And now for something completely different......

September 1st, I tried experimenting with something new. Lip balm. I couldn't believe how easy this stuff was to make. I guess it helped that I had all the ingredients sitting around because of all my soapmaking. What I did was get my entire collection of various lip balms and try them out in order to determine what it was about certain ones that I didn't like. I was trying to narrow down the ingredients to figure out which ingredient it was that was ticking me off. I'm not positive, but I think I managed to eliminate the offending waxes that make certain balms feel too sticky. I hate it when you put a balm on and it feels as if you're coating your lips with candlewax. Anyway, my ingredients are as follows:

sweet almond oil
cocoa butter
shea butter
beeswax
vitamin E
peppermint essential oil
cocoa powder

The end result is a lip balm that goes on smoothly and tastes like a chocolate mint candy. Bronwyn loves this balm because she loves After 8s! I used cocoa powder to tint the balm brown because otherwise the shade didn't look like chocolate enough for me. The chocolate taste actually comes from the cocoa butter, and not the cocoa powder. I don't experience a waxy residue when I use this balm - which to me, is good. I was trying to test this balm out in different temperatures to see how it held up so I brought it to New Mexico and Texas with us when we visited. Considering that there was a heatwave and I didn't wind up with a puddle of lip balm in my pants pocket, I think it did okay. I'd like to hear from everyone else that has my balm so that I can tweak the ingredients, texture, and flavor. Suggestions of other flavors would be appreciated as well.

Oh and I have to say that the labels for the lip balm tubes came out really cute. They fit perfectly. I just have to figure out some way to adhere them to the tube and protect them because by the time we got back from Texas, I couldn't read my label anymore.