.
• Lesson #2: When you start down a path, you may end up in a very different place than you expected.
• Lesson #3: Identity is a lot more than a name.

Here’s the story of how all these lessons came together for me. If you just want the short version of the name change, our rebrand announcement covers the basics. This is the long version, the one with the floods and the seven-foot-tall man in it.

It started with beeswax, not honey

In 2008, I stepped away from an all-out commitment to a professional services business after significant burnout. I had some savings to carry me for a while, and I had been yearning for years to return to my fine art roots. Within months, I was in a makeshift studio painting with encaustic, a medium built on molten beeswax. I took painting classes, studied privately with master encausticians, and traveled to seek out encaustic art. I spent time in nature: hiking, fasting, practicing self-care.

My passion for the medium, and for the wax itself, kept growing. So I did what any reasonable artist would do: I started keeping bees so I could harvest my own wax for painting. I was afraid and excited all at once. I found a wonderful mentor, then a second, then a third, and I became completely enamored with the bees. You can still read my first beekeeping post from 2011, back when this was all brand new to me.

Why the name was Waxing Kara in the first place

I started blogging about my relationship with the bees, and the name Waxing Kara® launched the blog. At the time, it felt like a perfect play on words. The bees made wax, I was all about the wax, and I wanted to grow the conversation around the work of the bees. For me, waxing signified the growth of my interests and the relevance of the bees. Waxing also means to make profound statements; I wasn’t claiming to be profound, I just hoped others would find meaning in what I shared. And I loved that waxing describes the moon growing from new to full, a beautiful part of our natural world.

Looking back, I can’t remember ever considering the other meaning of waxing. The one involving hair removal.

Lesson #1: The same word can mean wildly different things

Here’s the thing I learned quickly: bees make much more honey than wax. Did you know that? And the honey coming out of my hives on the Eastern Shore was amazingly delicious. At first I shared it with friends, and I still had plenty left over. So I opened a small store and a simple website to sell it, under the same name as my blog: Waxing Kara.

That’s when the confusion started, especially among younger customers. It wasn’t unusual to answer phone calls from people looking for waxing appointments. The day I opened our first retail space, a man who stood about seven feet tall walked into my shop and asked if I could wax him. Most people didn’t get the connection to beeswax, because that connection had been lost in the product presentations. I was still writing the Waxing Kara blog, but not everyone saw that.

Lesson #2: You may end up somewhere you never expected

Soon the sale of honey far outstripped the blog. I expanded into additional honey-related products, which meant packaging, labels, a logo, and eventually a warehouse full of inventory printed with the Waxing Kara name. I struggled with the decision to change our name for years. How could I practically and cost-effectively change it midstream? The answer was clear: there was no way to do it without considerable expense.

Had I foreseen that beekeeping would drive a product, manufacturing, retail, and online business, I would have looked beyond the clever wordplay and chosen a name that could cover the larger scope of the venture. But that’s the lesson: when you start down a path, you may end up in a very different place than you expected.

Even though logic urged me to change the business name, I was caught in the “the name is my identity” trap, compounded by sunk costs: years of product photography in Waxing Kara packaging, plus printing and packaging inventory. I couldn’t let myself redo everything overnight. The thought was paralyzing.

How we carved a path to Bee Inspired

So we stepped back and strategically carved a pathway to a name that represented who we had become:

• We were granted a trademark for “Bee Inspired” and added it to packaging, labels, our website, and signage wherever we could.
• In professional photo shoots, we stopped showing packaged products and focused on ingredients whenever possible.
• We began featuring models instead of packaged products.

And, importantly, we came up with plan after plan. In the midst of all that planning, three major things happened.

First, another company began using our Bee Inspired trademark. A very expensive legal win later, we still had too many Waxing Kara labels, boxes, and packages to burn through. Then, two 200-year floods destroyed the investment properties that were funding this new chapter of the business. And last but not least, COVID stopped the world, leaving behind an economy that struggled to rebound.

There was never a “right time” to change our name, and I was afraid of losing the recognition and reputation we had built. Once again, I found inspiration in the bees. I had watched them leave a hive and swarm with confidence to establish a new one. It’s a regular part of their experience. So I decided to bee strong and step out with confidence. With the help of several highly seasoned marketing and branding specialists, we forged ahead.

Moving 450 blog posts to a better hive

This was no small task. We moved our entire website to a new domain, including a blog that started back in 2011. Over 200 recipes and close to 450 blog posts took about four weeks to migrate and make presentable again. It wasn’t all me; a small but mighty team, both near and far, made it happen. Moving forward, we are definitely in a better hive.

What Bee Inspired means today

The rebrand opened doors I didn’t expect. My art is re-entering our offerings in a way that fits, and it’s deeply satisfying to bring my encaustic work to the community we’ve fostered. I’m still learning new maker skills, from soap making with the help of an old chemist friend to my continuing studies in professional natural skincare. I spent a year testing small-batch formulations on my own face and body before sharing them, and I love that our self-care line grew out of that patient, hands-on process.

We’ve taken every bit of customer feedback into consideration as we relaunch each collection, from the actual scents to the fragrance load in our candles, which we now box for a better shipping experience.

We’re also turning everything into a gift. Honey has always felt like a gift from nature to me, and in this rebirth we realized that everything we make serves our customers as gifts, both for themselves and for the people they love. We’ve built gifting programs for corporate partners and retailers, and made it easy to shop honey gifts by occasion or recipient.

And we continue to partner with new and longtime beekeepers who cherish the bees as we do, offering their limited batches of varietal and artisanal honey alongside Eastern Shore honey from our own Chesterhaven Beach Farm, plus an entire collection of artfully crafted goods for home and body that we make by hand.

Through it all, I hold my work week to about 45 hours, mostly because I walk the walk. How could I encourage you to take care of yourself if I’m not doing the same?

Lesson #3: Identity is a lot more than a name

The change couldn’t come together all at once, and it didn’t need to. I see now that our identity is strong and relevant, driven by our commitment, our vision, and our mission, not by the letters on the label. I hope you’ll embrace the name Bee Inspired as the foundation of who we are and what we do. If you’re curious about the journey from a different angle, I shared more about building a woman-owned business from beekeeper to entrepreneur.

I want to restate our mission here, so you know our commitment to this brand is unending. Our mission is to encourage Self-Care Guided by the Seasons. As a lifestyle and beauty brand, we strive to innovate naturally and sustainably with our gifts from nature. And beyond that, we pay it forward through our philanthropy, so the good you share with your loved ones ripples outward to support others in our communities. You can read more about where it all began on our story page, or come say hello and get to know me a little better.