Homemade Chapstick - a.k.a "Mamma's Mintstick"

Get yourself some beeswax because this is one recipe you do NOT want to skip out on!!

Since we moved to a state where it actually gets cold in the winter, our family's desert skin and lips have been extra thirsty! So I did what I usually do and looked for a way to make my own natural version (just like with the laundry detergent, remember?!)

Well, once I picked up a few essential supplies, I realized it is actually super easy to make your own lip balm. I have a couple books that I love to reference. (Gorgeously Green, Back to Basics, Grow Your Own Drugs). Once you've got a specific formula, you can tweak your oils and flavors to your taste. We love that minty taste of the Burt's Bees stuff, so we used Peppermint essential oil in ours. I even made some with lavender essential oil! YUM!

Mamma's Mintstick ingredients:

This recipe will fill 8-9 lip balm tubes!

1 Tablespoon Coconut Oil

2 Tablespoons Sweet Almond Oil

1 Tablespoon & 1 teaspoon Beeswax

10 drops Peppermint essential oil

DIRECTIONS:

1. Coarsely chop or grated your beeswax (vegans may use Carnauba Wax as an alternative), and place it in a small pot or glass pyrex measuring cup with your butters and carrier oils in the top of a double boiler, and melt gently over heated water. Make sure that the water does not boil over into your oil mixture, 1 -2” of water in the bottom of your pot is enough.
2. Once that your beeswax mixture has melted, remove from burner, and add your essential oils. The essential oils will begin to dissipate with the scent, add more as needed.
3. Immediately pour the hot mixture into lip balm containers. If the mixture cools too rapidly while you are pouring, then heat the mixture back up over the double boiler.
4. Allow to cool completely (I usually wait overnight) before placing the caps onto your lip balm containers.

(Recipe Courtesy of Mountain Rose Herbs)

I bought these little plastic containers at Wal-Mart. I think they are for storing beads!!! But they work well as lip balm tins too. I also ordered some white chap stick tubes from Ebay which worked great! Even with this small recipe, you get such a high yield of product, that you can give them away as gifts and still have tons for your family! Everyone got a tube for Christmas and I still have a stash set aside for last minute gifts!

Also, I buy y sweet almond oil and coconut oil here. I have found this to be the best deal on prices for organic versions. You could easily switch out your sweet almond oil for sunflower oil or olive oil, but olive oil is a bit more greasy. I buy a block of beeswax from Mountain Rose Herbs, but you could get some form your local beekeeper! Also, Mountain Rose Herbs sells pellets of beeswax which is MUCH easier to measure as you do not have to grate it, you can simply measure it out like sugar!