Oh, how excited I am about this product! This was a limited edition item 2 years ago and YOU all LOVED it! So much so, that I had to make it a mainstay in the webshop.
This took years to source all the packaging and ingredients. I started with organic, refined shea butter, and organic vegetable shortening for the base.
Then I found local beeswax (Jackson, MO) which I ordered from Humble Origins Apothecary in Cape Girardeau, MO. Elyssa is the herbalist that runs Humble Origins and is a fun-loving person who always makes me smile. I’m happy to be supporting her small business and being able to have high-quality, honey-scented beeswax for all Shawnee Moon products. (well, all the ones which require beeswax, including, calendula balm, all ointments and lip balms!).
This stuff smells amazing! Elyssa shared that the apiary (beekeeper) has about 300 hives at any given time. They use only the cappings of the honeycomb for their beeswax, reserving the full comb for the bees. Drawing comb is much more energy consuming for the bees than gathering nectar. That’s the reason for the awesome scent. It’s the freshest I could get, and the lest detrimental to the life of the hive! #savethebees
Next, Calendula flowers. What would this balm be without them??! I attempted to grow my own for this batch this year and only managed to grow and harvest about 4 blooms. That wasn’t going to cut it! I’ve been following Christian Herbalist, Anna, of Big Woods Botanicals for a few years. She is dedicated to expanding her herbal knowledge base, growing and gathering peak quality herbs, and testing/quality checking all her preparations carefully. She just this year began offering products for sale and they are top notch!
When Anna shared she had calendula blossoms available, freshly harvested from this season, I had to scoop some up for this beloved Calendula Balm!
It’s like sunshine in the melting pot!
Once all the items were in the Shawnee Moon lab (my work space!), I got to work carefully heat-infusing the herb into my carrier oils. Straining off the whole blossoms and then I melted in the beeswax.
Quickly and carefully I poured out the melted balm into these perfectly proportioned twist-up tubes! They whole half an ounce each, look like a lip balm tube, but bigger. Super handy size!!
This balm is an intensive moisturizing, soothing, healing herbal preparation. Calendula is long known to support skin health, healing occasionally dry, cracked, chapped skin. Consider winter knuckles, summer heels, patchy places of discomfort.
I am incredibly happy with how this item turned out. It is a small batch, but I have a handful left currently ready to ship, and will continue making more as needed.
I’m most excited about how many small businesses are supported in this product. I don’t know if it’s necessary to say, but This is not a sponsored post! Anna and Elyssa did not send me free stuff to make this, I am not getting any kind of kick-back, or ad revenue. This is just me sourcing products from real people, doing real work with their real hands. I admire that. And I paid real money for their time, knowledge, expertise and quality product.
This is just me be very excited about the real work that went into making this, and wanting to share that with you. Because it matters where our ‘things’ come from.
It’s a big job, and not a cheap one, to continue sourcing more local items to make the products you know and love here at Shawnee Moon. I am every so slowly, but determined to consistently, switch over to more and more self-sufficient/fair-trade/sustainable ingredients for my products.
Last year it was Elderberry, wildcrafted by my very own hands. Now every Elderberry product you buy from me was hand picked, washed, destemmed, washed again, dehydrated, stored, then turned into tincture by the phase of the moon. That is something I’m deeply proud of and excited for.
This year it’s a local source for beeswax and fresh, semi-local calendula flowers. (Anna is from Wisconsin).
I hope you are as excited about this as I am!
