Now that I have this stuff I can't imagine my life without it. I don't know why girls in particular are so addicted to
chapstick. I remember to grab it before I remember keys, wallet or anything else i would need when leaving the house. It took some fooling with to get the perfect
gloss yet with enough staying power to not wear off every five minutes. Not too waxy, not too slick, nourishing, healing and
oh-so-kissable.
*mwah*
It's so easy to make and your friends will love you when you give them free samples. Who doesn't love free stuff....I mean, reaaaaallllyyy???
Lola's Lipgoo
yields 7 plastic tubes
I use one of those small food scales for the weighing and measuring and a double boiler for the melting. You could also microwave the mixture for 15 seconds at a time will melted, but I'm not big on microwaves, I don't trust them...
- 10 grams beeswax*
- 10 grams shea butter
- 5 grams cocoa butter
- 4 milliliters avocado oil
- 2 capsules of vitamin E (just poke 'em with a pin and squeeze contents out when ready to add.)
- 16 drops of your favorite flavor oil/essential oil. Some of my favorites (all available at thesage.com)are ;island delight, vanilla banilla, peach, and peppermint.
- 4 pats of vaseline. This is as close as I can get to an actual measurement since I just played around with different globs of the stuff till I got it right, but haven't ever measured it out. By "a pat", I mean dip a knife into the vaseline and scoop out enough to cover the top inch or so of the knife. You can play with it and add more or less to suit your needs. If you want to put your lip balm into pots rather than tubes you may want to add a little more vaseline to give it a mushier texture good for finger dippin'.
- optional: 1/4 inch of lipstick. This is purely for color, if you choose. I like a slight red tint to my lip balm. Just hack a bit off the end of your choice of lipstick or use the bits of your old favorite lipstick that hang out in the butt of the tube that you're always trying to scoop out because you finally found that perfect shade of marvelous mauve and those bastards at L'oreal discontinued it.
Directions:
- measure out and add beeswax, shea and cocoa butters, and vaseline to the top of a double boiler over simmering water. Add your avocado oil with a medicine dropper/pipette.** Poke your vitamin E caps and add those. Add the lipstick and mix all with a fork or a little whisk till uniformly melted. Once that happens you can add your flavor/essential oil. You don't want to do it any sooner than this because the oil will burn and evaporate if it gets too hot.
Now, turn off the heat but don't remove the pot from the stove. Stand your platic tubes upright and fill them with a dropper. Once the mixture reaches the top allow it to set for a minute or two then add a few more drops to the top and you get a nice rounded top instead of a concave one.
- You can then place these in the fridge for ten minutes or so to set, however, when I try to move things I have a tendency to spill them so I just let them sit where they are for a half hour or so to set and then you can wipe off any excess dribble off the sides and you're good to go.
*The best kind of beeswax (white or yellow, it doesn't matter) is either grated by hand or in the form tiny pellets. Available at most of the sites listed below.
**A glass dropper will work fine but these tend to clog up and since you want to use a different dropper for the different oils I suggest you just get yourself some disposable transfer pipettes. These are great because they have milliliter measurements along the sides of them and you can buy them in bulk for cheap from any of the sites I've recommended below.
You can order any of these items from several places online. If you're in Canada, www.oshun.com is a great place to order any of the ingredients. They have a great selection and are reasonably priced. In The States, www.stakich.com (for beeswax, mainly)or www.thesage.com is an excellent choice. The latter has some wondefully creative flavor oils and are a little more pricey but I find it well worth it where oils are concerned. Other sites worth checking out for product or anything concerning making your own toiletries (soaps, lotions, balms, ets.)including recipes and ideas:
- www.soap-junkie.com
- www.bestofnature.com
- www.megan.scatterbrain.org/notmartha/
- www.from-nature-with-love.com
Happy balming! =)