Adventures With The Sage

We also added a new flavor to our collection yesterday and I had to try it! The Cranberry Flavor is sweet and perfect for anyone who enjoys cranberry sauce.

Collect supplies:
Beeswax
Soy Butter
Cocoa Butter (I used White Cocoa Butter)
Sweet Almond Oil
Flavor Oil of your Choice (I’m using the Cranberry Flavor Oil)
Oil Soluble Lip Color, if desired (I’m using the Ruby Oil Soluble Lip Color)
Lip Balm Containers of your choice
Container for mixing ingredients
Scale
Transfer Pipettes

Recipe for 0.6 ounce of lip balm (Makes 4 regular tubes):
0.12 ounces Beeswax
0.24 ounces Soy Butter
0.06 ounces Cocoa Butter
0.18 ounces Sweet Almond Oil
0.04 to 0.06 ounces Cranberry Flavor Oil

Recipe for 7.8 ounces of lip balm (Makes 52 regular tubes):
1.56 ounces Beeswax
3.12 ounces Soy Butter
0.78 ounces Cocoa Butter
2.34 ounces Sweet Almond Oil
0.312 to .468 ounces Cranberry Flavor Oil

Weigh all ingredients except for the Cranberry Flavor Oil into the container for mixing. Microwave in short bursts until the oils are completely melted. The beeswax and cocoa butter will take the longest to melt, so if you don’t want to wait for those to melt, you can use the Beeswax Prills and chop the cocoa butter into small crumbles. After the oils have been melted, add the flavor oil and color, if desired. Once the flavor has been mixed into the lip balm, you are now ready to fill your lip balm tubes. Don’t be alarmed if the lip balm sets up quickly! I’ve found it is one of the quirks of a Soy Butter lip balm!

We have also added some new fragrances and I will be sending out soap samples of these new fragrances. Don’t worry! I’ll label them with their names!

Enjoy!

First, melt the lip balm mixture. Using a pipette, fill the tube almost to the top. Refill your pipette.

To make the dome top requires a steady hand. While the tip of a filled pipette is barely touching the fluid inside the lip balm tube, squeeze gently on the pipette bulb. Continue with firm, even pressure while the lip balm mixture grows up and out of the tube. If you remove the tip of the pipette from the liquid lip balm mixture, all is lost. The surface tension is helping you prevent an over flow. Keep touching the surface and squeezing. If the lip balm mixture is filled too much, the over flow will make cleaning a whole new chore.

Once you have a nice dome on the top of the lip balm tube stop squeezing the bulb on the pipette, don’t release the bulb to cause suction of the dome back into the pipette, just stop dispensing more material into the lip balm tube. Now gently remove the tip from the lip balm. Bumping the table, counter, or work surface can make the dome topple and flow down the side of your tube.

As the mixture cools, the top will contract slight and you will have a nice dimple in the top surface of your tube. This is from the wax shrinking. Work carefully and you can have these lovely dimples in your tubes too!

If you have a deep, hollowed crack, then the lip balm was filled too hot, and/or the wax is prone to significant shrinkage.

Send in your photos of lip balm tubes with perfect dome tops! And a few that aren’t so perfect.

Still, how do you choose what oils you think are best for lip balm? First, collect the oils that you think you will want in the lip balm. Once the oils are collected, choose an oil and rub it into your skin. This is where we highly recommend a notebook to record your notes about oils, fragrances, recipes, etc. Remember, if you like an oil in the winter, you may not enjoy the oil so much in the summer and vice-versa. Some questions that you may want to ask yourself are: Do I like the feel? Does it last on the skin? Does it have an odor or taste? Neem may be fine for your feet or hands, but intolerable right under your nose!

Once you have tested the different oils you are considering you are ready to start creating a formulation. Still stuck? Check out our Make Your Own Lip Balm and test the recipe. You don’t have to follow these percentages exactly. We give ranges so you can try a few new ideas. If this makes a lip balm that is too soft, increase the waxes and decrease the soft butters or liquid oils. If you formulate with a recipe that is the same size each time (say 20 grams), you will find the small changes are easier to make. In other words, you will see, feel and taste the changes more easily.

Rarely does a formulation come together, and is perfect, on a 1st though 5th attempt. Lip balm is the same way. Testing gives answers to questions, sometimes the questions are ones you didn’t know you had! If you get stuck, send us and email with your formulation and what you like, and dislike, and the finished product.

We’ll help you find the answers.

