Throw away your Paraffin based Lip Balm, switch to a natural Beeswax one.

Our lips are a signature of our face.  Healthy, well moisturized shining lips reveal a healthy body and a happy mind whereas dry and chapped lips give an impression of an unhealthy, vitamin deficient body and a weather ravaged face.

Our lips are incapable of producing sebum. Sebum is a mixture of triglycerides and waxy esters that keep our skin moisturized. The rest of our skin and face does produce sebum and keeps it moisturized . Hence in dry and cold seasons, our lips get chapped. The supplements we get in the market , so called chap sticks and lip balms contain petroleum based ingredients including petrolatum, paraffin and mineral oils. Not that many of us know, these ingredients are derived from the same crude oil that  is used to produce gasoline, petrol, diesel and grease. These have quite harsh and strong smell and in order to mask these odours very harsh fragrant chemicals are required. But these are the products which the body does not recognize naturally and so doesn’t absorb well, in fact, in many cases triggers allergies and god save our children who would have ingested the lip balm. In the long run, these petroleum based lip balms dry our lips , so we need to use more often and some people believe they get addicted to it.

Non Petroleum based Lip Balm

A non petroleum based lip balm made out of bees wax, coconut oil and a drop of rose extract will do wonders for your lips and while eating if you have ingested some, it wouldn’t harm at all. If you look deeper, coconut oil contains the tri glycerides  and it has a yummy edible flavour . It also has a long shelf life at room temperature. It does not get rancid like butter or some other oils. The main ingredients of bees wax are long chain fatty acids and wax esters. Beeswax is already used in making edible food items like chewing gums, as glazing agent in chocolates, mixed with gelatine for making capsules (medicines) etc. So, essentially these two ingredients , bees wax and coconut oil are enough to keep our lips soft and moist , then why opt for products obtained from the oil well (crude oil).

Do-It-Yourself

Melt 1 table spoon of bees wax and 1 table spoon of coconut oil in a double boiler. In order to make a double boiler at home , take a vessel half filled with water , bring it to boiling . Place a smaller vessel containing bees wax and coconut oil in the larger vessel , essentially you have made a water bath.  Once the mixture of bees wax and coconut oil has melted, take it off the heat, add a drop of rose extract or any flavour (fruit or flower) of your choice and pour in a container. On cooling the yummy  lip balm is ready for use.

tip: In case you want your lip balm a reddish or pink in color, add a few drops of color extracted from beet root. Depending on the amount of beetroot extract, you get a lip balm  with color ranging from light pink to red.

If making appears difficult, or  time is a constraint for you , Green Cosmos would be happy to help.