What do Seaweed, Pumpkin Pie, and Tiny Houses have in common?

Nothing until your husband and kids go to a high school football game and leave you home by yourself…(nirvana! – Did I say that out loud?)

Basically, this time alone translated into a few things for me: 

1. Seaweed and beer for dinner (Don't judge me until you've had the seaweed salad form Frazier Farms!)
2. Endless HGTV, i.e. multiple episodes of Tiny House Hunters! And…
3. Epic success with my lip balm venture!

Is epic success with lip balm venture MUCH sweeter after epic fail with lip balm venture not 48 hours ago, with possibly even a few tears shed? I mean...hypothetically speaking. I would NEVER cry over something as ridiculous as lip balm, Pshhh...

So yeah, my UBER motivation and optimism coupled with my impulsiveness do not always lend themselves to the easy road. I tend to go from A to Z and wrap it up in a bow before I have worked out all the kinks...because OF COURSE my first (and second, and third) ideas are going to work!! Well, you're looking at Plan B in action ladies and gentlemen, and C, and D.

Why am I reliving all this you may ask? Well because it’s always fun to look back on the valley of epic failure from the peak of the mountain of success! Wow! That was Nobel prize winning. At any rate, the real reason is I probably just need to vent. Not the least of which because I wrote this blog not once, but twice, only to have an unnamed website hosting company (look up in the address bar) ERASE IT BOTH TIMES after I hit post!!! No lie, the fact that you are even reading this is all the proof you need that I am the most stubborn human on the face of the planet. With any luck that will lead to obnoxious levels of success in my business :)

So back to the lip balm. The first thing I tried was agave, honey, and coconut nectar mixed with the Shea Butter and Coconut Oil, HELLO! I mean…does that not sound amazing? Yeah, not so much. I was actually trying to do the lip balm without heat like my other products and it was ending up as a runny, sticky mess. So I moved to the liquid extracts which is what I use in the lotions.

So everything was going great…the lip balm looked beautiful from the top, all smooth and smelling great. Therefore unsuspecting lip balm makers go ahead and label, photograph, inventory, and post them in their Etsy store and web store and maybe, ya know…start a Facebook promotional campaign only to then decide to do some quality inspection (these are the little things that wake me up in the middle of the night? Like, 'Is the lip balm really OK??!!'). Well when I cut into the little jerks, they were all liquid underneath their nice little lip balmy exterior!! Liars!!

Needless to say I discovered that the liquid extract can’t incorporate with the rest of the oils and beeswax. Back to the drawing board. After, ya know, soaking, scrubbing, wiping, and scraping off (not free) labels from the tins so as to be economical and reuse them. Show of hands, anyone ever tried to clean something that was filled with a waxy product? How about scraping off upwards of 90 (not free – did I already mention that?) labels that don’t want to come off? Suffice it to say I might now need meds.

At this point could I have called it a day, erased that silly blog about fragrance oils and cancer and all that jazz, and just thrown some of that stuff in my lip balm!? Yes I could have, but I didn’t, and I never will. I will search to the ENDS OF THE EARTH (ya know using Google) for healthy alternatives to commercial yuckiness. Well the GREAT news is they make extracts in powdered form, otherwise known as cooking spices! Duh! They can be a little pricey, but if you buy in bulk, they’re not that bad.

So ladies and gentlemen, the birth of Cocoa, Chai, and Pumpkin Pie Lip Balm!!! YUM!!! And a million other possibilities for the future! I also love the indirect reinforcement of my brand Body Food. When I started this whole thing I had no idea I would be incorporating products otherwise used in food preparation. I’m from a very pun-loving family so you can imagine the thrill.

The moral of the story? Don’t give up, be persistent, TELL THAT LIP BALM WHO’S BOSS!!!! And you might just come out smelling like Pumpkin Pie!!