Making things!

I think I've become addicted to making things.  In the past few weeks, I've made several batches of soap.  I'm using hot process in my crockpot (instructions and photos to come), and I've made a darn good imitation of Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap.  I toyed with a few other recipes and scents, too.  The lavender came out a bit iffy, but the lemongrass/clary sage oatmeal soap is nice, as is the oat and honey.  I haven't quite gotten the hang of adding enough essential oil to properly scent the soap, but it lathers really well in my hard water - which is far more important to me.  So many handmade soaps I've tried just don't have long-lasting bubbles, and I need to re-soap my pouf or washcloth halfway through my shower.  But my soap bubbles, so I'm ecstatic.  :)

Tonight, on a whim, I whipped up a mini-batch of chapstick.  I'm utterly addicted to Burt's Bees peppermint (hmmm, I'm noticing a minty trend here...), but I'm on my last tube.  I'm also not addicted to the $3.50 per tube price tag.  After a bit of Googling and a peek at the ingredients on the real thing, I got busy. Here's my recipe:

.2 oz beeswax
.3 oz coconut oil
.1 oz shea butter
.05 oz avocado oil
peppermint essential oil, "to taste"

I melted all the ingredients, except the peppermint EO, using a 2 oz mason jar in my cast iron skillet with some water (sort of a mini double boiler).  After the beeswax melted, I dipped a knife into the mixture, removed it, and allowed the chapstick to cool so I could check its texture.  It was perfect; not too oily and not too hard.  I removed the mason jar from the heat, added about .2 mL of peppermint EO, stirred, and poured the chapstick into 2 little tins I'd ordered from Mountain Rose Herbs ages ago.

Broke and Healthy, one of the sites I used while coming up with my recipe, breaks down the cost of making this chapstick from scratch.  By their calculations, each .15 oz tube of chapstick costs $.08 to make.  My recipe weighed about .6 oz, making each tin cost approximately $.16.  My tins cost about $.70.  Even including them, which is kind of silly since I'll use them over and over, the cost to make this at home was about 25% of retail.  And it took less than 10 minutes.  You can bet I'll be doing that again!

I love the feeling I get when I replicate something I usually buy.  Yes, I'm still a consumer, because I have to buy my oils, beeswax, and other ingredients.  But the "value added" part of the equation?  That's me!  I have total control over the ingredients; no petroleum products, preservatives, or artificial anythings.  And, I'm not giving any of my money to corporations with questionable ethics or business policies.  Good stuff!

EDIT - I sat down a few nights ago and figured out my actual costs, based on the real ingredients I had purchased, including tubes, which I didn't originally have.  As made, it cost me $.20 per tube (of that, the tube cost $.14, so my chapstick was only $.06 per tube!!).  If I were to make it using all organic ingredients, which I plan on doing when I sell these and/or run out of my current stock of oils, it would cost $.24 per tube.

Making an herbal healing salve

Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm doing.  I got instructions from various places on the internet, then sort of winged it.  If you do something like this, please do your own research!  This is not a how-to, it's documentation of what I did.

I've been interested in decreasing our dependence on chemical medicines for a while, but most pre-made herbal remedies are expensive.  They also seem to come in larger portions than I know I'd need, and I really don't want to spend all that money just for something to sit on the shelf and go rancid.

I have a huge dependence on Neosporin at the moment, owing to my dry and ever-cracking cuticles.  I also see lots of cuts and scrapes in our future as Ethan plays outside and gets his hands and knees scraped and bruised from falls.  I decided that the most beneficial herbal remedy to start with would be a healing salve.  I placed an order from BulkHerbStore.com with this in mind.

 Two days ago, my box arrived.  I had ordered lavender, calendula, yarrow, and comfrey for my salve.  I also got yellow organic beeswax to help solidify my oil.

I got a half-pint jar and put equal portions of yarrow, comfrey, arnica, and calendula into it, packing it in pretty tightly.  I then added a bit of lavender powder for its calming scent.  I poured equal parts olive oil and melted coconut oil into the jar until it was full.

I put the jar on a dishcloth in my crock pot (to prevent scorching), then filled the pot with water and turned it on "low".  I let it sit about 24 hours.  I've heard to "cook" the mixture for as little as 8 hours and as long as 48.  I opted for something in the middle.

This morning I removed the jar and strained my herb-infused oil through a wire mesh strainer and a coffee filter.

Once all the oil was drained and pressed from the herbs, I added a few tablespoons of beeswax and heated the whole mixture up again to melt the wax.  I let some of the salve cool on a spoon to test the consistency.  When it started to skin over within a minute, I let the whole jar cool.  I must have gotten it about right, because when it cooled, it was about as solid as Bag Balm or Carmex.  Not drippy, but not difficult to scoop out.  If I had overshot, I could have added a bit more olive oil and reheated it.  It's definitely more of an art than a science!

After cooling for about 45 minutes, I had this:

I'm not crazy about the smell.  I have a sensitive nose, and I avoid most scented products.  This is definitely herb-scented, but not too offensive (to me!).  I don't have any painful cuts or wounds at the moment, but have a few small scrapes on my hands from my salvaging project a few days ago.  One is right in the crease of my palm, so I feel it every time I flex my hand.  The salve didn't completely remove the pain, but it's less noticeable.  It also hydrated the skin around the cut, so it's not dry and flaky.  I'll continue applying it to the scrape, as well as my poor abused cuticles, and see how well it works.  It can also be used as a sore muscle and arthritis pain relief rub, so I'll be distributing samples to some family members to test.  Results will be posted in a month or so.