Little pots of lip balm, scented with a festive citrus essential oil and maybe including a tincture made from flowers from the garden, are surprisingly easy to make. The first time I made lip balm with Ruby I decided they were such a simple thing for her to get involved in, I must remember to revisit for Christmas gifts.
When I suggested making lip balm a week ago, my daughter was enthusiastic. Partly as she wanted to make some for herself, dismissing the herbal lip balm I keep handing to her for her chapped lips as “smelly.” She also swiftly added that they should be “glittery.” As it is Christmas and I remembered there was some edible gold glitter in the cake decorating drawer, I agreed that some of them could be glittery. Realizing that perhaps not everybody is partial to lips with sticky gold shimmer, I’ve left this out of the recipe below.
mandarin & calendula lip balm
1 teaspoon beeswax
70g cocoa butter
1 teaspoon coconut oil
5 drops calendula tincture (not essential if you don’t have any, I’ve made without this too)
12 drops mandarin essential oil
Melt the beeswax, cocoa butter and coconut oil in a bowl over a saucepan of hot water. Add the tinctures and then the essential oil. Pour into little pots before the mixture begins to harden. I used pots that I’d saved, but you can buy inexpensive lip balm pots from The Handmade Company: they also sell ingredients such as cocoa butter, dried flower petals and have some lovely home-made aprons for children.
If you don’t have the ingredients for lip balm, I can also recommend bath bombs, which I made here last Christmas as a very easy gift to make with children.
I’m a big fan of adding a homemade touch to Christmas, whether to decorations, handmade gifts or the food and drink that you offer family and friends. Besides, I’d far rather be pottering around in the warmth of the kitchen, baking spiced gingerbread and gathering greenery from the garden than getting hassled in a packed shopping centre.
I love it that my daughter is as enthusiastic as I am about making home-made gifts. She started young, plopping bits of vegetables into my biggest saucepan for Christmas Chutney when she was a toddler. With a little input from her, I labelled them up as ‘Ruby’s Christmas Chutney’; we often bring out paint, glitter and our Christmas stamps to add Christmas sparkle to frugal luggage labels. We painted a cardboard box together and glued on letters spelling ‘Ruby’s home-made goodies’ and filled it with our preserves. Ruby delved into it on Christmas day, handing out very rustic but home-made/home-grown chutney to her Aunties, Uncles and Grandparents.
The box remains, a little battered, but still in use and Ruby is still keen to get involved in our home-made Christmas. Aged 6, she does have stronger ideas about what she would like to make, however, often featuring modelling clay, you know the stuff that dries and hardens overnight. The sort that is often found lurking under the table/behind chairs in this house. Her ideas are often a tad ambitious; last year it was, “I know, let’s make cups and saucers.”
Little jars of Dukkah, an earthy Egyptian blend of nuts and spices are another favourite home-made gift of mine and I like the way they suggest a Three Kings Eastern exoticsm meets traditional English Christmas (in my mind anyway!). Nuts and spices were rightly celebrated in Elizabethan times as treats worthy of Christmas feasting and as Dukkah stores well, it can be made ahead of the festivities, when hopefully all is still calm in the kitchen.
The pestle and mortar pounding is good fun but straightforward for little helpers and it’s worth saving a jar for yourself to eat with Christmas leftovers; added to olive oil and dried mint if you have it, Dukkah makes a great dip. I also have membrillo centred plans for the last few Quince, still scenting the room with their wonderful aroma.
Much as the pairing of sweetly fragrant quince jelly and salty Spanish cheese feels like a contemporary food fashion, I think it fits well with a traditional Christmas. After all, quinces, along with fruits, nuts and spices would’ve featured in an Elizabethan Christmas feast. Edible decorations and greenery brought in as garlands would’ve been a key part too of course and, inspired by Anne of Life in Mud Spattered Boots’ lovely rustic wreaths I have weekend plans for transforming hedgerow bounty.
Before I get carried away though, I must remember that I still have work deadlines to meet, a very scruffy house to get ready for family visitors and we’re nearly into the last lovely but very busy week of carols, school nativity and parties. As usual no doubt lots of my plans will be abandoned as I try to enjoy it all rather than race around getting frazzled. But trying a few new home-made things each year along with making the old favourites such as spiced biscuits for the tree, and involving Ruby as much as possible, does feel to me like it’s properly Christmas. Even if we do end up with a very messy, sticky, glittery house along the way!
I think the lip balm with gold glitter will be a Christmas sensation 😉
It’ll be easy to spot anyone given a gift by us!
Oooh – all your christmas goodies look lovely. I would love to have a go at making lip balms – great idea for a homemade pressie. I’m running hedgerow xmas wreath making workshops at work, so I’ve just spent the day collecting barrow loads of greenery for my (over)booked session tomorrow. Ready now – phew!
Thanks and how lovely making hedgerow Christmas wreaths. Afraid our wreath making got delayed this weekend as it was too rainy to gather the greenery when we were ready to go out. We made gift tags instead – needless to say there’s lots of glitter in the hoover!
Such a lovely selection of things to make and, as you say, so much nicer to be creating things with your children in a warm kitchen.
Thanks Evie and I think so, really loved having a cosy making day at home today.
What a lovely gift idea, Andrea. : )
Thanks Lizzie, I only go for the easy things. For my sake as much as Ruby’s!
We made some of your bath bombs last year, and they were brilliant! Not sure my crafting skills are up to lip balm though…
I remember you saying. Actually lip balm is easier, in fact I think it’s the easiest of all the potions I’ve attempted with Ruby. If I can make them, they must be pretty simple.
I love the sound of these, didn’t know it was so simple to make your own lipbalm!
I didn’t either until we attempted it. And the ingredients initially seem expensive but you make lots of those little lip balm pots with them – and know exactly what’s in them.
Some great ideas
Lipbalm seems a doddle after attempting hard cheese!
I love the idea of Ruby’s home made goodies box. What a brilliant idea. Like you, I’d rather be gathering from the kitchen and garden than braving the shopping centre, so your lip balm sounds like a perfect stocking filler. Do you have any recommended places for buying beeswax and cocoa butter?
You can but them off Amazon or the handmade Company that I mention above, although maybe a bit tight for delivery now. If you have a Neals Yard near you, they’re brilliant for all these things and have fab selection of essential oils so you could choose other Christmassy ones.