Lotion and Lip Balm - Beat the Winter Weather

It's the middle of January, the bitter coldest winter month; snowflakes flying; kids praying for wind so we can get out of school; the temperature dropping to negative digits - again the kids praying it gets to the magic number for school closure.  Well, that's usually what January is around here.  Today is a balmy 35 degrees already at 8 a.m., rain if we're lucky, and not a trace of snow. :(  However, my hands and lips are still feeling the effects of winter's wrath, always dry, chapped, and cracking.  I have a solution, and this year, my hands are much better than in the past.  I found two great recipes for making your own lotion and chapstick and they are great!

I found this recipe from Katie at This Chick Cooks.  She also has a great cost break down if you're interested in the nitty gritty of it.

Homemade Bee Balm Recipeyields 16 ounces of balm 1 1/4 cups grated bee wax (about 2 ounces)
2 cups light olive oil or coconut oil
15-20 drops of essential oil (optional)
Containers for your balm

Set out your containers that you will be putting the balm into so that they are ready. Next, find a large pot and a smaller pot that will sit in your larger pot (or a double boiler). Add enough water to the larger pot so that it comes up around the bottom of the smaller pot. Bring the water to a boil.
In the top pan, add the olive oil and cook for 15 minutes. Next, add your grated bee wax. Stir the mixture until everything is melted. Add essential oil. Dip a spoon into the mixture and set it aside for a few minutes to see if the balm is your desired consistency. If you want thinner balm add more olive oil, and if you want a thicker balm add more bee wax.

While the mixture is still liquid pour it into your containers. Let it sit uncovered for several hours until totally cooled and it will harden and be ready to use. 

I used coconut oil and a some mango essential oil and it smells delicious.  However, the coconut oil really overpowers the other smells and the essential oil isn't noticed much.  Also, when you grate the beeswax it smells like honey, who knew?! Probably all you smart people out there. :) I've never used beeswax for anything so this was a nice little surprise. lol  Anyway, this is SUPER easy.  I'm not sure why you need to heat the oil for 15 min. because it took maybe 1 minute for it to all melt so I might try shortening that time next time I do it.

Lisa at Lisa Take Six shared this super cheap, you can get everything at the Dollar Store, but wonderful recipe for really moisturizing lotion at her blog a few weeks ago.

Super Moisturizing Lotion

Baby lotion
Vitamin E Cream (found out from looking at other recipes, this was probably supposed to be Vitamin E face cream)
Pictured here is a cocoa butter WITH vitamin E.  Pretty much any lotion will do, the vitamin E cream would just be more nourishing for your skin
Vaseline (small jar)
Containers - these small travel bottles are perfect for a purse, a desk drawer, or to give as gifts

Just dump everything in your mixer or you can use a bowl and hand mixer, and start whipping.  Tip - if you cut down the middle of the bottle, you can use a spatula to scrap out every bit of the lotion.  However, you might want to keep your biggest bottle to reuse and put the lotion back in when you're done.

Looks yummy, doesn't it?  Let it combine until it's all nice and fluffy.

That's it!  Now put it in your containers.  I tried using a funnel to fill the jars, it worked okay, but I spent a long time trying to "push" the lotion down, it doesn't pour.  However, I found an awesome tip from another lotion blog and I apologize to whomever I found it from, I forgot to write your name down, but she scooped the lotion into a ziplock bag and cut a corner off the bag to easily squeeze it into jars.  Trust me, do it this way, it's got to be sooooo much faster! This is a nice thick lotion. It's a little greasy at first (because of the vaseline) but it really soaks in quickly, and I'm a little picky about how greasy my lotion is. I don't like to be slimy. lol  This would be great to rub into feet and wear a pair of socks to bed or into hands with some cotton gloves to really let it soak in all night.

I made these for my friends for Christmas, and to decorate the jars, I used Avery 2x4" labels.  You can go to Avery's website and design them however you want, even bringing in any digital scrapbook papers, or even pictures if you want.  For the lip balm jars, I used the same labels, but used a 1" circle punch to cut them out.  I'm sorry, I don't have pictures, I guess I never took any before I gave them away and the ones I kept are just plain.  Plus, at the time, I only had a black/white printer (got a new color printer now, yeah!) and the labels weren't super cute. :)

Hope this helps with you beat your winter dry skin!  Now pray for snow or spring, I can't decide which I want more now. :)

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