Please excuse the blurred ink- there was a small coconut oil explosion in my suitcase D-:
I've been meaning to pick up a lotion bar for awhile because they're awesome for traveling (and fortunately this showed up the day before our anniversary trip to Northern Michigan- woo!) If you're not familiar with the concept, a lotion bar is basically like lip balm for your body. It's like a hard waxy hockey puck, and when you touch it to your skin, your body heat melts off juuuust enough to get a nice, even, thin layer of moisturizer. Kinda like a bar of soap, but of lotion. Sometimes if the balance of ingredients isn't just right, they can be overly sticky or too difficult to melt, but this one worked great! Great for chapped knitter-hands ;-)
I'm not a big fan of artificial scents, but Sweet Sheep offers a several unscented and naturally scented versions- for the lotion bar, I snagged the "Unscented Cocoa" which just simply smells like the cocoa butter that it contains (yum, chocolate!) There is also a version with "deodorized cocoa butter" if you want it truly unscented, though.
For the lip balm, I requested Lavender (which is scented with essential oils.) I was curious what it would taste like, since I recently tried a lavender-flavored soda and was not impressed, and because it contains lanolin which works great on my lips but tastes like a sheep's ass (or so I imagine a sheep's ass tasting, anyway.)
It tastes *so good*! I think maybe it's because the main ingredient is mango butter, though there is a little bit of flavor oil in there as well (not sure which flavor, but it's tasty.) It smells like some kind of lavender candy, and goes on super smoothly- much moreso than balms that are primarily beeswax. And most importantly, I definitely did not get any hint of sheep ass. Hooray!!
Basically, these are awesome. The ingredients are healthy and free of any weird toxic stuff- just beeswax, lanolin, various plant/nut/fruit oils, a little vitamin E, and (in the lip balm) a little EO and flavoring. (Okay, so I don't actually know what goes in flavoring oils, but they're made for candy-making so I'm not too worried about a drop of it!) As much as I enjoy making DIY body products in order to avoid the yeckky chemicals in store-bought stuff, it can get expensive to buy all the ingredients and tools just for a one-person batch, and it's definitely time-consuming and messy. It's awesome to find a product that uses great natural ingredients and doesn't require me to do any of the work ;-) Plus, they're adorably packaged and would make a great gift for other dry-skinned knitterfolk!
