Homemade Coconut Lip Balm Recipe with Peppermint and Cinnamon

My daughters and I went to a presentation of Ava Anderson http://www.avaandersonnontoxic.com products a couple of weeks ago and they discussed all the toxic and hazardous chemicals that are found in our day to day skin care products.  We were horrified. Especially since my oldest daughter is expecting and my youngest daughter suffers from severe allergies to most skin care products from soaps to oils. I started  doing some research and I found many sites with recipes on how to make your own products. Stay away from anything that says Fragrance on it stick to essential oils if possible. I decided to do it with my little one Maya that is 9. It was a fun project that also helped her learn some science along the way.  We started with a simple one on how to make lip balm. The first time we tried it we didn't have beeswax but we decided to make it anyways. It turned out very liquidy and the only way to harden it was to keep it in the fridge. Maya didn't mind it, she enjoyed taking it out of the fridge about a zillion times a day and putting it on, but I didn't think that was too practical.

I went ahead and ordered some more ingredients, bottles and small cases from bulkapothecary.com.

We tried the Natural Tinted Lip Balm Recipe found at http://wellnessmama.com/5837/natural-tinted-lip-balm-recipe.

I am inserting  a photo of the recipe that I hand wrote along with a couple of notes.

 

*Make sure you thoroughly wash and dry all the containers you will be using before you start.

*When everything starts melting it takes a while for the beeswax pastilles to dissolve. For a bit I thought I had done something wrong because the shea and coconut dissolve so quickly. However, the beeswax pastilles just took a little longer. When they melt they completely dissolve and no longer look like pieces of rice in your mix.

*Maya and I would have preferred it mintier but my husband David said he liked it like that. He says that he doesn't like having lip balm taste like anything. So I guess we can make different batches for guys and girls. I think next time I'll add 20 drops of the peppermint oil.

*I didn't take pictures while doing it. I'll try next time. You need to make sure an adult is the one pouring the hot liquid mix into the jars. My little girl did the labels and helped scoop some of the ingredients but when it came to heating the liquid on the stove she stayed clear, because it gets very hot.  It did cool pretty quickly.  We tried putting liquid food coloring to tint it but it would not mix with the oil I guess because it's water based, and oil and water don't mix. We tried adding some cinnamon powder to give it a light tint, but I don't think I added enough and when it cooled some of it looked like it had tiny specks of cinnamon on the top. So I have to work out the kinks on that. 

Maya wiped any excess or spilt balm from the sides.  However, it tasted great and was very smooth on the lips. Overall we were very happy with the results.

Our finished product with labels. We called it CocomintC because it has coconut, peppermint and a little cinnamon.

Coconut Peppermint Cinnamon Lip Balm

We use the P-Touch label maker Decomode #1 for the style and font you see on the labels.