Beeswax

Just recently I had a lady come into my booth at the market and offered me a box of beeswax!!
I have to tell you I was pretty excited!! I buy it for about 20.00 a pound at the health store so a whole box was a God send!!

When I picked it up I was shocked at how dirty and lumpy it was!! I had no idea and this was the first batch of virgin beeswax I had ever seen!!
You can see from the pictures what I mean but look how beautiful it is now!!!

I goggled it and discovered that you melt it in water...let it cool ..... the wax rises to the top and hardens and all the debris sinks to the bottom of the pot!!

Easy peasy right??? Wrong!!

The easy part was heating it to melting in the hot water....
I had no idea how hard it was to get out of the pot!! It was stuck!! The water on the bottom was sealed in by hardened beeswax!! It was like a vacuum.....!!
My DH and I poked at it with a fork, a sharp knife, we tried pounding it with a meat tenderizer , turned it upside and wacked the bottom....no luck!!! Now all the dirty water was back on the beeswax!! I was ready to toss my stockpot AND the beeswax out the door. Argh!!! Finally after much sweat and vein popping exertion we managed to loosen one side and it slid out!!
I must say it was beautiful....until I turned it over!!

There was still a lot of dirt and debris on the bottom so I cleaned the stock pot....beeswax is extremely difficult to get off of anything!!
NEVER.....I repeat....NEVER pour melted beeswax down your drain!!

So I broke the big slab of wax into pieces and threw them back into the pot a second time.
Once it was melted I poured it through a sieve lined with cheese cloth to get all the dirt out and then poured into individual molds.
I now have some really nice beeswax that I can use for my soap, lip balms and creams!!
Victory at last!!

Save a whale ...use jojoba oil!!!

Jojoba oil is more commonly known as a hair care ingredient, but it is primarily a natural skin care products that also provides benefits to the health of your hair.

Although natural products are generally more beneficial than their synthetic equivalents, it is important to understand that this is not always the case, and that the benefits of the natural substance have to be evaluated in terms of what they, themselves, contain, and how these ingredients benefit your skin.

It is not enough to simply descry the synthetic ingredients of most commercial skin care products, and state blandly that 'natural is best'. This is not always the case, and you must either prove the statement or not make it. To do that you should investigate the substances that the natural products contain and the make the case for them.

In the case of jojoba oil, we first have to qualify the term 'oil'. In fact, it is not an oil but a wax. Technically it is a liquid wax in structure, and once it has been hydrogenated it very closely resembles the solid wax obtained from the sperm whale, spermaceti. In fact, this is where it finds its most important applications and the case for it being used as a skin care product.

At one time, the wax and oil of choice by the aristocracy and the glitterati of the day was spermaceti and sperm oil. However, since the sperm whale has been declared an endangered species, jojoba has taken its place, and because of its relatively low price relative to that of sperm what extracts, it is available to the masses.

It contains the long-chain alcohol and esters and the unsaturated fatty acids that characterized sperm oil and spermaceti, and that are so good for your skin. The same type of materials characterizes coconut oil and other natural products that are beneficial to your skin. There are many synthetic cosmetic preparations that contain the same alcohols and acids, but they are also likely to contain emulsifiers, mineral, oils and surfactants which can be damaging, and at worse leave routes open into your skin for bacteria, viruses and carcinogens.

Jojoba oil is closer in nature to natural skin oil, or sebum, than any synthetic oil developed, and if you had a choice to make between the synthetic alternative and the natural substance, which would you opt for? The closest natural substance you can find to your own skin oil, or a synthetic equivalent that could contain substances that rupture your skin cells?

The choice is yours, but before making it just think again on the sperm whale and on yourself. Its own oil never did it any harm, and your own skin oil never did you any harm, so why choose an unnatural mixture of oils (some may be natural) and synthetic chemicals over the real thing?

Using jojoba oil may not save the whale, but it might help, and it will certainly save your skin.

Casa Chic

This amazing resort now have my soap in their exquisite bathrooms!!!! How exciting is that???
I created a beautiful custom blend of coconut , mango peach and other tropical fruits , added a swirl of kelp that smells just like the ocean!!

Smells good enough to eat!!! Yummy!!!