Luscious honey lip balm

Lip balm is a fabulous quick and easy gift. I tried it because I wanted to make some to sell at our Hilton Harvest Twilight Fair and because my friend gave me some beeswax and honey from his hive...so I had to find something to do with it. Its so special to use local, natural, unprocessed ingredients.

It honestly took me about 20 mins to make seven cute little pots of natural lip balm. basically all you do is melt bees wax and a carrier oil and add essential oil or honey if you fancy it.

This is what you need:

The recipe I used is from Martha Stewart but I increased the volumes:
4.5 tablespoons grated beeswax
7.5 tablespoons jojoba oil
1.5 teaspoons honey

1. Grate the beeswax (or purchase pelletised bees wax)
2. Melt the beeswax and oil in a double boiler (a small pot in a larger pot with boiling water)
3. Remove from heat and stir in honey thoroughly
4. Pour into little pots or jars

Easy. Well in truth I didn't stir in the honey well enough so there is a layer of darker honey at the very bottom of the pots, but that's no big drama! Whack on a cute label and hey presto, a boutique batch of 100% natural, local kissing potion!

I think this kind of stuff is important - its cutesey wootsie AND important for two reasons. Firstly it means that you can pretty much totally avoid the smelly isles of the supermarket (we only purchase loo roll, panadol and kids toothpaste down that isle). So you save money, save packaging and save 'cosmetics miles'. You realise it is not Maybelline or similar. No maybes about it. Secondly, I don't mean to sound alarmist but...COSMETICS AND STUFF CAN GIVE YOU CANCER! Well maybe anyway. I don't want to risk it. Check out this very interesting short doco by the makers of the fantastic and life changing Story of Stuff. It's the Story of Cosmetics.