Clear Lip Balm Tubes -- Honey Colored Caps

Top notes of peppermint and spearmint kick off this walk through a shady herb garden. Refreshing, cool, unisex -- a perfect "wake me up!" blend for soaps, lotions, shower gels, shampoos, bath bombs, and candles. What does "all-natural" mean? Fragrance blends designated by Sweet Cakes as "all natural" are derived completely from the constituents of essential oils and other plant materials (using steam distillation and fractional distillation). They are 100% free of any synthetics, including phthalates, parabens, sulfates, glycols, petrochemicals, and solvents. Flashpoint: 152º F.

Too good to be true? Hardly! The internet is so full of artificial bases that I'd become convinced that it must be scientifically impossible to create a natural one -- and then what should come flying in over the transom but this balmy beauty, easy to use and natural in every way. When it comes to making lip balm, I can't imagine using anything but this base now -- the consistency of the finished product is better than anything I ever came up with blending oils (yes, even fancy-pants, high-priced oils like jojoba and kukui nut) from scratch. INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE: Heat our All-Natural Lip Balm Base until melted in a microwaveable container -- microwaves vary like crazy, so taking the relative power of yours into account, heat the lip balm base until melted (I make about two ounces of lip balm at a time, and my turbocharged micro takes about a minute and a half to melt it down). Add your favorite Sweet Cakes flavor oil and our All-Natural Sweetener if desired, then pour into lip balm tube. (We offer a snazzy jars selection!) If you prefer a stiffer balm, combine the All-Natural Lip Balm Base with beeswax. ANOTHER USE: This lip balm base also makes a perfect salve. The addition of our Lavender 40/42 essential oil would make a really basic, all-purpose salve; for the more ambitious, try infusing it with all sorts of healing plants and herbs. INGREDIENTS: Castor seed oil, beeswax, lauryl laurate, carnauba wax. Melting Point: 142F - 160F

At long last we've finally tracked down an *all-natural* sweetener specially designed to be used in lip balms. This thick, pale-golden liquid is derived from licorice and is sweet as can be -- in fact, it's recommended that you add only 1-3% of it by weight to your lip balm creations. To all those who've contacted us in the past to ask why your own homemade lip creations don't have as much flavor and oomph as commercial ones, here's your answer. NOTE: Anticipating your questions, I asked the flavor chemist if any harm could come from ingesting, say, 3 or 4 or 5 times more sweetener than is recommended, and he said that you can use as much sweetener as you darn well please (although we don't recommend doing so -- it may change the texture and consistency of your lip balm adversely). Flashpoint: >200º F For those of you who sell your lip balms, the INCI name for this product is "Natural Additive (as sweetener)." Sweeteners -- even "grocery store"-type sweeteners like honey and stevia -- can be notoriously hard to mix into lip balm. Through our own experimentation and feedback from our customers (particularly RuthAnn of Mermaid's Bath -- thanks, RuthAnn!) we've come up with the following tips for incorporating our sweetener into lip balm: Make your basic lip balm mixture (whether it's "from scratch," using various liquid oils plus beeswax, or using our preblended base plus beeswax). Add to this our All-Natural Sweetener (we recommend using 3% by weight). Stir continuously as the base cools (the sweetener will want to pool at the bottom initially, but will become more willing to blend and integrate as the mixture cools down). When the base has cooled and is opaque and thick, put the container in a hot-water bath to remelt, stirring constantly. Voila! The sweetener will stay nicely combined with the base. A couple more caveats/comments, courtesy of our customers: "You must allow the mixture to cool COMPLETELY after the initial melt before you put the mix in a hot-water bath or over a double-boiler to emulsify the sweetener with the lip balm." "Stir constantly both while you cool the mixture until you can't stir anymore AND while you re-melt the mix -- if you don't stir at all times, some of the sweetener will not mix in and will be left sitting in the bottom of the cup or pot when you pour." "I followed your website instructions to a 'T,' and my lip balm came out great!" Is it worth the trouble to sweeten your lip balms? We think it is; virtually all commercial lip balms are sweetened, and we find that when lip balms are left unsweetened they taste "flat" to the user.

Awapuhi is Hawaiian for "white ginger," a wonderful light white floral. This version opens with green fruity notes combined with melon, dewberry, and awapuhi. A floral heart of muguet and jasmine gives way to bottom notes of musk, vanilla, and precious woods. BOTTOM LINE: Maui in a bottle. Flashpoint: 170º F.

Uber-successful Japanese couture house Comme des Garcons (which means "like boys" in French) has issued just a handful of fragrances, all of them groundbreaking and stellar. Our interpretation of their "Calamus" is the greenest, cleanest, most unisex scent in our entire repertoire. Imagine an intense fusion of leaves and grass and bamboo and rain and stems, and you've barely begun to scratch the surface. While this blend may strike some as too "out there" (there's none of the musky or fruity notes that are regularly thrown into everything), for those who want their shower gel, shampoo, and soap to be clean and refreshing (as opposed to musky, floral, sweet, etc.), this is a must-try. Flashpoint: >200º F.

A wonderful warm citrus herbal blend with top notes of orange and grapefruit, followed by a mid section of oregano and marjoram, rounded out with bottom notes of amber and musk.Flashpoint: 162F. Absolutely wonderful!

Clear polyethylene tubes with white caps. Each tube will hold approximately .17 oz. of lip balm.

A tropical treat -- coconut underscored with tart, juicy pineapple. NOTE: Will not discolor cold-process or melt-and-pour soap, as so very many coconut fragrances do. Flashpoint: 154º F.

First there was World's Best Magnolia -- and now we're pleased as punch to offer you the finest Egyptian musk this side of Khartoum! A little backstory: A perfumer we work with recently relocated to the US from France. While still living in Paris, he purchased a small bottle of musk fragrance, which immediately became his wife's signature scent and which people within sniffing range remarked upon endlessly. Now that he's here in the US and unable to purchase more of this incredible musk, he decided to duplicate it. I will readily admit to not being a musk addict myself, but when the sample of this fragrance landed on the warehouse doorstep, I was blown away! It's simply the muskiest, sexiest, most beguiling musk blend I've ever come across (and we're talking thousands of fragrance samples over the past 9+ years)! In fact, I would put this in a league with the best of the Sweet Cakes best -- our copies of Angel and Fracas and Precious Amber, for example. You must try World's Best Egyptian Musk! Who'll like it? Anyone who likes musky fragrances, sexy fragrances, unique fragrances, or upscale-smelling fragrances. Who won't be impressed by it? Only someone whose nostrils were stitched together in a freak serger accident. And here's one more piece of juicy backstory -- another customer of this particular perfumer has also purchased this Egyptian Musk and is selling it diluted as a perfume with a price tag of $100 per ounce. Diluted, people. Per ounce. Or, as expressed in the title of a song by West Coast rap-music impresario Ice Cube, "$100 Dollar Bill, Yo." Note to CP soapers: I've personally tested this fragrance well and thoroughly in CP soap, and my feelings about using it in CP are mixed . . . while it doesn't mutate or cause any trouble, the scent does fade more than Sweet Cakes fragrances do. At the end of cure time, the pleasant musk and sandalwood notes were still there, but a bit muted. If you don't mind a more subtle fragrance level in your cold-process soap, then feel free to give Egyptian Musk a spin. Flashpoint: >200º F.