About
The story behind 2B
2B is a family business run by Paul Blackham and Sarah Jones out of Motueka in New Zealand’s fabulous South Island.
Paul has spent all his working life in and around financial markets and Sarah in the Law/Tax world, so developing an insect repellent was not an obvious career move for either of us. However, family life can do all sorts of strange things to a man – having a child with food intolerances and other allergies meant we became avid label readers and really tried to avoid strong chemicals in our food, toiletries, cleaners and our general environment.
In this strive for simplicity, something that really bugged us was Insect Repellents which seemed to fall largely into two categories, DEET based ones that worked but came with risks, and ‘natural’ ones that were safe but offered only mild short-lived protection.
Necessity being the mother of invention, Paul set out to see if he could make one himself. Paul is a rather-single-minded researcher and after many (many!) hours and much experimentation he hit upon a combination that has proved itself in some of New Zealand’s most bug-ridden environments. Our family& friends love to get out and about in New’s Zealand’s fabulous bush and rivers so there’s been plenty of opportunity to test 2B’s efficacy.
After several years of making numerous bottles for ourselves and friends, it became clear that the seeds of a business were growing. ‘Blackham’s Bug Blues’ became 3B and in December 2013 officially went on sale at Nelson Market. In negotiating intellectual property laws 3B became 2B in 2015, and is now sold across New Zealand.