All Natural Lipbalm

When I was looking for handmade Christmas gift ideas this past winter, I ran across a number of recipes for homemade, all natural body products. I decided to give them a try, and I'm a total convert. Eric and I are using my homemade lotion exclusively now, and I want to learn how to make my own soap as well. So, this is the first of (definitely) several and hopefully (many) more posts about my own "line" of bath and body products.

Not wanting to get too adventurous my first time out, I made this lip balm using this recipe I found on A Sonoma Garden. I made two changes to the original recipe. First, I substituted sweet almond oil for the olive oil. Also, I added two milliliters of essential oils to each batch to add a little scent and flavor. The resulting lip balm is pleasantly light and slick. It's definitely great for keeping your lips hydrated. To recap, the final recipe I used is:

1 1/2 tsp beeswax
1 7/8 tsp coconut oil
1 1/8 tsp cocoa butter
1 tbsp sweet almond oil
1/8 tsp (0.6 ml) vitamin E oil
2 ml essential oils

I melted the first four ingredients in an improvised double boiler, then removed it from the heat and added the vitamin E and essential oils. The essential oil blends I used were:

Minty Fresh - 1 ml spearmint, 1/2 ml peppermint (1st distillation), 1/2 ml peppermint (2nd distillation)
Citrus Spritzer - 1 ml bergamot, 1/2 ml orange, 1/2 lemongrass

Finally, I poured it into the tubes using a tiny funnel. I could fill six or seven tubes, depending on spillage. Tip: I found that rubber-banding  the tubes together helped them stand up and made it easier to go from tube to tube without spilling. After it cooled, I scraped up the spills off the dish and put it in a tub to apply with my finger. No waste!

While this recipe is great for everyday maintenance, I did find that it didn't work as well as I'd like for the extremely dry, chapped lips I sometimes get in cold weather. For next winter, I want to experiment with making a heavier lip balm using some additional wax and maybe another moisturizing butter of some kind.

I gave these as gifts with body spray and hand cream.