When I woke up this morning, I wasn’t expecting the amount of snow that was sitting outside. Since some of the employees have 8-plus inches of snow, and others can’t see the end of their driveways due to heavy wind, a snow day for MMS has been called until 10 am. We are waiting to see if this storm will follow the radar readouts or not. If it does, this storm is predicted to be a slow-moving storm, dumping lots of snow on us. Hopefully, the snow plows will be able to keep up with the snowfall!
If at 10 am the weather has calmed down, we will go to work and start working on your orders. As I was told, “If the birds are out, the sun is shining and people are breaking out the shorts, then we will go to work.” If at 10 am the weather and roads haven’t improved, we will be calling a complete snow day and none of our staff will go to work.
Now that I’ve given you the depressing news, I’m going to show you the plate test for testing the flavor of a lip balm. I was asked by jrdgarrett why the Saint Patrick’s Day Mint Balm didn’t have a Peppermint taste. How many times have you flavored a lip balm and decided AFTER you filled the tubes that the flavor just wasn’t strong enough or too strong? This is where the plate test is very useful.
Find a ceramic or glass plate. After you have flavored the lip balm, use a transfer pipette to drop one or two drops of the melted lip balm onto the plate. These drops of lip balm will cool very quickly. Rub your finger on the lip balm and then place the lip balm on your lips. You should make sure your hands are clean and don’t have any residual flavor on them, or the test is pointless. Ask yourself these questions: Is this flavor strong enough for what I wanted? Is this lip balm sweet enough? Do I need to add something to round this flavor? Am I happy with the flavor that this has produced?
If you can answer these questions to your satisfaction, then you can fill your lip balm tubes and be happy with the flavor results the first time!
The Saint Patrick’s Day Mint Lip Balm was flavored very lightly. If you feel that a flavor should be stronger, try sweetening it first. A sweetener will enhance the flavor of the lip balm without making the tingling sensation of the peppermint overwhelming. Try this and you will be surprised.
I will post photos to this entry later today when I can get to my camera.
Cooled drops of lip balm.
Great tip — thank you! My first batch of lipbalm had a good texture but a very light fragrance — now I know how to test it next time!
Thank you for the tip! This has been my greatest challenge. When working with a Lip Solution Kit, do you add the whole half ounce of flavor
to the lip balm mix and test it from there? I was not sure if the amount of flavor was calculated for the amount in the lip solution jar. Also,
I would like to know if the sweetener, Sugar Kisses is made with Stevia suspended in organic Coconut Oil? Thanks.
Beauricua-
One jar of Lip Solutions can be flavored with approximately 6 to 11 mL of flavor oil. It will depend on the flavor that you are using, but if you read the flavor description, it does have a recommended use for a batch of lip balm that make 50 tubes. One jar of Lip Solutions makes approximately 50 tubes.
Sugar Kisses Flavor Oil labeled as an artificial sweetener, but I don’t know the ingredient listing because the manufacturer has named this product a trade secret. I hope this helps.
I need to order a flavor for my mango butter lip balm. I’m thinking of Mango flavor but I don’t know how much to order. Is there a chart somewhere of how much to order? I saw the conversion table and I don’t know enough to plug in the numbers. Mango flavor states 2-4%, what does that mean? How does that translate into ml or cc for the 50 lip balm batch? We were all ready to do the lip balms and we got stuck on the color and flavor. My interest is waning, I just want to go out and buy chap sticks, it would be easier. Help. I had asked another question on color, still awaiting an answer. Waiting is not one of my virtues.
We use 6 to 11 mL of flavor. 1 fl oz will be plenty.