Valentines Idea for Teachers!

Since I have a rather large affinity for Valentines Day, I wanted to do something special for the teachers I work with.  A teacher friend and I decided to make some homemade goodies, but probably not the kind you are thinking of…

We made every teacher a peppermint lip balm with a cute Valentine label.

These are easy to make, but it is quite a messy project.  To begin you need beeswax (I like pellets), coconut oil, shea butter, and Young Living peppermint essential oil.

1.Place equal parts shea butter, coconut oil and beeswax pellets in a glass jar.  I start with a tablespoon of each.

I like to use an old glass jar to melt the ingredients so that I don’t have to worry about cleaning wax off of my dishes.

2. I boil water in a  small pot, reduce the heat to low, and then place the glass jar in the water like a double boiler.

3. After all of the ingredients have been completely melted, I take the jar off of the heat and wait about a minute.

4.  Then I put peppermint oil in the mixture.  I use 15-20 drops of oil.  Mix the ingredients.  I just slosh the mixture around a bit in the jar to mix the oil.

5. Now, you must act fast.  Have your lip balm containers already standing upright with the lids off before your mixture is melted so that way you can just pour the mixture straight into the containers from the jar.

Now a list of where I purchased my ingredients:

beeswax pellets– abundanthealth4u.com

Shea butter–abundanthealth4u.com

Coconut oil–Kroger (Wal-Mart sells this too)

Peppermint essential oil–Young Living (I use Young Living because it is safe for internal use.) (My Young Living sponsor and enroller number are 2600343.)

By the way if you need to do any cleanup, realize that you will do better by using a dry towel to wipe off excess wax.  Water and the wax repel one another and do not help the cleaning process.  I go through many paper towels in the clean up process.

We also made everyone cute little homemade peppermint mints in a small tin (sorry no pictures).  I got the tins from Amazon.  These were easier to make than I expected.  I just bought a bag of xylitol from Whole Foods.  All you do is melt it down (no water at all).  You just put it in a small pot and stir on low temperature as it melts.  Then you take it off of the heat and let it cool down just a bit for a few minutes before it turns back to a solid.  Stir in the peppermint essential oil.  I used 15-20 drops for a cup of xylitol.  Then you place parchment paper on a baking sheet and pour the mixture onto the paper.  Let it dry overnight.  Then when it has hardened and is dry,  just break it with your fingers into small pieces.  I followed the recipe here.