Raspberry Vanilla Lip Balm

Raspberry Vanilla Lip Balm

I’ve really been enjoying experimenting with some “out of the ordinary” DIYs!! I’ve done a couple of tinted lip balms using either lip stick or mica powder but neither coloring ingredient I enjoy using. Cosmetic grade mica is hard to find and lipstick, if it’s natural, is just to expensive to break off and throw in a pot! I’ve wanted to play with using food in my DIYs but I have yet to buy a food dehydrator. Well, come to find out, Trader Joes has the most wonderful freeze dried fruits! And don’t fret-if you’re like me and you don’t have a Trader Joes in your city, Amazon has got you covered!

So, let’s get started. I decided to give vanilla essential oil a go. My go-to oil company, Spark Naturals, does not carry vanilla so I just hadn’t worked with it. Which is weird considering how much I love to smell like vanilla-read more about my non-toxic perfume of choice HERE. I also decided to try out Sunflower Oil. So really, this DIY was all new for me!

Sunflower Seed Oil is a great carrier oil to add to your skin care DIYs. Why you might ask? Well, it has a HIGH amount of Vitamin E! Vitamin E is one of the best ingredients for healing and nourishing skin, perfect for the lips!!

Freeze Dried Raspberries add a tart taste to your lip balm. They add a very subtle color to your balm and create a gorgeous product, perfect for gifts! I will say, using a white beeswax makes this project even prettier. I only buy yellow because it is hard to determine exactly how the beeswax got white. It possibly is white because it has been refined and getting a whiter white can be achieved by laying the beeswax in daylight but it’s hard to determine whether a beeswax retailer is properly treating their beeswax or just bleaching.

In my experimenting I worked on a lip gloss and a lip balm. I also played around with different consistencies by continuing to stir my lip balm as it cooled. This created a Vaseline like consistency.

Working with freeze fried fruit that has tiny seeds like raspberries proved to be a challenge. After much thinking and playing, I found that putting the raspberries in a coffee grinder works best. My first batch, I hand smashed the raspberries leaving chunks of seeds in my balm, not good. Plus it scratches your lips. I want to try using freeze dried blueberries next-I think it would make a pretty balm plus there are no seeds! I also added a cosmetic grade iridescent white mica powder for a shimmery effect in one batch.

1/2 TBSP. Beeswax pastiles (find white HERE) (find yellow HERE)

1-2 TBSP. crushed Freeze Dried Raspberries (find them HERE)

15 drops Vanilla Essential Oil (find it HERE)

Use a small funnel to get your mixture into the lip gloss containers. Be sure to continue to swirl the wand in the mixture until the lip gloss has cooled in order to keep the consistency light and thin.

**Find lip gloss containers HERE.**

1 TBSP. Beeswax Pastiles (find white HERE) (find yellow HERE)

1-2 TBSP. crushed Freeze Dried Raspberries (find them HERE)

15 drops Vanilla Essential Oil (find it HERE)

1. Fill a medium pot 1/2 way full of water and place pyrex bowl inside.
2. Turn heat to medium and heat sunflower seed oil and beeswax.
3. Once all ingredients are melted remove from heat and mix in raspberries and essential oil.
4. Mix well and pour into containers.
5. Allow to cool.

This was such a fun project-I love working with fruit and this has really inspired me to buy a food dehydrator for more projects!! Give this a go-and just know, a coffee grinder is absolutely necessary unless you can find a strainer that is small enough to catch those seeds! Oh and if you use your regular coffee grinder, this was very easy to clean.

xx, Jenni

Original article and pictures take http://jenniraincloud.com/raspberry-vanilla-lip-balm/ site