Healing and Protecting Hand balm: Kitchen Wench Hand Glop

 So, you are probably wondering about the name? There's a long family story behind it but it boils down to this:
 My family has worked in the food industry on and off for years in lower-rank "grunt" jobs. We would often jokingly refer to ourselves as kitchen wenches.  My mom recently got a new job in a kitchen and she decided to make a hand salve to protect and heal her hands from the daily exposure to bleach and constant washing.
Thus Kitchen Wench Hand Glop was born.
I have to say when my mom made this I was a little skeptical that it would actually be healing. I ended up getting a rash on my hands from cleaning with bleach water ( something I never do regularly) about the time she made this batch. Once I started using this my rash stopped getting worse, stopped itching and I think it probably healed up faster as well.

Ingredients:
 remember, these don't have to be exact measurements
15 oz coconut oil, I recommend organic extra virgin coconut oil
1/8 cup aloe vera gel, try to find one without coloring or preservatives such as this one
1/8 cup  extra virgin olive oil
1/8 cup corn starch *very optional*
2 tbsp honey *optional*
8 vitamin E gel tablets, or better yet 1 tbsp vitamin E oil
5 drops Tea Tree essential oils (or others appropriate for topical use) *optional*
1 tbsp vanilla extract *optional*
2 tbsp vegetable glycerin *optional*
2 tbsp witch hazel *optional*
1/4 cup tulsi sweet rose tea *optional*

You can also you the ingredients for the coconut butter instead and just use this method.

 Method:
Start steeping your tea; cover it with a saucer and use hot but not boiling water.
Measure out all your other ingredients. Cut open and squeeze out the contents of the vitamin E tablets into the mix. Lastly, add your tea and squeeze the tea bag dry. 
                You need to mix this in a bowl or pan that you can use as a double boiler suspended over a pan of hot water. Heat the mixture just enough to melt everything, you don't want to heat it any more than absolutely necessary.

Then take it off the heat and place the bowl into another larger bowl with a few inches of cool water in it. Beat it with a hand beater or whisk a little to cool it faster. As it cools the ingredients will start to separate out. Once that happens, start whisking on and off again until it has mostly cooled and is staying in suspension. You can see the mixture on the left of the plate is from when the mixture was not yet staying in suspension. The plate was put in the fridge to set up the mixture more quickly in order to check the consistence. The glob on the right is from once it was holding together properly.

Once it stays mixed you can ladle into whatever containers you like. Chilling the balm until cool in the fridge helps set it up fully. I prefer to use glass containers for a host of reasons. You can see it's in plastic here; that is because this is my mama's recipe, she made this batch and happened to have plastic containers.  On another note, you can also use these ingredients but the method described in the coconut butter recipe.

This make a thoughtful and useful gift, just jar in something nice, wrap in paper and tie with a nice ribbon or length of yarn. I hope you try your hand at making some of your own beauty products! If you do, or have before, let me know how it went in the comments.

This post is participating in the Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, Homestead Barn Hop, From The Farm and Mostly Homemade Mondays blog hops, check them out to find other great blogs like ours!