Hi,
Yep, since I made almost 50 lip balms and glosses yesterday, here is one more recipe :)
VERY Moisturizing Lip Balm
4 oz Beeswax (shaved is easier to melt or use the one that's already in small pieces)
2 oz Shea Butter
2 oz Cocoa Butter (deodorized if adding flavoring or essential oils, undeodorized if you want that chocolate scent)
2 oz Meadowfoam or Grapeseed, Apricot Kernel, or even Sweet Almond Oil
2 oz Aloe Butter
.5% preservative of choice.
Flavoring (Optional)
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Melt the beeswax first, as it'll take the longest, using the double boiler method. Remember not to use one of your better things to melt it in, as beeswax doesn't like to leave things. It's very hard to get off.
Add the butters and melt them in and the oil of choice. Stir.
Take off the heat and add your preservative and flavoring/essential oil if you want one.
If you're putting these in the lip balm containers that look like the chap stick ones, the easiest way I've found to do them is to take a bunch and rubber band them together - they don't tip over that way. Fill them up and let them sit till hardened.
I've been asked WHY do I add a preservative to a lip balm, being that it's all oils and butters and no water. My answer is, there sure is water, once people start using them - think of a person's lips. Saliva. Probably bacteria, and people do share these things. Keep it safe and it's actually in the Cosmetic Regulations that you "have" to use a preservative, especially if you're selling them. That tells me right there that I need one.
Marilyn - 2006
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Comments: 17
Fran:
The containers and I have to get more as I UNDER estimated and ran out! AHHHH. Here's where I get them - she's got all kinds... .
www.elementsbathandbody.com - her name is Tammy and will answer any questions/emails you send. And she's the best priced on the net that I've found! She has the lotion bar containers, the lipbalm ones, little tins, bottles, a few herbs, glass roller bottles for perfumes or lip gloss and also plastic ones that are smaller and are, I think 20 cents apiece. It lets me buy my containers and I used to buy bulk, but that's not needed anymore since I don't have the website and am not going through them as fast as I was - for a good price.
Visionarie B.:
Meadowfoam seed oil is a fantastic oil. If you want to read up on it, go to http://www.meadowfoam.com/ and I do use it alot, but there are only two distributers in the USA for it, one is www.essentialwholesale.com, where I've been buying mine and the other is Chakrit Chemicals and that's for very large quantitys, if you were selling it. It's an all around oil, made from the meadow foam seed plant that's very good for your skin and is used in all kinds of applications - it's an oil I always keep onhand.
Lisa:
Preservatives - I use LiquiPar Optima (Phenonip would be about the same), and I use it so that my products don't spoil, also, it's the law. Other than soap-- the Cosmetic Industry requires a preservative. The thing with the one I use is that the usage rate is only .5% - 1% to your total product and that's not much at all.
Anything with water or that may come in contact with water, even though you may not have used water in what you've made, is very subject to contamination and without a preservative, you'll have some very nasty mold and bacteria and it doesn't take long to grow.
There are no natural preservatives. There was a promise of one essential oil that had studys done on it and we were really hoping that it would pass... but it didn't.
Vitamin E and Rosemary Oil Extract, no matter what anyone tells you and you'll read BAD info all over the web, are NOT preservatives. They are antitoxiants and not the same at all.
The good thing is that the usage rate on the preservatives is very low. The bad thing is that cosmetics in the store use WAY more than is called for or recommended, I've read the labels and I can't figure out why. There's no need for it. But if you make things yourself, you really don't need that much at all.