This wintertime lip salve has opened the flood gates for me as far as my mental health goes. It all started with what feels like an intense winter and how it was affecting my well being. I’ve been in this place before and started to recognize a pattern in it all.
I’ve had the privilege of a lot of self-reflection this winter and it’s giving me a ton of perspective. Now I’m normally a big fan of winter but for the last decade or so, it’s felt intense and extra long. I’ve always known that these intense and overwhelming feelings were a mindset but until now I didn’t have the capacity to grasp it.
You might be asking what any of this has to do with lip salve. I’m not just blabbering, I promise.
Rewind to late summer 2023 while I’m preparing to move across the country. I haven’t talked about it much here, but 2023 was a pretty difficult year for me. I started off the year at war with my landlord over unsafe living conditions. Then a few weeks later I had some medical issues creep up that prevented me from doing most manual labor. I was also cut down and completely shook after finding a lump in my breast (everything ended up turning out well, thank goodness). And to top it off, my sweet dog Penny developed some serious medical issues and she almost didn’t make it. I barely had time to let it all sink in before I made the decision to move. Looking back it feels a bit impulsive but also absolutely necessary at the same time.
Fast forward to the following winter and I’m in a new place, in a new environment, with new faces, new feelings and new perspectives.
All of these are new stressors that take time and patience to fully absorb. I’m allowing myself the time and space to absorb them. While doing so, it has all taken its toll on my skin and hair. My skin has become dry and flaky and my hair has thinned quite a bit. This is where we get back to the lip salve.
I was feeling pretty down about the condition of my skin and my mental health so I decided to do something about it. I got back to basics. I needed some magic and there’s something about herbs that feels like magic to me.
I wanted to make a very basic salve for my lips and scalp. Generally I like to combine a bunch of ingredients together to maximize their potential. But at a time where I’m working on un-complicating things in my life, I found it appropriate to do the same with this salve as well.
If you’ve been reading for a while, you might remember that I shared how to make calendula oil.
You can find that post here. Calendula is a wonderful herb for the skin. Its flowers are gentle and effective and I think they’ll work perfectly for my lips and scalp. I infused them in oil for 4-6 weeks then strained and discarded the calendula. This oil is what I used for my lip salve, but I did decide to jazz it up just a little bit.
At the last minute I decided to throw in rose petals. This is not something I would normally do but I rolled with it. I prefer cold infusion when it comes to my oils. Heat can destroy the volatile herbs so I almost never infuse them in the double boiler. But this time I did and that’s ok, too.
Rose petals are great at calming irritated skin and helping with redness and puffiness so I gave it a go. I used a double boiler and combined beeswax, calendula oil, rose petals and let the wax melt completely. Then I strained the rose petals and poured the wax into a tin.
So there you have it. In the midst of dealing with a crisis in my life, I reached deep down and came up with a process to resolve a problem in my. It’s a start. And that’s what winter is for me. It’s a reminder to trust the process and don’t be afraid for new perspectives on the horizon. It’s all about growth. 🙂
WINTERTIME LIP SALVE
This recipe makes enough to fit a 1/2 oz. tin or container.
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoon of calendula infused oil
- 1 tablespoon of beeswax
- 1 tablespoon of dried rose petals
Directions
- Using a double boiler, combine all of the ingredients.
- Leave the double boiler over heat until the beeswax has fully melted.
- Pour into a tin/container and allow the liquid to cool completely.
- Enjoy!