January 25, 2012: Now this looks li(p)git!

Making your own lip balm is the perfect blend of art and science... which makes me a happy girl! As you are well aware, I have made two batches of lip balm prior to this one. Ironically my favorite so far was the first one... orange and peppermint flavor... silky smooth... Hmmm... Beginners luck?
What made this batch satisfying, however, is that I had professional containers! I ordered these containers on BrambleBerry.com. I also added more Shea butter to the recipe and slightly more of the color (fondant coloring - as explained in earlier post).

WELLL.... I started giving these away to my colleagues in school the following day and this led to an interesting conversation. I walked into the AP Environmental Science class and they were studying toxicology. The teacher asked me to tell the class that I had been making my own lip balm and how I was doing that. I told them that I used beeswax, olive oil, sweet almond oil, Shea butter and fondant color/shimmer... the teacher mentioned that sometimes the icing coloring contains toxic chemicals! Yikes! Well I went on a wild goose chase (internet variety). Although the amount of fondant coloring that I used (LusterDust) was soooo small... I was still curious. After all, if I am making my own bath and body products, I want them to be natural and safe.
It is incredibly difficult to find out what is even in Luster Dust... Really... Just give it a try! One ingredient, carmine, is used in red Luster Dust... and many other red colored, well, anythings. This ingredient is isolated from beetles that feed on cacti ("dried female insect Coccus cacti (cochineal)")! Here is a great website for looking up cosmetic ingredients -especially when you don't have a clue what they are and can't even pronounce the names. 
I was grateful to have walked into the AP Environmental class when I did because I really did learn quite a bit in my search. The most important thing I got out of it though... Is that when all else fails... be informed. We have access to so much information. Always check, double check and cross-reference your sources. 
The AP Environmental class was watching this video. It is from The Story of Stuff Project. It is very informative and can be scary! While searching and learning though, I also found the critique of this video. I found the critique to be very intriguing also. So where many sites say that carmine is an unnatural and harmful ingredient... I am not sure that pigment produced by beetles can be called "unnatural"... Just sayin'. 
At the end of the day I concluded that I will do the best that I can to make my products as safe and natural as I possibly can. At the same time, I am not going to stir up a scare about products because they use big words in their ingredients. For example, olive oil is "Olea Europaea Fruit Oil" and Shea butter is "Butyrospermum Parkii." Hmmm.