My first tip is to make your family some non-petroleum jelly, which I learned about here. (I was actually on the hunt for DIY tinted lip balm recipes, and found one that called for Vaseline. Yuck! I refuse to put something petroleum-based on my skin and lips these days, so I first had to locate a recipe for making my own non-petroleum jelly before I could try that. More to come on how that lip balm turned out.) This is very easy to do with only two ingredients: olive oil and beeswax.
My beeswax came from Michaels, and with a coupon, ended up costing about the same as I would have paid at the natural foods store, $10 a pound. (In retrospect, I wish that I had just bought it there. I don't think there is a difference. I was hoping to find it in pellet form instead of the big block, but no such luck, so I purchased one labeled for "candle making." Again, I don't know if this matters. I suspect that beeswax is beeswax, so my personal advice is just buy it where you find it, or try looking online if you want to save yourself the run-around.) I started out with extra virgin olive oil, and ran out just before I had enough, and had to substitute the remainder of the "light tasting" olive oil that was on hand. I don't think this makes a huge difference, but when I make my next batch, I will first make sure that I have enough extra virgin olive oil. (I love it for cleaning and moisturizing my face, so I figure it is awesome for lots of other stuff, too!) I love this stuff, so I will definitely be making more when the first batch runs out. It will be handy for winter dry skin, too, but I don't want to think about that just yet...
{2-Ingredient Homemade Non-Petroleum Jelly} |
- 1/8 cup grated beeswax (about 1 ounce)
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- Grate your beeswax. (I first had to chop my big one-pound block into smaller pieces, using my chopping tool left over from my chocolate business days and a cutting board.) Grating the beeswax reminded me of grating Fels Naptha to make my own laundry detergent, except that the soap is softer, so this required a bit more elbow grease. Don't worry, though, once you get through grating your beeswax, I promise that this is smooth sailing!
- Add grated beeswax, along with olive oil, to a small sauce pan. Melt over low heat. (The original blogger also suggested that you can use a double boiler, but I decided to make this easy on myself and just used a single pan, which worked fine.) I found that this took about 5 minutes.
- Pour the melted contents of the pan into a container to cool. I used a clean half-pint canning jar. I am not sure how long the cooling process takes exactly; I checked after an hour, but it wasn't ready. Since it was late at night, I just went to bed and let it sit until morning, which was obviously plenty of wait-time.
- Add a lid once the non-petroleum jelly is cool. I have also taken some and put it into smaller containers to store in other bathrooms and/or take with us on-the-go.
- Apply as needed. Here are some ways we have used this so far:
- -- lip gloss (Super shine + moisture = all you really need, minus the parabens and other nastiness!)
- -- bug bite balm (I can't swear that this actually takes the itch factor away, but we are doing well with our placebo-effect mentality. It seems to work for us, so it's at least worth a try.)
- -- boo-boo salve (If you are avoiding anything that is petroleum based: Vaseline, Aquaphor, even the store-brand Neosporin we were using contained mineral oil -- Boo! -- this is a great, safe alternative for skinned knees and other boo-boos.)
- -- cracked heel cream (I personally attest that this works better than any of the commercial products I have ever tried for dry heels and that is with or without slipping socks on over top.)
- -- cuticle cream (Have I mentioned that I often need this since I have a bad habit of biting/picking at my cuticles? Well, this does a great job of repairing the damage overnight. It's not perfect, of course, but this works nicely on hands as well as feet.)
- -- It should work on dry skin anywhere else on the body, too. Plus, I am sure there are other uses that I have not even thought of yet. Possibly a diaper rash salve? I would do research first, though, before using with cloth diapers, but it would certainly be okay with disposables. I am guessing if I added a few drops of essential oils like eucalyptus or peppermint, this might would work as a homemade vapor rub, too. I wonder if this would soothe a sunburn? I may give it a try at some point, although, I hope I don't have to test this out any time soon! Feel free to share other uses that you have for non-petroleum jelly.
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