DIY Origins Peace of Mind Stress Relief Balm (video)

We love Origins Peace of Mind Stress Relief, but there are two problems; it’s too expensive, and it doesn’t smell exactly how we want it to smell. So we decided to make our own, and in this video will show you how to make your own.

Transcript

My favorite stress relief balm has always been Origins Peace of Mind. Even though I really like it, there are a couple of problems with it. One is the cost. This little tube is about 20 dollars and I think the little jars that have the pump on them are even more expensive.

The other thing is that it doesn’t smell exactly, exactly like I wanted it to smell. So I decided to make my own and I’m going to show you how to do that.

Most of the ingredients, if not all the ingredients, you need to make your own stress relief balm can be bought online, either Amazon or somewhere else. Now, you are initially going to spend more money for all the ingredients than you would for one of the Origins Peace of Mind, but you’re going to be able to make quite a few out of those ingredients and so ultimately it’ll end up costing you a lot less, and you can also give them as gifts and some of these ingredients are the same things that you use for lip balms, if you want to do that or, or also, you know, other types of – like for instance I make an antiseptic healing balm out of a lot of these ingredients. So it’s, you know, if you’re looking at it for a long term and cost effectively it’s, it’s, it’s much better than, than buying one of the tubes or jars over and over again.

So one of the things you’re going to need is a – what’s called a fixed oil. In most cases you’re going to want to use either almond oil, sweet almond oil or jojoba oil, and you’re not gonna want to use olive oil unless absolutely necessary because it does have a strong smell that’s going to, that’s going to affect the final product. If you have to use olive oil, then I’d say see if you can use a light olive oil because that will have, that will have a much lighter smell to it.

You’re also going to need what are called transfer pipettes. These are really cheap. You can get – let’s see, I got a hundred of these – a hundred 3ml transfer pipettes for a few dollars on Amazon. But sometimes you can buy just a few of them at a time, ten. You might want to check like Michaels or Hobby Lobby and see, although soap and perfume making isn’t quite as popular as it used to be, so they may not have it.

But anyway, so this is marked with half milliliter and milliliter lines so that you know exactly how much you’re measuring out.

You’re going to want a bottle like this, a glass bottle, to create your mixture – the essential oil mixture – that’s either dark brown like this or cobalt blue. And you can usually buy these in very small amounts on, on Amazon.

Another thing you’re going to need is beeswax, or if you’re vegan, there are other options and I’ll link to them below.

You’re also going to need your essential oils and you can get these in pretty small quantities from Amazon, but I’ll put the link also to my favorite site that I used to use when I had an online store where I made soaps and skin care and stuff like that, because they’re they’re a good supplier and their quality is really good, unlike some of the ones that you might find on Amazon.

So, you’re going to need eucalyptus oil, peppermint oil, basil oil and this one is kind of optional, is lavender, is lavender essential oil. I put it in because I like it, but it will smell like Peace of Mind Origins without it, so it’s, it, it’s up to you. Lavender also is, it’s a really good stress relief essential oil, so I would, I would recommend it and it’s not really expensive, so it’s one you definitely want to think about having in.

And the other thing you’re going to need is, is lip balm containers. I got these on Amazon and I got them with different color tops so I can – I use that instead of labels to keep track of what’s in it.

So those are everything you need, except of course, you’ll also need a glass or Pyrex Bowl to melt the beeswax and the, and the fixed oil together, and you need something to stir with and that about covers it. Okay, so let’s get started cooking.

So first you’re going to mix your essential oils together in your glass bottle. The Peace of Mind Origins knock-off recipe that I created is 5 ml of peppermint essential oil, 1 1/2 ml of basil essential oil, 1 ½ ml of eucalyptus essential oil and the optional 2 ½ ml of lavender essential oil.

By the way, if you’re going to do some experimenting and create your own version, you might want to do what I do and write the measurements down in a notebook as you go.

As I adjust the amounts, adding more of certain essential oils, I cross out the original amount and write the new amount in instead. When I’m satisfied with the results, I enter it into a Google Doc, since I sometimes end up losing the notebook.

Also, your nose can get tired, so it’s a good idea to let it rest every few minutes when you’re experimenting. It’s a good idea to kind of reset your sense of smell by smelling something like coffee before you start up again.

Be aware that sometimes the essential oil mixture can smell different after a few hours, so it’s a good idea to let it sit for awhile before you add it to the base mixture, so you can make modifications if necessary.

Next, you want to create the base mixture by adding the wax and fixed oil to a glass or pyrex container for heating. For this base mixture, I added 2 tablespoons of beeswax to 4 tablespoons of sweet almond oil.

Microwave the mixture for 10 seconds at a time at 50% power, stirring occasionally. Remember that the wax will continue to melt in the hot oil after it’s out of the microwave, so you don’t have to keep heating until the wax is completely melted.

Let the mixture cool until you can touch the outside of the glass or Pyrex container without burning yourself. If it’s very hot when you put the essential oil mixture in, the essential oil mixture will evaporate to a great extent. If the base mixture starts to solidify, remember that you can always reheat it before you put the essential oil mixture in, to make it liquid again.

Once it’s cool enough, add 15 ml of the essential oil mixture and stir to combine. You may want to add more if your essential oils were not potent enough. You should be able to smell the fragrance strongly if your nose is a few inches from it.

Pour the mixture into the tubes if your melting container has a little lip like this measuring cup, or you can also use a transfer pipette if it doesn’t. Let the mixture cool and solidify before you put the cap on the container.

Okay, so here is our finished balm. Okay, so what you want to do is just put it anywhere that you can smell like on pulse points, on your wrist. Origins has you put it on your temples, which is also really good because that’s pretty close to your nose.

So there you go. You’ve got a portable stress relief balm. And again, one of the best things about it is that you can customize the smell however you want it, whatever smells good to you, and it’s much more cost efficient and it’s something you created yourself.

I hope this video has been helpful. If you would like to see more videos about depression, anxiety, stress relief, self-care – all sorts of good things, please consider subscribing. And I’d love to hear your comments about any, any recipes that you might have done yourself and you know, to share with other people. And that’s it. See you next time.