From Queen bees to Queen Camilla, how one woman built a multi-million pound beauty empire out of bee venom

Deborah Mitchell, beekeeper and beautician, opens her front door a few inches. Two Jack Russells pogo around her feet, ignoring repeated commands to ‘go to your beds’. Giving up, she ushers me in and, after a cursory inspection, the dogs trot away.
I’ve come to hear the story of how a dyslexic teenager with bad acne and limited formal education built a multi-million pound beauty empire endorsed by The Queen.

We talk in the kitchen of her West Midlands home, all pale stone floors and sleek worktops, converted from a barn on her husband’s family farm. Light floods in through glass doors and there is a faint, delicious scent of rose and neroli. We start at the beginning. ‘When I left school, I really wanted to be an actress, but, in case I didn’t get parts, I trained as a beauty therapist,’ confides Deborah. ‘Then I found that treating people gave me a powerful feeling of coming home.’

On the bus, she would hide her face, red with acne: ‘I found a leg-waxing lotion, chamomile maroc: I put it on my face and it worked! We use it now in our chamomile hydrogel.’

When she got a job, Deborah moonlighted treating private clients in their homes. ‘I bought packs of nail extensions for £10 and sold the individual nails for £1 [each] — from that I built my business. I made my own skincare products with natural remedies from the pharmacy and the garden, steaming rosemary and lavender. I made a cleanser with boiled milk and rose petals — later, it became the basis of our hydro cleansing milk.’

Back then, her products were developed at home with a mixing bowl and saucepans. ‘I dowse things, I’m very much a healer. I put one hand over a person and the other over the oils and it will choose the one that’s right for her.’

Deborah doesn’t need interviewing; she delivers a seamless account of a life built on business acumen combined with instinct. ‘I was into visualisation,’ she reveals. ‘I planned out my whole future: I’d go mobile, get into hotels. I joined a club and was offered a place as a beautician. Six months later, I was doing £13,000 a month out of a disabled loo and a sun bed. It was called Deb’s Facial.’

Eventually, she paid a company to test her products, so that she could charge for them, as well as for the treatment. ‘They stole my formulas, my secrets. I cried for about four days, then I picked myself back up and thought, I’ll just make them better. To build skincare, you need a lot of money; I bought a house and re-mortgaged it when property prices went up. From that was born Age Defiance [a moisturising face cream, £82.50], which makes people look young quickly and it is now my best product. If I hadn’t made it, Victoria Beckham wouldn’t know about me.’

Celebrities were not the only royalty beating a path to Heaven, Deborah's skincare company. In 2006, she took a life-changing phone call: ‘I thought they said Clarins, but it was Clarence House to say Camilla wanted to see me. I loved her instantly — she is a beautiful person. I’ve treated her regularly since then, but I didn’t tell anyone for years, not even my mother.’

The business continued to expand, with therapists trained to deliver her skincare and products. ‘I was still struggling financially; every time you do something new, such as building a factory or hiring people, it costs money.’ Did she never have a business adviser or investors? ‘People offered, but there were always strings attached.’

She leans across the table, tracing a finger between her eyebrows: ‘One day, I saw a line here; I didn’t want Botox, so what was the solution? I went home and did what I always do when I have a problem — I drank a glass of water, asked a question and looked up at a point in the ceiling. The next morning, I drank it again and the answer came: bee venom. I made a mask with honey and venom, mixed in a cream. It worked straight away.’

'You are a witch', I say with a smile. She grins: ‘I am, yes.’ Then she explains that the body reacts to the venom as an aggressor and heals the skin. ‘It also brings in the collagen and elastin, everything that helps.’

How is the venom harvested? ‘You put a glass panel and a hum into the hive.’ A hum? ‘Yes, it’s an electric current, the bee thinks it is being attacked and stings the glass.’ Don’t bees die after stinging someone? ‘Yes, because the stamen sticks into the flesh and pulls the abdomen out along with it, but it doesn’t stick on glass.’ What happens to the bee afterwards? She shrugs: ‘Nothing, it just goes on pollinating and helping the world.’

The Queen loved her patented bee-venom mask, recalls Deborah, especially pleased that it didn’t harm the bees. ‘One day, the Palace called to say it was in the press that I was treating Camilla. I hadn’t told anyone, but someone had phoned to ask and the Palace doesn’t lie. After that, it all went ballistic, everyone wanted my bee-venom facial and I was a multimillionaire.’

Her own bees have all been killed by wasps this year, she reports sadly: ‘However, I’ve got a new queen bee arriving next week and she’s pregnant!’ You could call her Camilla, I suggest. She laughs.

Last year, the Heaven range of skin care and therapies was given a Royal Warrant, joining Bendicks and Tiptree jam, among other Palace favourites. There are clinics in a nearby village, as well as in London, and a state-of-the-art factory to boot. ‘We’ve been approached by companies wanting to buy us out,’ she admits. ‘I talked to my daughter about it and we thought, no, it would become something else.’

Not one to sit on Royal Warrant-holder laurels, Deborah continues to develop new products — a sun-protection cream hit the shelves last month. ‘It contains the full spectrum of light and actually makes you look younger.’ How did she come up with that? ‘I dreamt it. That’s what I do.’

The Heaven range by Deborah Mitchell is available on her website

This feature originally appeared in the July 30, 2025, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe