DIY organic, allergen-safe lip balm

My daughter wanted to make lip balm! After reading scads of recipes and lots of ingredient labels, here is the recipe I came up with. It is most heavily influenced by these three because of the ingredients I chose to use; you'll probably want to adjust the ratios based on your preferences and ingredients. 

the ingredients we used

My daughter is allergic to peanuts, so I looked for organic ingredients with super-clear allergen labelling. This brand of cocoa butter and coconut oil says it may contain tree nuts, but is free of peanuts, gluten, dairy, and a bunch of other things. Different people have different sensitivities and allergies; for tree nut allergies, you'd need to switch to other soft waxes and carrier oils to make the lip balm base.

Allergen-Safe Lip Balm Recipe

1-2 tsp organic beeswax (or soy wax to make it vegan) < hard wax is added to make tubes of lip balm that won't melt in your pocket or during summer heat, you can use less if you like it softer and creamier or glossier

2-3 tsp pure organic cocoa butter 

2-3 tsp organic coconut oil 

optional: a few drops (say, 6-12) of peppermint oil, or lemon oil, or almond oil, or cocoa powder, or matcha powder, or whatever other flavouring agent you desire (alcohol extracts may not mix in properly)

optional: 1 tsp organic creamed honey (liquid honey may not mix in properly)

optional: a few drops of vitamin E oil (cut open capsules) - to act as an antioxidant so it takes longer to spoil, and to promote lip healing; some people use tea tree oil instead

optional: pigment: powder from beets or cranberries, or mineral pigments (like, say, a good-quality mineral blush) (we used a locally-made organic lip gloss as our source of pigment)

If you prefer a shiny gloss instead of a waxy cream, you can reduce or skip the beeswax and use more aqueous ingredients (liquid honey or maple syrup, aloe vera, flavour extracts instead of oils, fruit juices instead of powdered pigments for colour), and change the container accordingly.

Clean and sterilize all your tools and containers:

small saucepan / stainless steel measuring cup / mason jar to melt your wax mixture in (you may want to use something only for this if you're doing it more than once), double boiler style - we used an actual double boiler

containers: food- and cosmetic-safe - we got ours at a local craft store, and ran them through the dishwasher.

a stainless-steel chopstick or whisk for stirring

a dropper/pipette (or a glass liquid measuring cup with pour spout) for transferring the balm or gloss into your containers without spillage

our base mixture melting in a double boiler

Slowly melt ingredients in a double boiler - most people melt the hard wax (beeswax) first, then add the rest of the base ingredients. Since I wanted to try more than one flavour, I melted and mixed the base (50g (one box) of the cocoa butter, then the same amounts of beeswax and coconut oil using the cocoa butter as my guide), then divided in half by pouring the melted base into a glass measuring cup before adding my optional ingredients (honey, vanilla extract and the pale pink lip gloss for a slightly shiny hint-of-tint lip gloss, and lemon flavour (lemon oil + sunflower oil) for the other half). 

Cool slightly, give it one last good stir to make sure ingredients aren't separating, and fill your chosen containers. If you need to test it, you can dip a teaspoon that you've left in the freezer into your balm at this point; if the consistency is wrong, you may want to set some aside to use as a moisturizing lotion or cuticle cream before you start adjusting proportions.

Cool the filled containers in the fridge or freezer (although ours started to solidify at room temperature). Label, if desired, and enjoy.

Our finished product after cooling at room temp for only 10 minutes

On DD's lips, the base that we added tinted lip gloss to - just a hint of tint and shimmer. Perfect!

Note: This post is part of my nonconsecutive #30DaysOfMaking Challenge.

Slow Living: A Cardboard Rocketship In 12 Easy Steps

Although there are (fairly expensive) cardboard rocketship playhouse kits you can buy online, there's really only one good DIY post. (There are also a couple of cool make-your-own recycled rocketship toy tutorials, and a ridonkulously awesome photo on DeviantArt.) So I thought I'd better take a few photos and write up our modest improvised attempt. It was a bit time-consuming, but both super fun and really fairly easy...

