Balm Sunday

After much debate on what to do with my beeswax, we decided that lip balm was the way to go since we probably only had enough to make one sad looking candle. My mother supplied the necessary materials for my birthday (thanks Mom!), and after tracking down the necessary oils around town, we were in business.

Ingredients:
Beeswax
Sweet Almond Oil
Jojoba Oil
Grapefruit Essential Oil
Tubes and Filling Tray from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm
Electronic Scale
Plastic Pipette

Step 1: Assemble all the ingredients together. We used 2 parts beeswax, 1 part sweet almond oil, 1 part jojoba oil. I only had 113 grams of beeswax, so I used 56 grams of almond oil and 57 grams of jojoba oil.

Lip Balm Materials

Step 2: Weigh the beeswax.

Weighing Beeswax

Step 3: Add the oils in the proper proportions. The extract gets added later after everything is melted.

Weighing Beeswax and Oils

Step 4: Boil a a pan of water and then reduce to a simmer. Place your separate container of beeswax and oil into the water and stir occasionally until the wax is melted. Remove from water and add your essential oil of choice. We used grapefruit essential oil and added 2 mL. We followed the ratios from Majestic Mountain Sage which is also a good online source for lip balm ingredients.

Melted Ingredients

Step 5: Pour mixture into filling tray after letting it cool for 5 minutes.

Pouring Mixture into Tubes

Step 6: Wait for the mixture to cool in the tubes.

Tubes of Lip Balm

Step 7: Scrape off excess lip balm.

Scraping off excess wax

Step 8: Remove tubes from tray and cap.

Finished Product

We found our lip balm to have a good grapefruit flavor but not overpowering. It is also a bit hard, but stays on your lips for a long time. Next time, we may increase our oil a bit to have a slightly softer lip balm, but overall we are pleased with the results. We ended up with 36 filled tubes, and I still have some wax in the freezer.

Guess what everyone is getting for Christmas?

1 Comment

Filed under beekeeping

One response to “Balm Sunday

  1. My parents have made lip balm that way before with their wax; I’m not sure if they’ve found a solution. They have some cute molds you can use to just make blocks of wax for craft projects etc.

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