This month the children and I learned about Lemon Balm! A huge part of our herbal learning comes from an amazing e-zine by Kristine Brown, called Herbal Roots Zine. I really love this. It is wonderfully written and illustrated, has fun crafts and things to make and stories to read and interesting facts to learn, and is very very affordable!
One of the crafts from the lemon balm issue is a lemon balm lip balm. We didn't have the right type of oil for this recipe, but it came out quite good anyways.
Lemon Balm Lip Balm
(recipe from the Lemon Balm edition of Herbal Roots Zine Oct. 2009)
1/2 cup lemon balm leaves
1 oz almond or jojoba or mix
1 oz shea butter
1 oz beeswax
1/4 t. honey
1/8 t. vitamin E
Lemon, rosemary or lavender Essential Oil
12-24 Lip balm containers (We didn't have these so we used small baby food type jars, but you can buy them at places like Mountain Rose Herbs.)
Double boiler
In a double boiler, combine lemon balm, almond/jojoba and shea butter. Gently heat for about 2 hours to infuse lemon balm in oil. Do not the let oil boil! Strain out the lemon balm leaves and return the oil mixture to the double boiler. Add beeswax and let melt. Add honey, vitamin E oil and 10 drops of essential oil of choice and stir well. Pour into containers and allow to cool.
Create labels and label.
Again this is just an awesome publication and I suggest it for anyone (with or without kids) who wants to have fun with herbs and learn a lot while doing it! (I guess this post just ended up being a shamless plug for HRZ but oh well it deserves it!)
