Herbal Prep - Making Lip Balm

This is a fun prep, and in a couple hours you can have enough lip balm for the entire year...for you AND everyone you know. The Qtys I am using will fill about 30 tubes!!

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This batch I am making for the kids, so I am using a little gel food coloring (you can use natural food based colours too, I am just not completely set up here yet...) and some flavoring. For adults I mainly use essential oils, but the kids like fruit flavors.

Later in the year I will get into more in-depth recipes, with oatmeal, coconut oil and cocoa butter etc...

First, we need a scale and a dish to hold 1 oz beeswax

I do have an analog scale, but not all set up yet, so using the shipping scale. For now digital is okay, but when we get solar installed I will not use this one anymore.

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1/2 Cup liquid or soft oil

I am using a Sweet Almond Oil infused with Calendula...

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A double boiler

I use a pyrex bowl over a sauce pan. We are going to melt the beeswax into the oil.

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Once the wax is melted, add in the oil (or put them both in together in the first place...)

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While the oil and wax are melting, measure out your essential oils. It is important to get everything set up while they are melting, because once you take them off the heat you will only have about 1.5 minutes (or less) before the mix starts to thicken. We need to pour it into the tubes as a liquid.

At max of 20 drops essential oil per oz of carrier, we can add up to 100 drops for this mix. In the first batch I am adding 45 drops Mandarin (cancer preventative and moisturizer), 6 drops Cinnamon leaf, 4 drops Clove and 5 drops Peppermint. This is my favorite mix. It has a light flavor...

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Once everything I will add, oils, colours, flavors etc...are all laid out, and the oil/wax is nicely melted...this is the point where I like to add in 1 Tablespoon of Honey...I add it and mix it in, still on the heat.

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It will give you an extra moment or two, if you keep the measuring cup warm on a cup warmer (I use one in the winter for this)

Pour the oil/wax/honey mix into your measuring cup...Quickly add in your essential oils...(If you are Only adding essential oils, stir and you are ready to pour into your tubes or tins)

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If you are adding colours or flavors...most often they are water based...as you can see they do not readily mix in...

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Soo...I use a hand held mixer, and whip them up for about 5 seconds

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Quickly fill your tubes and tins...I am making a mess :O I usually hold the tube in one hand and the cup in the other...but adding the camera made it tricky!

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Let them cool for about 15 minutes, then add the caps and leave them to cool another hour or two...and then they are ready to use! You can of course add labels, but I give them to the kids as they are because they are different colours.
I add labels to sell them, or when I am making various medicinals so I can list what is in them.

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Clean up tip

Soap acts as an emulsifier...so to easily clean the mixer, fill the sauce pan 1/2 full of boiling water, add a good dose of dish soap...and run the mixer in it for a minute. Then just rinse and the mixer is usually all clean.

We will use this same process for many other recipes, like salves, creams, ointments...each recipe will be different, but the process is fairly common.

That is all for now...I hope you enjoyed!

This is a {Steemit Original} All words and photos by Elew