Calm Balm

Another day, another fun project with Kimberly! This time we played with making lip balm. It's so easy, it's almost embarrassing to see the prices on those tubes in the store displays.

The recipe we chose for this particular batch listed ingredients I had on hand: virgin coconut oil, avocado oil, beeswax, mango butter (which I had originally purchased for making soap), and a choice of essential oils for flavor, scent and healing value. Kim chose one of my favorite blends called Peace and Calming...a great oil to rub on the bottom of your feet before going to bed. I also rummaged through my storage tote containing all sorts of treasures for making salves, balms, bath salts, etc. and came up with the lip balm tubes and a couple of small pots.

Kim melted and mixed one tablespoon each of avocado oil and coconut oil (which is solid at room temp) and a half tablespoon of mango butter (also solid at room temp) in a glass measuring cup. Then she stirred in a tablespoon of melted beeswax , keeping the oils warm in a pot of almost-hot water, until all was happily married (about 2 minutes) .

After the difficult decision of which essential oil to use (lots of flavors and reasons), Kim stirred in 5 drops of the Peace and Calming (a sort of orange scent). Then with a steady hand she filled the tubes...

and a couple of pots. She also made tiny hand-lettered labels. She called her creation "Peace and Calm Balm".

Lightly scented, faintly flavored - a lovely lip balm! It has just the right consistency for tubes, and best of all provides lasting and effective protection and moisturizing. A successful experiment!

And another check off Kim's list of "Fun Things to Do and Learn!"

Next time we will try Sweet Honey Balm, using only sweet almond oil, honey, beeswax and another choice of essential oil.

They call us "kitchen chemists" for a good reason!