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!

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!

Oops…

Oops

Two of my soap moulds had a slight disagreement with the dishwasher.

Fortunately, I have plenty more!

I haven’t made any cosmetics for ages, but while I was spring-cleaning the Shed I discovered that I had almost all of the ingredients that I needed to make a few things.

So, I’ve placed an order with Gracefruit, for some exciting new fragrances and the few ingredients I was missing. As soon as they arrive, I’ll be rustling up some bath melts, lip balms and body lotions.