Easy DIY Lavender Coconut Lip Balm

I love a good lip balm. In fact, I would actually say that I'm kind of addicted to lip balm. I have a tin in my purse, my desk, my bedside table and my coffee table and maybe a few other places, too! Okay, okay! So it's probably more like an obsession.

But buying a good lip balm can be expensive for a girl with a habit like mine, so I decided to make my own to try to save some money. And guess what?! It's not only cheap, but it's easy.  It literally takes 10 minutes to create an entire stash of lip balm for just a few dollars!

Sweet.

But what's really fantastic is that this Lavender Coconut Lip Balm is the perfect gift for holidays, birthdays or favors for a party. Why? Because it's inexpensive and super easy, but at the same time it's thoughtful and everybody loves them! I call that a win at life, my friend.

In this recipe, the lavender and coconut are subtle flavors, but the combination between the floral and tropical is sooo nice. It really makes me want to lay around on a caribbean beach with a giant pina colada and maybe a hot shirtless man. With a fan. And he can feed me fruit. Who doesn't like that?! 

Lavender Coconut Lip Balm

Makes ~5 oz of lip balm (enough for ~10 containers)

• 2 oz Beeswax, chopped (or grated) I use 100% Organic Hand Poured Beeswax or Organic beeswax Pellets (If you get white, some companies use chemicals to bleach them)
• 3 oz Coconut Oil (I use Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil)- you can use more coconut oil if you want it softer-- this is a hard recipe which is good for lip balm tubes, too.
• 5 drops of Vitamin E (Vitamin E Oil)
• 10 drops of Therapeutic Grade Lavender Essential Oil (Find Quality Essential Oils)

Easy DIY Foaming Handsoap

I'm a nurse and by default that makes me a total germaphobe. I literally wash my hands dozens of times a day with those chemical filled soap, but I wondered if I could replace the soap with essential oils to be gentler on my skin and the environment. After seeing this article about how research is showing that some ingredient in hand soaps, toothpastes as other products can cause increased risk for chronic health issues like breast cancer!

I started playing around trying to find the perfect foaming hand soap recipe! I admit I am a bit of a foaming hand soap snob.

For years, Clint and I have been buying those Bath and Body Works Foaming hand soaps in pretty much every scent imaginable. They have been a bit of an obsession, but after finding out what makes those incredible smells-- well, we were less than pleased.

So since then it's been my DIY mission to make a foaming hand soap that we both love and adore!

Unclog Blocked Drains Like a DIY Boss

The Impenetrable Ball of Grossness was clogging our shower drain. Undoubtably it was some combination of the previous owners funk, my long hair, lots of dog fur, and apparently some sort of mutant drain kryptonite. None of my all natural ways were helping and somehow it was actually getting worse.

It was The. Slowest. Draining. Shower. Ever. It took more than five hours to completely drain. So sloooowwww...

After copious amount of plunging attempts and tossing baking soda/vinegar at it while muttering threats against the drain's life proved to be unsuccessful, I decided to research how to unclog stubborn drain build-ups. The problem was that I couldn't really find an answer, but I did I see some "tips" which ended up being something like this {clears throat}:

• Use lots of baking soda and vinegar (over and over and over again)-- which is what I had been doing for weeks. 
• Use salt and baking soda with hot water
• Use washing soda to degrease your drains
• Call a plumber

Psh. Call a plumber {laughs} 

In true cheap DIY fashion, I decide that I was going to make the mother load of DIY drain cleaners by using all that ingredients that people recommended to use separately. Uh huh, yep. I know. It's BRILLIANT!!