hand salves

one time I bought eight pounds of beeswax, as a treat

I really liked the burts bees hand balm especially for when I’m doing ceramics, in the winter, or when I’m on a surgical rotation where I’m scrubbing my hands a lot. Burt’s bees is now owned by Clorox and they have been changing their formulas and it’s not as good anymore, in my opinion.

A three ounce tin of the hand balm costs $10, but I could buy eight pounds of bee’s wax for $75, a couple bottles of olive oil, almond oil, and grapeseed oil (which I prefer over soy and sunflower for my skin) for like $20, and most of the herbs I already had, had growing, knew people that were growing, or could easily get cheaply. Sooooo, for the cost of 10 tins of this balm, I could get the materials to make soooooo many more.

After reading online about making balms, I also ordered more shea butter, which I was already using pretty regularly for my legs etc. And since whenever I want to try a new little craft, I further justify the money I’m spending on it by turning it into a gift for everyone I know. I also bought a giant junk of beeswax because I love beeswax candles and I wanted to make a candle on the summer solstice to then burn on the winter solstice because I thought that would be cute and fun.

Turns out, when you want to buy a big chunk of beeswax, at a decent price, the way to roll is to join a wait list and be notified when the hunks-o-wax are available because wax is kind of a seasonal product. I got my hunk-o-wax from Sperry Honey (although looking at their website now, it looks like they have 1 lb blocks for $23), and when it arrived it smelled DEVIIIINE.

It was okay that I had to wait for a while to get the wax and make the balms, because I could start slow-infusing my oils. Online a bunch of the websites talk about either short or warm infusing with fresh herbs, but this introduces moisture into the container and gives mold the opportunity to grow. And mold is big no thank you.

I fully dried calendula, rosemary, dandelion, yarrow, pine needles, and lavender. I bought dried lavender and chamomile to infuse. Everything was infused it its own jar so I could make a unique formulation for each friend.

safety

Home made products are fun and cool, but of course you are the safety inspector of your kitchen for clenliness, but it is also important to store the things you make properly so they don’t go bad.

Here’s an article on the risks of home made body products. And here’s the FDA fact sheet on home made cosmetics, and the FDA good manufacturing practice page. Basically, be careful! Moisture can breed bacteria. Also, be clean when you make body products.

There are also safety things to keep in mind when heating wax and oil because they are FLAMMABLE! Don’t heat wax in the microwave or directly on the stove—there are products made specifically for making wax products, I use a hot water bath to melt and keep the wax liquid. Anything wax touches will become wax-designated.

I thought about using empty baby food jars, but thought it would be hard to get the salve out and I don’t regularly buy products in low, wide open, glass jars so I did not have much to use to recycle. I bought little jars that were all uniform so I could make a cute label to gift them in. I did about 1oz wax: 1oz shea butter: 1c infused oil, combined and let cool. The labels I made in canva, then printed out onto an 8 1/2 x 11 sticker paper and cut them out individually

candles

I love a beeswax candle, so I did that too. I bought wicks, read a bunch of books and eventually just used mini muffin tins to make tea lights. I think I originally thought it could be cheaper to make my own votive candles for my wedding, but abandoned that pretty quickly when I realized how cheap votive candles are.

There’s lots and lots and lots of cute inspo using thrifted things to make candles in. Howeverrrrrr a heat makes things expand and if the material is not made to withstand that expansion, particularly if it is an uneven expansion, they can explode. Hot shards of glass and wax is not really ideal. Do not use random thrifted glassware to make candles!!!!!!!!