New lip balm recipe

Lip balm is very easy to make. That said, this is my first large-batch attempt at it. I'm going to attempt to make 50 tubes today. Each tube is .15 liquid oz, so in total I need to make 7.5 liquid oz of lip balm.

To get the balm stiff enough for a tube you need a 3:1 to 4:1 oil to wax ratio. I am shooting more for around 3:1, since with the addition of the flavored coconut oil I am not sure how the result will be affected. So I need about 5.6 oz of olive oil, and 1.9 oz of bees wax. I am starting with the addition of 2% of flavoring (stevia coconut oil) so that would be .15 oz. Mind you lip balms are NOT exact and even if you just winged a recipe you would likely get a decent lip balm. And if you didn't, you simply melt it down and add more of what ever you need. Other products like soap and lotion are not so forgiving.

Sweet Balm #1 Recipe:
(In liquid ounces)

5.6 oz olive oil
1.9 oz bees wax
.15 oz Stevia flavored coconut oil.

So here you can see my 50 tube filled coming into action. The tubes just snap in.


Ready to be filled!


Ingredients and equipment. Olive oil (this I just got from the the bulk section at the local co-op), bees wax, stevia flavored coconut oil (not pitctured). To heat the oil and wax, I just use an old tin can (this one is BPA free). I pinch the end so it make pouring easier. A pirex measuring cup would be great, the only thing to note is that lip balm is a bit annoying, though not impossible, to wash out.


Haha.... You know how I said lip balm recipes are forgiving? Well here you are: after specifying liquid ounces ( the recipe portion of this post was written first and that is what I followed) I went and measured out weight ounces! ...but you will see later everything turned out fine. Here I am weighing out the ingredients. I forgot to mention, you can note above my olive oil is pretty light in color. Save the good olive oils for salad, the later pressings work great for balms and aren't so strong in flavor or smell.


You could try and heat the oils directly, but you run a greater risk of them degrading and scorching. I use a double boiler method using the tin can. You just want to heat it long enough to melt in the beeswax. Then I added in the stevia coconut oil... That was actually kind of tricky. The bottle it came in was not easy to get it out of (at room temp coconut oil is solid). I ended up heating it in the water a little and then just guessed at how much to add.


A note on filling the tray: the balm set up pretty fast and it was a little tricky not to get a layer of extra balm on the tray vs filling the tubes at the other end. I ended up using s Spatula to coerce the balm down. You can see four unfilled tubes, and there is a fifth that is partially filled. In total the recipe... With all it's mistakes... Was fairly close. I got 45 full tubes. I chilled the tube in the fridge to set them, but this isn't necessary.


Next was to remove the tubes and cap them. Minor gripe here was that as I pulled the tubes from the mold it flawed the tops on 90% of them.


There you are, 45 finished lip balm tubes, hopefully destined for Etsy. The sweet flavor is really light, but I like that. The texture turned out nice as well.

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Location:260th St NE,Newfolden,United States

Elements Bath and Body haul

So here is what I found in the mail today! I need to do some further price comparisons, but this was the best I could find online so far. I also need to cross check prices with the bulk section of the local co-op (about the only place to find these things). I may even make seperate price comparison pages in the future (the blog serves as kind of a diary and think pad for me). But for now, here is what I got...
Upper left is a pound of bees wax beads that I use for lotions, lips balms, etc. Currently I have beeswax cakes that I have to chop up; this makes both the measuring and cutting time consuming. Though the cakes are cheaper, I think the considerable time gain I get is worth the difference. $7.75 for 1 lbs.

Upper right is 100 chapstick fill tubes... 16 cents a piece. A large improvement from the 70 cent tube I by singly at the co-op. 100 tube for $16.00.

