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Flavorful, Protective Lip Balm
posted by Annie B. Bond Apr 8, 2007 12:00 am
Wendy, CA asks:
Annie: My lips get very chapped, and I'd like to make my own lip balm. How do I
do that?
Lip balm is easy to make. The basic formula is 1/4 cup vegetable or nut
oil, 1/4 ounce beeswax, 1 teaspoon honey or glycerine (humectants), and 1/2
to 1 teaspoon natural flavoring oil such as peppermint or lemon. Heat the oil
and beeswax in a double boiler until the beeswax is melted. Remove from heat
and whip with an electric beater until creamy. Add the honey or glycerine and
flavoring oil; whip some more. Store in small glass jars. Try different oils
on your lips to choose the best one for your skin. I tried a drop of apricot
kernel oil on my lips and never had to look further-it felt perfect. And
experiment with flavoring oils, too. My daughter wouldn\'t even consider using
my homemade lip balm until I flavored it with peppermint flavoring oil, and
now she uses it daily in the winter.
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5 comments
add your comment »In response to Cindy M.'s comment--
This is actually completely inaccurate. My parents are beekeepers, and beeswax is acquired during the extraction of the honey. We pull out the frames of capped honey, carefully brush off the bees, and we take the honey frames away for extraction. We use forks to break the caps of the honeycombs, which is what releases the beeswax, and then we place the honey frames with the broken caps into a cylindrical machine which spins around super fast and uses centrifugal force to pull the honey out of the frames, which then collects down at the bottom of the extractor. This spinning releases both the honey and the bits of beeswax which were scraped away so that we could get to the honey in the first place. From the bottom of the extractor, we drip the honey (which is intermixed with lots of beeswax) into a filter to separate the honey from the wax bits. Once it's separated, we rinse out the beeswax, and bottle the honey. That's how beeswax is obtained.
So, Cindy, I'm not sure where you got your information, but acquiring beeswax absolutely does NOT require that honeybees die in the process.
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Thanks for this article, but how can preserve it for a long time? and what is the shelf life for this balm?
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Apricot Kernel & Jojoba oils are said to be the two closest to the body's naturally produced oil of the skin & hair, and are not only safe, but are very nice. I've been using them for years and people are always impressed by my age and "beautiful skin". In place of beeswax, soy wax, or other veggie waxes (which i find harder to find) can be used. Beeswax can only be acquired by killing bees, unintentionally, which we know are endangered, This is not only cruel, but it is life threatening to us all to have the loss of that species. Please research this for yourself, online's an easy & good place to start.
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You can also put it in your old empty chapstick containers.
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Don't apricot kernels have arsenic in them?
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