Step 1: Gather your supplies. You'll need one huge cardboard box, a bunch of smaller cardboard boxes, and miscellaneous stuff from your recycling bin (or the reuse centre, if your city has one) for decorating the thing. We collected ours over the course of a couple of months. You'll also need scissors and a box-cutter, industrial-strength glue, 2 (or more) cans of silver spray paint, and 3 (or more) rolls of silver duct tape... as I discovered after I had already started.

Step 2: Use the duct tape to tape up the bottom for a solid base, repair any tears, and tape the top flaps of the box to each other in the open position. Start to construct roof; run out of duct tape.

Step 3: Box-cutter time, for grownups only. Slice an upward-opening hatch door into one side of the box. Cut the flat lip off a round clear-plastic cover (from premade graham-cracker-crumb crusts and the like) and trace around it where you'll be placing portholes, then cut the cardboard out with the boxcutter. Ditto with any other openings you'll be making.

Step 4: Now that you have an opening you can get through, add duct tape to the inside of your giant box to make the 'floor' stronger and more tear-resistant. Also, glue a handle onto your hatch at this time to make the door easier to open. Ours is a square block of styrofoam with a larger flat square of high-density foam glued to the top.

Step 5: Spray paint the cardboard silver, inside and out. (You'll notice I did this in an area where our lawn was already mostly dead from drought and in dire need of repair.) Realize that the styrofoam you used for part of the hatch door handle melts when the solvent from the spray paint touches it. Run out of spray paint. Let dry at least 30 minutes - preferably much longer since it will reek to high heaven of the solvents in the spray paint.

Whoopsie.

Step 6: Since it's looking like rain, move the whole thing into the garage, and head to the store for more duct tape and spray paint so you can complete the project later.

Step 7: Rain stopped? Great, move back outside and resume roof construction. Basically the idea is to cut cardboard into triangles, like the segments of an umbrella, and attach them to each other with duct tape, to create a cone or dome for the roof. I'm not entirely happy with how ours turned out - it looks more like a house roof than anything - but the kids are thrilled regardless.

Step 8: Make it look more rocket-like. Add cardboard fins (my kids decided against these) or 'thrusters' (ramen soup bowls) to the exterior of the rocket, and a 'control panel' (egg carton) and other widgets that will need spray paint to the interior of the rocket. Let any glue used dry thoroughly.

Step 9: Finish spray painting outside and inside. (Since the kids will be adding lots more colour themselves inside, we decided not to worry about the fact that we ran out of spray paint again before it was done.) Let dry at least 30 minutes - or in our case, overnight in the garage.

Step 10: Fancy windows! Clear plastic 'portholes' (graham-wafer pie shell covers) and 'viewscreens' (plastic from a large box a toy was sold in) can be glued and duct taped into place at this point.

Step 11: Add the details. Draw on rivets, identification numbers, and so on using black permanent marker acrylic paint. Paste on printouts of space agency logos (NASA's meatball is via Wikipedia). Red and orange paper can be glued to the thrusters to make 'flames' now - or if you have a mouthy puppy like we do, red and orange paint. If you're really clever you might be able to add moveable dials inside the rocket as well - if you do figure out how to do that, leave me a comment so I can add one to mine, mmkay?

(DARS = Boychild Girlchild Rocket Service)
Before we painted the rivets and thruster flames.

Also, notice how it's leaving glittery dust on everybody's clothes, presumably spray paint dust? Give it a quick vacuum or wipedown. Preferably before adding the details, instead of afterward like I did.

Since markers weren't showing up,
we went with stickers for the numbers on our buttons.

Painted rivets and knob instructions.
The more detail you add the better it looks!

Step 12: Set up in its permanent (indoor) location and let playtime commence!

Boychild couldn't wait for me to finish painting the rivets and move it.
"Mummy, clone troopers wear their helmets in outer space." Alrighty then.
The adorable astronaut costume was a gift a couple of years ago.

PS: I'll add another photo in a couple of days to show the results of further customization by the kids with acrylics and puffy paint, and repairs since while I have been writing this two thrusters have already come unglued!