After years of harvesting honey, we have accumulated a considerable amount of beeswax. While looking through a bee supply catalogue, I noticed a book, Beehive Alchemy. The book provided instructions on making candles, lotions, and soaps. A quick check of our local library's website showed the book was available, so I checked it out to preview.
Maggie has made balms in the past, so we have a collection of raw ingredients and essential oils. I am not much of a lotion person myself, usually limiting my use to occasional chapstick. Flipping through the recipes, I came across instructions for making heel balm. This is actually a problem I have had the past few winters. Through a combination of age, cold winter weather, and working outside, I find that my heels will develop painful cracks in winter. Maggie had been giving me shea butter to treat my heels, but it was greasy to apply. The recipe used beeswax, and various other ingredients that we had. The instructions included pouring the mixed product into small deodorant applicators, which would make it less messy to apply. We ordered applicators in a couple of sizes, and I bought a small crock pot from Goodwill to use to melt the various ingredients together.
The process was very easy. I put a used butter tub on a scale and weighed the ingredients into the tub. I placed the tub into the crock pot and filled the crock pot with water just to the point where the butter tub started to float. I turned the crock pot on and - walked away. The ingredients slowly melted together, so I just had to occasionally check on progress. Once everything was melted and mixed together, I took out the butter tub, pinched two sides together to form a spout, and poured the mixture into the deodorant applicators. The recipe created enough to fill one 2.65-ounce applicator and seven 1-ounce applicators.
We have had a mild winter so far, so my heels are still in good shape. There is still plenty of winter left, however.
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