Friday, January 21, 2011

Lip Balm Candle

I actually did this while I was home over Christmas break, but I'm just now getting around to posting it. I saw this recipe for homemade lip balm on a blog and decided I wanted to try to make it with my mom. A nice mother/daughter project.

The recipe calls for natural grated beeswax, which I suppose looks something like this:



Well, my mother and I, being who we are -- we picked up the first thing that seemed vaguely similar. We got beeswax beads, which look like this:


This apparently matters.


The rest of the recipe we followed correctly. Here I am melting the beeswax and the coconut oil.



Our talents are so profound that it took two of us to complete this step. Several times, the water almost boiled over into the oil in the wax.

So then we added our essential oil -- Eucalyptus, the cheapest essential oil we could find, because, again -- me and my mom. Then we poured it into a small glass jar thing (a repurposed jar -- no need to buy what you already have!)

It was clear before we poured it that this was going to be the worst lip balm ever. It was basically like vigorously rubbing your lips with a candle. Not so effective. So we made a candle instead! Two candles actually, even though I only have a picture of one of them. For one, we just stuck a birthday candle in it. The second one, which is pictured, we put cooking twine in it. The cooking twine one actually burns better. I didn't get lip balm, but I did get a little candle, so that's good enough for me!

The end.


[Edit: Here are both candles burning.]

Today in the World of Unnecessary, Overpriced Kitchen Gadgetry That I Really Want

A sculptural cutter that both slices and serves. Awesome.