The honey in the Gisou collection comes from one place: the Mirsalehi Bee Garden in the Netherlands. The garden is not a backdrop invented for the label. It is a working family apiary, and it is the source of the proprietary honey named on almost every product page.
Six generations, two hundred years
Beekeeping has been part of the Mirsalehi family for more than 200 years, passed down through six generations. Negin Mirsalehi learned the craft from her father, who was taught by his father, and so on through the family line. When her father moved from Iran to the Netherlands in the 1980s, he established his own bee garden in Almere and carried the family’s expertise and passion for beekeeping with him. The craft passed down as a working tradition tied to land, season and weather.
Summers in the garden
Negin and her sister Negar spent their summers in the garden alongside their father, learning the craft and developing a deep respect for bees and the natural ecosystem they support. Those early years shaped the way the family understood honey: not as something distant or decorative, but as something living, seasonal and deeply connected to the land. That respect for the natural ecosystem is still part of how the garden is described today.
Honey in the home
Honey was part of everyday family life. It appeared in family rituals and at home, and it became a natural part of the beauty routine as well. Their mother, a hairdresser by trade, discovered honey’s potential in haircare and created the original honey-infused hair oil recipe that inspired the brand’s first product. That first product was the Honey Infused Hair Oil, which remains the centre of the line.
From a home recipe to a collection
That homemade formula became the starting point for Gisou, which Negin created to share her family’s passion for honey and her much sought-after beauty routine. A tradition that began in the garden grew into a beauty brand that still describes itself through its beekeeping heritage.
What makes Mirsalehi Honey different
The proprietary Mirsalehi Honey is sourced from the garden in the Netherlands. It is shaped by the season and made from nectar that the bees gather from wildflowers, so the character of a harvest follows the flowering around it. The brand treats the honey as a living, seasonal ingredient rather than a fixed formula, and that is the honey the collection is built on. Because the garden sits in one location, the honey carries the character of that place rather than a standardised profile.
Beekeeping today
Negar, Negin’s sister, is Gisou’s Beekeeper-In-Chief. She continues the family practice by sustainably hand-harvesting Mirsalehi Honey and caring for the bees. The garden is carefully managed to support biodiversity and promote the welfare of pollinators; the brand describes it as a thriving ecosystem and a haven for honey bees.
From garden to formula
Honey is a humectant, meaning it attracts and holds water, which is part of why it suits a collection built around hydration and gloss. In the Honey Gloss wash-day range it appears as fermented Mirsalehi Honey; in the hair oils, hair perfumes and lip products it is listed simply as Mirsalehi Honey. The family’s expertise in the sustainable harvesting of honey and propolis informs the formulas throughout the line.
Reading further
The heritage is told at length in The Mirsalehi Bee Garden: Six Generations of Beekeeping and in A Decade of Glow. Readers who want the craft itself can follow Gisou Bee Learning, and the ingredients and heritage category collects the related articles.