Bottom left (small tube) is stevia soaked coconut oil intended to flavor my lib balms. Obviously I'm aiming for an all natural approach so I went with stevia. Most lip balm flavors are actually more like edible perfumes, but the sweeteners actually add flavor. It's easy enough to get into making balms in 100 different flavors, but really I have no interest in this approach at the moment. I like things as simple as they get. Currently my balms contain two ingrediants: olive oil and beeswax. I find it so reassuring that by breaking things down to their basics, I am often able to make superior products. Yes, I am likely to grow and adapt, but I will always know that things only need to be as complicated as you think it is worth making them. 1 oz of Stevia flavored Cocoanut oil $4.75.

Bottom right is a chapstick tube fill tray.  This will allow me to fill 50 tubes at a time instead of 1 at a time, yay! It was a one-time expense and I think totally worth it. $14.99 for the tray.




An added bonus was that they also sent a little sample pack of things to try. Non pictured is a plastic pipepet... handy though not too durable. From left to right above is their all natural lipchap/body butter base, a fragarance, and a different lipchap sweetener I may try out. Kinda nice, but I would have to further evaluate the quality of these products to see if I would use them in my products. Maybe more blog posts!


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Location:5th St NE,Rochester,United States

Repurposed shower puff

So my shower puff exploded; this aggravated me because I'd had it only a week. So I cut it into long strips and Crocheted it into a kitchen scrubby. I actually meant to make a soap sack, but I wasn't following a pattern and it was far too wide for that purpose. Because of the ruff ends of the mesh, it is actually quite abrasive. Equah now wants to buy a new puff just so I can demolish it and make another.... Maybe she missed the point o my shenanigans?


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Local Lunch

Thanks to Minnesota.






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Saturday October 15, Rochester Farmer's Market haul.

Peppers are destined for ham soup and stuffed peppers. These carrots are absolutely awesome. The mozzarella... Not so much. Sorry to say, but it tasted like sour glue, not even edible. Also some eggs, ground beef, and some canned tomatoes.


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Equah's Stuffed Peppers

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Location:5th St NE,Rochester,United States

Everything in this meal is local, whith the exception of the rice, olive oil, and seasonings. Even got some canned tomato goodies at the Farmers Market.

Equah's Stuffed Peppers

1/2 can tomato paste (3oz)
1/2 can diced tomatoes
3 Tbs chicken bouillon
1 1/2 tsp Equah's seasoning
1 lbs ground beef
1/2 onion, chopped
1 tsp olive oil
3/4 cup rice (cooked)
1/2 cup water
5-8 green peppers (small) with tops cut off

Equah's seasining blend: Anise, ginger, garlic, black pepper.

Preheat oven to 350
Mix: beef, bouillon, tomato paste, diced tomatoes
Mix olive oil and onion and add to mixture (you can do this in the baking dish to grease it as well)
Add rice and water to the mixture and mix
Stuff green peppers with mixture, put into baking dish with a little water in the pan
Cover with tinfoil and back at 350 for 1 1/2 hour or until rice is done (add water as needed)

Farmer's market Sept 24

The chicken is from Vreeman Farms, around $11. Not sure why, but I have a hard time finding larger local chickens. I'm not expecting the 13 lb monsters we used to grow, but 9-10 lbs would be nice. Many I buy no longer come with gizzards either (...am I the only one who noticed this?) which is somewhat annoying.

Cheese from Prairie Hollow Farms: a mild cheddar from grass fed cattle. It nice, not amazing. I may try some of their other varieties next time. This one had an almost apple-like, sweet flavor.

Bread: whole wheat from Six Arrows farms. This was excellent. It said whole wheat, but Im not sure I trust that, but at least it isn't packed with corn syrup.

The concord grapes and lemon grass are for Equah for the most part. She loves lemon grass tea and the grapes are a favorite of ours.

I really wish I had asked what type of carrots these were. I have my suspicions they are a particular variety of heirloom, but I don't know enough to confirm that. They are sugar sweet and wonderful.

Do I need to explain turnips and potatoes? Favorites of my for potpie :)


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