Valentine Goodies Continued

Here's another fun heart embed melt-and-pour project with a different twist. Simply make the hearts ahead of time, pour a bottom layer of clear base with your choice of color and fragrance into a loaf mold, wait for it to set up, spray the layer with rubbing alcohol and pour a layer of clear soap on top (hot soap will melt right through the bottom layer and will also be too hot for embeds, so make sure you pour this layer at a lower temp). Now, spray both the hearts and the clear layer generously with rubbing alcohol and place the hearts into the wet soap, spacing them appropriately for hand-cut bars. That's it! Check out Soap Queen's beautiful cold process tutorial of this soap here.


Lip butter is fun, easy, and makes the perfect addition to your Valentine cards. You will need heart lip butter pots, strawberry flavor oil, and cellini red lip safe mica. For a basic recipe, follow these portions and ingredients:

1/4 Beeswax
1/2 Shea butter
1/4 Olive oil

For an 8 oz batch, you would use 2 oz wax, 4 oz butter, and 2 oz oil (by weight). This lends itself to experimentation and personalization with mixing and matching oils. Instead of shea butter, you could use mango butter or avocado butter as a semi-solid oil. For a different liquid oil, try anything from sweet almond to castor oil. The key is to make sure the solids help equal out the liquids so the mixture will be soft and spreadable.

When playing with different colors and flavors, make sure the color you choose is labeled "lip safe" and that you only use Flavor Oils. Fragrance oils are not suitable for lips, though some essential oils such as organic peppermint and spearmint are lip balm safe. Usage rate of flavor oils is 1% to 3% by weight. If you are using a dropper to measure, it is helpful to know that 0.1 oz equals 3 milliliters. Add the flavor oil after all the ingredients are melted and stir thoroughly. Have fun and enjoy passing them out this holiday!