I made another two lip balms today. One chocolate, using real chocolate, and the other using olive oil.
I wanted to see if the olive oil flavour comes through (it does) and whether I hate it (unconvinced yet). It might be better with a light olive oil, but I’ve only got extra virgin in the house, because that’s what was on special.
The chocolate lip balm however, after quite a bit of tweaking, is delicious. It was quite draggy and heavy after the first recipe and I didn’t like it.
But now? It’s divine.
I’ll post the recipe in a few days once I’ve done some more tweaking. I’d like to try using dark chocolate insted of milk, and cutting out the rice bran oil, which I found a bit heavy. Sunflower oil seems like a better oil for lip balms at this stage, until I can get hold of some apricot kernel oil, or avocado oil for testing.
I was going to use sweet almond oil, but decided being nut free in all my recipes was probably safer. Amy has friends with nut allergies and the last thing I want to do is introduce sweet almond oil into a lip balm and cause a reaction in a child.
Plus, it’s about brand trust isn’t it. If I use nut oils in my soaps/balms, then I rule out a number of people who might buy from me.
So, nut free.
Because I’m heavily in the middle of testing recipes and seriously considering turning soaps and lip balms into a business venture, I wrote about my process of thinking for Money Circle. You should read it. I probably got a bit ranty about poverty, but that’s nothing new.
Coming up tomorrow: Making yogurt from scratch.
I get my Apricot Kernel oil from a health food shop, fairly expensive at $13.80 for 500ml but I only use a teaspoon or so at a time in my yoghurt or porridge. Some shops keep it in the fridge, some don’t. It comes in a brown glass bottle over here.
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