Next week is our Cold Process Soap Follow Up Week! We are going to cover botanicals, milk soaps, curing, saving a batch, Lye Heavy Soap and Using the Lye Calculator.

Question:

Can I use any oil I want for a lip gloss as long I have enough wax?

Answer:

Yes. You can use any oil you want as long as the lip gloss you make isn’t so fluid that it will just flow out of the pen. We recommend using at least some Castor Oil to give the lip gloss viscosity and a substantial feeling. For example, if you use only Sunflower Oil, the lip gloss will feel too oily.

I’m going to make the a lip gloss similar to the Light Sunflower Lip Gloss, but there is more Carnauba Wax.

Items to be collected:

Castor Oil
Sunflower Oil
Carnuaba Wax
Flavor of your choice (I’m going to use Honey Flavor Oil)
Oil Soluble Lip Balm Color if you want (I’m going to use Yellow and Coral)
Silver Mica
Small transfer pipettes
Lip Brush Pens
Scale
glass beaker or jar
Microwave

Recipe:

50 grams Castor Oil
50 grams Sunflower Oil
6 grams Carnauba Wax
2 grams Honey Flavor
Touch of Yellow Oil Soluble Lip Balm Color
Touch of Coral Oil Soluble Lip Balm Color
Touch of Silver Mica

Weigh Sunflower Oil, Castor Oil, and Carnauba Wax into beaker and microwave in short bursts to melt. It took me about 3 minutes to melt the Carnauba Wax because of the high melt point of this wax. Once melted, add flavor and color. Fill the Lip Brush Pens and allow to cool. Once the Lip Gloss has cooled, cap the pens.

Aren’t these gorgeous Lip Brush Pens? I’m so excited for the labels the Graphics Department designed for these pens.

For those that are wanting to win one of the Mother’s Day Gift Baskets, these Lip Brush Pens will be included in the baskets.

Notes:

At the time I started testing the different oils, I didn’t understand why Castor Oil was so predominant in Lip Gloss recipes. I made a batch of lip gloss with only Sunflower Oil and the lip gloss was still fluid in the pen after it had cooled! I sat down with Stephanie and asked why Castor Oil was used in lip gloss. I learned that the Castor Oil gives both viscosity and a slightly tacky feeling that is a common element in various lip glosses across the market. After I looked at different lip glosses in the a pen, I noticed that most had a similar ingredient. Can you guess what it is? If you guessed Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil, then you are right! Castor Oil was the similar ingredient.

Next week is our Cold Process Soap Follow Up Week! We are going to cover botanicals, milk soaps, curing, saving a batch, Lye Heavy Soap and Using the Lye Calculator.

Collect needed items:

Jar of Lip Solutions of your choice (I’m using the Shea Lip Solutions)
Lip Balm Tubes and Caps or container of your choice
Beeswax
Coffee Butter
Scale

To be added to the Lip Solutions:
1 oz Coffee Butter
1 oz Beeswax

Place the jar of Lip Solutions on the scale and tare. Add the Coffee Butter and Beeswax to the jar. Microwave in short burst to melt the Lip Solutions, Coffee Butter and Beeswax. Once the lip balm is melted completely, fill lip balm tubes.

Notes:

The Coffee Butter adds a great scent to the lip balm. You can add Sugar Kisses Flavor Oil to sweeten the lip balm if you don’t want to add any other flavors. If you would like to add more flavor, you can add Coffee Flavor Oil for a Java Java Lip Balm, Vanilla Banilla Flavor Oil for a Vanilla Cappuccino Lip Balm, or any other flavor you would like to add. It’s your imagination and you are the barista, so have fun!

Next week is our Cold Process Soap Follow Up Week! We are going to cover botanicals, milk soaps, curing, saving a batch, Lye Heavy Soap and Using the Lye Calculator.

Collect needed items:

Beeswax
Refined Shea Butter
White Cooca Butter
Avocado Oil
Peppermint Essential Oil
Spearmint Essential Oil
Blue Oil Soluble Lip Color
Yellow Oil Soluble Lip Color
Scale
Measuring Bucket or beaker
Microwave
Containers (I’m using white lip balm tubes with white caps.)

Recipe
60 grams of Beeswax
75 grams Refined Shea Butter
45 grams White Cocoa Butter
120 grams Avocado Oil
0.5 grams Peppermint Essential Oil
0.5 grams Spearmint Essential Oil
Touch of Blue Oil Soluble Lip Color
Touch of Yellow Oil Soluble Lip Color

Makes 200 grams and approximately 60 tubes.

