Body butter and homemade lip balm

Ok, now that we’ve got all these lovely oils and butters we can make our first *real* recipe! Or recipes, we’ve got 2 ½ of them (you’ll see what I mean by the half). But first, we have to get our first non-regulation item: beeswax. This is the first thing you’ll probably have to get online, but don’t worry, I have links over to the right there with a place to go to: From Nature With Love. They sell everything. In fact, they sell so many things your biggest danger will be that you’re going to spend hours and hours perusing the site and all their wonderful goodies – one of the great things about FNWL is that they provide detailed descriptions of all their items and what their good for and stuff like that. They also have a section of recipes and a blog so check them out!

Now that you have your beeswax here are your 2 ½ recipes:

Lip Balm

1 part oil
1 part butter
2 parts beeswax

Again, pick oils and butters with properties you like. Or, you can do what I do and use coconut oil and cocoa butter because it smells *so damn good*!!! Another oil I like using, especially when the weather’s cold, is olive oil for it’s moisturizing effects. For more specific measurements:

2 teaspoons beeswax
1 teaspoon cocoa butter
1 teaspoon coconut oil
3 drops essential oil (peppermint is nice, but I love vanilla for this)

Put everything in a double boiler (a.k.a. a pyrex measuring cup immersed in a pot of boiling water) and melt it all together. When it’s all melted pour it into a tin or other small container. You can get these at FNWL, too. Use whatever you like – they have little rectangular tins with sliding tops or even lip balm tubes.

Body Butter

1 part beeswax
1 part oil
2 parts butter

For measurements:
½ cup beeswax
½ cup coconut oil (I’m going to stick with my favorites, but choose whatever you like)
1 cup cocoa butter
20 drops of essential oil (optional – some possibilities are ylang, rose, sandalwood or, my favorite, vanilla. But with the coconut and cocoa butter you really don’t need any EO’s. Really.) Pour this into a container – a tupperware works fine, or you can get something fancy-shmancy from FNWL.

Lotion Bar:

This is just the above body bar recipe poured into a mold (soap molds work fine, or you can be like me and use your ice cube tray or random Tupperware containers.) To use just rub it around like you would a bar of soap. Just don’t wash them off. This is a unique way to use lotion - wrap them up with some nice paper and a ribbon for a classy, homeade gift.

There you go. Still super easy, fun and you can customize scents or oils to your hearts content. They make really nice gifts, too, which is perfect for the holidays!