About Aunt Be
I believe skin care should begin with something the world could use a little more of:
Healing love.
Not fear.
Not shame.
Not another company pointing out everything that is supposedly wrong with your face or body.
Love.
The kind of love that says, I see what you have been through.
The kind that reminds you that your skin is not your enemy.
The kind that helps you care for yourself without believing you must become someone else first.
I’m Beverlee Harbour Gopp, although most people know me as Aunt Be.
I am the founder and maker behind Aunt Be Botanicals and the author of The Woman in the Mirror: Where Skin Meets Soul, Choose Gratitude Not Attitude Even When Sh*t Hits the Fan, and the poetic little picture book Be Grateful.
I am also a lifelong student of botanicals and a woman who knows personally how deeply our skin can affect the way we see ourselves.
So come sit with me for a moment.
Let me tell you why Aunt Be Botanicals matters so much to me.
Aunt Be Botanicals began in 2012, but the heart of it began long before there was a business name, a website, or a row of little jars waiting to be labeled.
It began with frustration.
I was beginning to learn how to read ingredient labels and pay attention to what I was putting on my skin. I learned about parabens, sulfates, harsh cleansers, and ingredients I had never questioned before. I became horrified by how many conventional products contained ingredients that irritated, stripped, or simply did not agree with my already reactive skin.
I realized that I had trusted the front of the bottle without really understanding what was inside it.
At the same time, I was discovering natural ingredients and beginning to understand how thoughtfully chosen oils, herbs, butters, flowers, roots, and clays could work with the skin rather than wage war against it.
I did not want products that merely sounded beautiful.
I wanted natural ingredients that genuinely served a purpose.
So I began learning.
I learned how different ingredients behaved together and how a formula could soothe, moisturize, protect, soften, or support skin that had been through something.
I experimented. I adjusted. I listened to my own skin and to the people who trusted me with theirs.
Many products began because someone I cared about needed help.
A burn.
A rash.
A scar.
An eczema flare.
Painfully dry hands.
Skin that had become fragile, uncomfortable, or unfamiliar.
Those stories became part of the formulas.
And the formulas became part of my story.
I Know What Troubled Skin Can Take From You
When your skin hurts, itches, burns, breaks out, scars, or changes in ways you cannot control, it does not always stay on the surface.
It can follow you into the mirror.
It can affect what you wear, whether you want to be photographed, how close you allow someone to come, and whether you feel beautiful, desirable, confident, or at home in your own body.
I know that feeling.
I have lived with difficult, reactive skin. I have experienced eczema, breakouts, sensitivity, aging, and the quiet emotional weight that can come with all of it.
I know what it is to look in the mirror and see the condition before seeing the woman.
And I know how quickly the world can make us feel that our changing skin is something to hide, correct, fight, or apologize for.
But your skin is not a moral failing.
It does not make you less feminine.
It does not make you less lovable.
It does not make you less worthy of being seen.
Sometimes the first thing we need is not another promise of perfection.
Sometimes we need relief. Comfort. Dignity. A little tenderness.
And we need someone to understand.
Why I Began Making Skin Care
The Botanicals Carry Stories Too
I choose ingredients with purpose.
My intention is always to ask:
What healing support can this ingredient offer, and what will it bring to the formula as a whole?
Aloe still reminds me of standing in a Tucson kitchen after a burn, using fresh gel from a plant and feeling the heat and pain begin to settle.
Sea buckthorn, with its deep orange color, became one of my most beloved ingredients as I learned about its rich history and its use in supporting stressed and damaged skin. It now lives in several Aunt Be formulas.
Helichrysum taught me about repair and resilience.
Evening primrose became an important companion in products created for dry, irritated, and eczema-prone skin.
Carrot seed oil, rosehip, argan, lavender, frankincense, burdock, hemp, nettle, and so many others each earned their place through study, experience, intention, and purpose.
These are not botanical decorations scattered into a cream so I can place pretty flowers on a label.
They are part of the architecture.
Every ingredient has a job.
Every formula has a reason for existing.
Why Every Product Begins With ‘Be’
At first glance, names such as Be Beautiful, Be Smooth, Be Fearless, Be Healed, Be Abundant, or Be at Peace may sound like product names.
But they are more than that.
The word ‘Be’ has followed me throughout my life.
It appeared in my coaching work, my gratitude writing, my products, and eventually in The Woman in the Mirror.