Weigh all ingredients except the essential oils and colors into a microwave safe container. After all the ingredients are in the microwave safe container, melt ingredients using short time bursts in the microwave. The beeswax will be the last item to melt, but you can stir the lip balm to help the beeswax melt. Add the essential oils and colors. Once the lip balm has been flavored and colored, you can fill the lip balm tubes.

Aren’t these cute? I love the labels the Graphics Department designed for this lip balm.

Next week is our Cold Process Soap Follow Up Week! We are going to cover botanicals, milk soaps, curing, saving a batch, Lye Heavy Soap and Using the Lye Calculator.

I was playing around with the lip scrub idea and I thought why can’t I mix it just like frosting? After all, I make a chocolate frosting in my food processor occasionally and I love it on saltine crackers. My point is that the chocolate frosting still has a granular texture from the sugar and that is fairly close to what I want in a lip scrub. If you don’t know what I mean, imagine creaming butter and sugar together in the mixer for cookie until the butter is nearly white and the entire mixture is fluffy. That is the texture I’m looking for.

Back to the lip scrub. We have a food processor in our kitchen here at work, so I “borrowed” it for a while for testing purposes. I thought “If I can make candy in a plastic bowl and not have the flavor stick, I wonder if a cosmetic flavor would stick?”

I’m going to use the same recipe that I posted on February 20th. First things first, I weighed my ingredients into a beaker and then used a rubber scraper to scrape the ingredients into the food processor bowl. I put the lid on the bowl and pulsed the lip scrub until completely mixed. I did have to scrape the sides of the bowl twice to make sure everything was mixed.

Perfect! The mixing in the bowl meant I didn’t have to melt any ingredients and I love the fluffy look of the scrub. The best part in my opinion is that I washed the bowl and the flavor didn’t stay!

Collect needed items:
Macadamia Nut Butter
Macadamia Oil
Vitamin E Natural
Flavor of your choice, we are using Cucumber Melon Flavor Oil
Scale
Mixing container
Sugar
Containers for finished product

Recipe:

0.50 ounce Macadamia Nut Butter
0.25 ounce Macadamia Oil
0.10 ounce Vitamin E Natural
1.70 ounce Granulated Sugar
0.04-0.08 ounce Cucumber Melon Flavor (I used the most I could use2.25 mL in this example)

Notes:
If you have a smaller bowl that fits inside your food processor, I would highly recommend using that. If you would rather use a mixer, go ahead and use that. You are just wanting the sugar and oils to be beat together. The longer you beat them together, the smoother finish it will have. If you don’t like the feeling of a regular granulated sugar, you could use a ultra fine sugar (not powdered sugar).

Next week is our Cold Process Soap Follow Up Week! We are going to cover botanicals, milk soaps, curing, saving a batch, Lye Heavy Soap and Using the Lye Calculator.

Needed Items:
Macadamia Nut Butter
Macadamia Oil
Vitamin E Natural
Flavor of your choice, we are using Cucumber Melon Flavor Oil
Scale
Mixing container
Sugar
Containers for finished product

Recipe:

0.50 ounce Macadamia Nut Butter
0.25 ounce Macadamia Oil
0.10 ounce Vitamin E Natural
1.70 ounce Granulated Sugar
0.04-0.08 ounce Cucumber Melon Flavor (2.25 mL in this example)

Weigh the Macadamia Nut Butter and Macadamia Nut Oil together and heat until melted, about 30-45 seconds in the microwave. Mix well. Weigh and add the Vitamin E. Weigh sugar and add sugar to oils, mixing well until all sugar is incorporated. This scrub will be thicker than a typical sugar scrub, you want it to have a putty-like texture. Lastly, measure and add your chosen flavor oil. I used Cucumber Melon. The sweet smell from the sugar, combined with this flavor, created a tutti-frutti type aroma. I used the higher rate for my flavor which is equivalent to 3% flavor. I would recommend the lower rate for really strong flavors such as Peppermint or Tea Tree. Check our Flavor Oil catalog section for recommended usage rates. Store in small jars.

Exfoliating the lips is not a daily routine event. Exfoliating should take place periodically. After this scrub treatment you should apply your favorite lip balm. Exfoliation and lip balm, means smoother kissing in your future!

Next week we are going to work on cold process soap. Don’t forget the supplies you will need!