While I was doing that, I rubbed my lips together and felt that they were dry and crusty. You might think that’s disgusting, but it gave me an idea: to make lip balm. I looked up some videos to get an idea of what to do to moisturize my lips. I saw that aloe vera and coconut oil are amazing ingredients to use. So, I took random amounts of coconut oil and fresh aloe vera from my garden and mixed th
em together. The result was this oily, greasy texture on my lips. I thought to myself, This isn’t going to work for everyday use, and it doesn’t look nice either. I watched more videos to figure out how to improve the texture and appearance. I learned that flowers with bright colors can be used as natural dyes. I made another batch of the coconut oil and aloe vera mixture, but this time, I added red hibiscus flowers and a little bit of pink edible glitter. While cutting the hibiscus petals, I noticed my fingers and the plate were stained with the flower’s color. After mixing it all together, the lip balm looked much better and had some texture to it. I showed it to my family, and they were very impressed. My dad asked if he could use it for his hands and feet because they were very dry and cracked. I said yes, since I hadn’t put the mixture in a proper lip balm container yet—it was just in a round block shape. A couple of days later, my dad told me he had done some research on the best lip balm ingredients. He found that beeswax and shea butter are hydrating, calming, softening, and smoothing. He suggested I get some lip balm containers to store my product and sell it to family and friends. I thought about it for quite a while. As I ordered the containers, shea butter, and beeswax, I thought to myself, If people like my product, this could become my job or career in the future. I made the lip balms, and I placed the leftover mixture into an ice cube mold. My dad used the cubes for his hands, rubbing a small square onto his hands like it was a cream. That gave me another idea: I could sell the cubes as hand balm. A couple of weeks later, my mum found a kids’ market held in Stanmore Bay. We bought a ticket for a stand and made more products to sell. I got super excited! My best friends, Jade and Craig, told me, “It doesn’t matter how many products you sell or how much money you make; what matters is having fun!”
So, that’s how my journey started. I am very thankful to everyone who helped me and to my inspiration, Bridey Drake.