Because I came to understand that the woman choosing a jar of skin care may be looking for more than moisture, softness, or relief.
She may also be looking for herself.
Be Smooth Eczema Relief Balm can care for rough, uncomfortable skin while reminding you that your life does not need to be without texture to be beautiful.
Be Fearless Cream for Damaged Skin can support vulnerable skin while asking where fear has kept you small.
Be Beautiful Anti-Aging Moisturizer is not a command to become beautiful. It is a reminder that beauty was never something you had to earn.
Be Abundant Hand and Body Lotion can soften the skin while inviting you to notice what is already surrounding you: love, shelter, trees outside the window, a dog resting nearby, meaningful work waiting on the table, and enough room in your chest to breathe.
Every ‘Be’ carries two intentions:
One for your skin.
And one for your soul.
‘Be’ Your Best Self Every Day
Being your best self does not mean being perfect.
It does not mean you must float peacefully through every day, never lose your patience, never raise your voice, and never cuss at the person who stopped short in front of you without warning.
You are still human.
You will have difficult days. You will become angry. You will argue. You will grieve. You will make mistakes. You will sometimes react before the wisest part of you has had time to put on her shoes.
Being your best self is not about performing goodness.
It is about knowing who you are beneath the moment.
It is about recognizing when you have wandered away from yourself and finding your way back.
It is about living with honesty, gratitude, compassion, humor, courage, and enough love for yourself that you no longer have to disappear to make everyone else comfortable.
You do not have to become someone else. You have to stop missing out on yourself.
From Skin to Soul
For years, I thought I was making skin care.
And I was.
But somewhere along the way, I realized I was also helping women change the way they looked at themselves.
Because the mirror is rarely just a mirror.
It holds our history. Our criticism. Our grief. Our aging. Our comparisons. The words other people gave us and the ones we learned to repeat on our own.
It holds all the hidden places where we have whispered:
I am not enough.
I am not beautiful anymore.
I am too much.
I should be further along by now.
Who would want me like this?
We may bury those thoughts beneath humor, work, caregiving, busyness, or a carefully arranged face.
But the woman in the mirror still hears them.
The mirror can hold something else too.
Recognition.
Compassion.
Gratitude.
A moment when you stop examining every line, scar, fold, spot, and perceived flaw and finally see the person standing there.
That is the heart of From Skin to Soul.
It is the bridge between caring for your body and remembering the woman who lives within it.
My book, The Woman in the Mirror: Where Skin Meets Soul, grew from that same truth. The products, the words on the labels, the stories, the questions, and the rituals all belong to one message:
You are not a problem waiting to be fixed.
You are a whole woman worthy of care.
Made by My Hands, With You in Mind
Aunt Be Botanicals is not a distant corporation with my name attached to the front.
I am here.
I choose the ingredients. I create and refine the formulas. I make the products in small batches. I pour them, fill the jars, apply the labels, answer the questions, read the messages, and celebrate when someone tells me she has finally found something that makes her skin feel comfortable again.
When you order from Aunt Be Botanicals, your product has passed through my hands.
That matters to me.
I cannot promise perfection or pretend that one product will work the same way for every person. Skin is individual, complicated, and wonderfully human.
What I can promise is intention.
I will never create a product simply because I need something new to sell.
It must have a purpose. The ingredients must make sense. The formula must earn its name. And I must feel good about sending it from my home to yours.
What I Hope You Find Here
Of course, I hope you find a product your skin loves.
I hope you find comfort for the places that itch, crack, ache, tighten, or make you self-conscious.
But I hope you find something more too.
I hope you begin treating yourself with greater tenderness.
I hope caring for your skin becomes a small ritual of returning to yourself instead of another opportunity to criticize what you see.
I hope you remember that aging is not disappearing.
I hope you feel beautiful without needing to erase your history.
I hope you recognize the ways you have silenced, hidden, or abandoned pieces of yourself in order to feel acceptable.
I hope you feel heard.
I hope you realize that being imperfect has never made you unworthy of love.
Most of all, I hope you stop looking past the woman in the mirror.
Perhaps she is not asking you to become someone new.
Perhaps she is asking you to come back for her.
Welcome to Aunt Be Botanicals.
Come exactly as you are.
There is nothing about you that must be hidden before you are worthy of care.
With healing love,
Beverlee Harbour Gopp Aunt Be
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