Selling lip balm and skin cream

[nuporter]

Hi, just wondered if there were any regulations for selling my home-made bees wax lip balm and skin cream to friends or at a school xmas Fayre.
Also, any suggestions on costings for a 20 ml pot of lip balm (recipe 110g sweet almond oil, 20g bees wax, 40g Cocoa butter & few drops of peppermint oil), or a 50ml pot of skin cream (recipe 3.5 oz beeswax, 3/4 pint rapeseed oil, 1/2 pint soft water, 5 g borax & few drops of lavender oil). I have no idea!! This will be very small scale, as only have 1 lb wax to use!

Thanks, Nuala x

Ps final question - to increase the amount of wax I have, is it worth melting down a super of drawn frames from this year, where I have extracted the honey and the bees have licked clean? I have quite a few supers of drawn frames, and when I add supers in the honey flow, I usually alternate new foundation frames with drawn frames.

 

[simoncav]

Short answer - yes there are lots of regulations! Try here as a starting point:

http://www3.hants.gov.uk/tradingsta...ness/ts-business-safety/tsguide-cosmetics.htm

Don't even try to sell something like this. By all means give gifts, but don't try and make money out of it, unless you are prepared to go through the necessary processes to comply with The Cosmetic Products Enforcement Regulations 2013 (EC) No. 1223/2009 and you'll also need product liability insurance...

 

[Madge]

...

Ps final question - to increase the amount of wax I have, is it worth melting down a super of drawn frames from this year, where I have extracted the honey and the bees have licked clean?....

No. Keep it to return to the bees next year.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

you're not going to get that much wax out of a drawn frame and the bees had to work hard to do it - better to leave it for them to get to a flying start foraging in the spring

 

[Tom Bick]

Ps final question - to increase the amount of wax I have, is it worth melting down a super of drawn frames from this year, where I have extracted the honey and the bees have licked clean?.

As with the others no it's too valuable to sacrifice like this. But if you are desperate then use the sheets of wax foundation you would have used to replace the combs as they are likely to be mostly made up of foundation.

Probably regulations about the wax used in cosmetics that could make the use of wax other than capping wax not such a good idea?

 

[pargyle]

I had a look at this some time ago and as with others above ... it's a nightmare to get any cosmetic (indeed ANYTHING that is applied to the skin) approved for sale. Your drawn frames will be more valuable filled with bees or honey next season - waste of a resource to melt them down and there's precious little wax in them anyway.

If you have some wax to spare and you want to make something out of it then have a look at polish... you can sell that without any problems .. Lots of previous threads on here with 'recipes'.