Candles & hand cream

Hand cream

Today has been mostly filled with making twenty-one candles in glass jars, and sixteen and a half tealights. Once that was done, I kept the bain-marie warm so that I could make some hand cream. I hadn’t done this for years, and I’d forgotten how easy it is.

Now that it’s just about cooled down I’ve tried it out, and I think it’s going to be a tiny bit too oily for my liking. It reminds me more of Neal’s Yard’s Wild Rose Beauty Balm than the kind of hand cream I’m used to. This might be because the soya wax is softer than the beeswax recommended in the recipe, so the cream doesn’t set quite as hard. Having said that, it sinks in really quickly, and the geranium essential oil (my favourite) makes it smell divine.

It took less than 10 minutes to make, with all natural ingredients, and was just enough to fill a little aluminium Lush tin. I’ll see how I feel about the recipe, and once I’ve perfected it I’ll share it with you! Now I’m looking on Ebay for either a pink frosted glass jar (that matches my dressing table set) or a white ceramic jar (that matches my bathroom), with a lid, that I can use for future creams and lotions.

Also, have I mentioned how lovely my husband is? This morning I grumbled that the most time-consuming part of making the candles was cleaning the kitchen before I could start. When I finally dragged myself out of bed, just after he’d left for work, I discovered that the previously messy kitchen was now absolutely spotless. Thank you, Paul!

Candle Day…

Candles in glass jars

Today I did get as far as making some candles – these are in 120ml amber glass jars, just waiting for their wicks to be trimmed before I pop the lids on. The tealight should give you some idea of the size, although I’ll admit that the picture’s at a bit of a funny angle.

Those of you who wonder why I don’t bake may begin to understand why when I reveal that I managed to get the weight-to-volume conversion for these completely wrong. I thought I was making five 120ml candles. In fact I turned out to be making seven 120ml candles plus another six tealights! Which means I now need to order more glass jars before I can finish making the rest of the fragrances. But on the plus side – more candles!

While I was placing the order for the second batch of jars, I thought I might as well make it worth the shipping fee by ordering a few more bits and pieces as well. I’m almost out of hand cream and moisturiser, which I usually buy from Lush, but I thought I’d have a try at making my own. I’ve done it before, and it’s no more difficult than making the candles… as long as you get the weights and measures right!

I’m currently a bit galled about having paid £30 for ingredients when it would have cost me £20 to go and buy my usual stuff from Lush. But then I’m buying a much greater quantity of oils and butters than would fit in my two little black pots, and their shelf life’s long enough that I’ll be able to make a good few batches with them, so it should work out more economical in the long run.

I plan to drag my aromatherapy training out of the depths of my memory (or perhaps read my old text books!) to make it even better for my skin. Hopefully I’ll be able to come up with something that smells nice, feels nice, and takes down a bit of the redness that the fibromyalgia causes. That might be a bit of a tall order for my first attempt, but I’ll give it a go!

And now my hands smell of chocolate.

SOlid body lotion

These are a little batch of miniature bars of solid body lotion.

Before I send them off for my testing volunteers to try out, I just need to put together a feedback form so that everyone can let me know what they think.

They were nice and easy to make, but I’m going to need some more accurate scales if I want to make these in any quantity.

The ingredients are apricot kernel oil, beeswax, cocoa butter and shea butter. They’re unfragranced, but they smell lovely. The cocoa butter makes them slightly chocolatey, and the apricot makes them sweet. I almost don’t want to make a fragranced batch, they smell so nice as they are!