by Musa Bala | Mar 23, 2022 | Health & Wellness
Thanks to psychology, we understand that our experiences and actions have an impact on the way we think, comprehend, and behave in our daily lives. While some of our experiences influence our behaviours positively, others could negatively affect the way we perceive and interact with ourselves and our environment, thus impacting our behaviours. An example of such negative conditions our experiences could lead to is depression. There are many ways we can cope with depression both medically and naturally, however, we’ll be looking out for ways to avoid depression naturally.
What Is Depression?
Depression is a negative affective state characterised by feelings of extreme sadness, pessimism, and despondency that interferes with daily life. Now, this is different from the mood changes that people regularly experience as a part of life.
Depression can be caused by major life events, such as grief or the loss of a job. However, feelings of grief are only considered to be part of depression if they persist and affect the daily life of an individual.
You might have heard people or even you easily say “I’m depressed”. It is important to know that depression is an ongoing mental state and not a passing one. Feelings of depression must consist of episodes in which its symptoms last for at least two weeks before it is considered as such.
What Are the Symptoms of Depression?
Depression is characterised but not limited to:
- A depressed or irritable mood
- Feelings of worthlessness or guilt
- Loss of interest or pleasure in activities once enjoyed
- Change in interests
- Sleep problems
- Changes in appetite
- Unintentional weight loss or gain
- Agitation, restlessness, severe anxiety/panic attack
- Slowed movement and speech
- Significant loss of energy
- Recurrent suicidal thoughts/behaviour
10 Ways to Avoid Depression Naturally
Other than medication and therapy, there are a lot of activities and behaviours you can engage in to combat depression. These behaviours influence your behaviour, physical activity, lifestyle, and even your way of thinking. Such behaviours are all means to avoid depression naturally.
Examples of behaviours you can engage in to avoid depression include:
1. Determine Your Objectives
Depression often settles in with feelings of worthlessness and helplessness. This feeling makes you think you can’t accomplish anything in life, thereby making your condition even worse.
To fight these feelings, set daily goals for yourself. You could start with little things you know you could easily do such as tidying up your room and doing the dishes. As you feel much better about yourself, you can set more challenging daily goals.
2. Exercise on a Regular Basis
It is no news that regular exercise helps keep our physical body healthy. What you might not know is that it is a way to avoid depression naturally. When you exercise, you boost the production of endorphins (known as feel-good chemicals) in your body. Endorphins stimulate your brain to rewire itself in positive ways.
3. Establish a Routine
Depression affects the daily life of an individual. The overwhelming feeling of helplessness makes it difficult for people to organise and function properly. Having a routine will help you function and organise your day, thereby managing your feeling of helplessness and developing in you, a feeling of accomplishment.
4. Maintain a Blanced Diet
While there is no food that magically fixes depression, you might want to be careful with what you eat if depression tends to make you overeat. Eating healthy foods accompanied by proper eating behaviours could help reduce the impact of depression in your daily life.
Some food items containing omega-3 fatty acids (such as salmon and tuna) and folic acid (such as spinach and avocado) have been associated with the ability to help ease depression and lots more.
5. Get Enough Sleep
Psychologists have identified a strong connection between depression and insomnia. Having difficulty in sleeping is a common symptom of depression which worsens the condition.
Below are some tips you can use to improve your sleep naturally:
- Have a Sleep routine – go to bed and get up at a specific time every day.
- Make sure the room is quiet, dark, and comfortable.
- Avoid large meals, caffeine, and alcohol before sleeping.
- Exercise during the day.
- Remove electronic equipment from the sleeping area.
- Get up again if you do not fall asleep within 20 minutes. Read or find some other distraction for a while, then try again.
6. Pay Attention to the Right Relationships
Many people who feel depressed seek to wash away the feeling with alcohol or drugs, sometimes both. In reality, alcohol and drug use drown them in their feeling of depression by making them focus on the symptoms they exhibit, thereby making the condition even worse.
7. Focus on the Right Relationships
As explained earlier, depression is accompanied by feelings of worthlessness and helplessness. A little word or act demeaning a depressed person further worsen symptoms of depression, just as a word or act of encouragement towards a depressed person helps with symptoms of depression.
Focusing on the right relationships that encourages you to feel comfortable, goes a long way in maintaining a healthy mind free of depression.
8. Stay Away from Triggers
Symptoms of stress and depression can be triggered by numerous factors; this might be different in individuals. To reduce these symptoms, you could avoid being exposed to triggers you’ve commonly identified. For some people, these triggers could include exposure to certain news, movies, things, places, or even people.
9. Make an Effort to Have a Good Time
Another major symptom of depression is the loss of interest in activities previously enjoyed. In depressed moments, what you use to do to have fun might feel like a chore, nonetheless keep trying to enjoy them. This would help keep your mind engaged positively.
10. Attend a Talk Therapy Session
Also known as Psychotherapy, talking to a mental health professional helps a lot in cases of depression. Here, psychologists help you identify the cause(s) of your depression and proffer practical solutions to help you cope and manage the symptoms.
Such therapy could be one-on-one, with your partner, family members, or a group of people with similar symptoms who meet just for therapy.
Conclusion
Depression cannot always be prevented or avoided as most causes are stressors that are part of life. However, effective treatment is available and an adjusted lifestyle can help you cope and manage symptoms.
It is advised to reach out to a mental health professional if symptoms of depression are overwhelming, such as thoughts of inflicting pain on oneself or others, death, or suicide.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Isn’t being depressed just being sad?
Depression is often mistaken for just being sad. They are sometimes caused because of one another. However, they are not always identical.
Being sad is a symptom of depression but we also have times where being sad is normal such as when we lose someone. Depression on the other hand differs from sadness in its intensity and duration. Depression is experienced daily turning into weeks and months affecting our work, family, and personal life. That is not normal.
How can you reduce your risk of depression?
Depressions mostly occur as a result of an extremely stressful experience. There’s no certain way to avoid depression but you can reduce your risk for it by getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, eating well, improving your self-esteem, reaching out to friends and family if things get hard, and getting help if you think you are depressed.
What is the natural cause of depression?
While depression is mostly caused by experience and social interactions, the special interactions of multiple genes in our body have been identified to contribute to various types of depression in families. No particular gene is responsibly known as the “depression gene”, however, many genes are known to contribute small effects towards depression when they interact with the environment.
What are the top 5 causes of depression?
As explained above, depression can be caused by any event or experience that you find extremely stressful and overwhelming. However, some happenings are known to trigger the feeling of depression the most, these major causes are:
- Genetics
- Physical, sexual or emotional abuse
- Physical Illness
- Death or a loss
- Conflict
What do i do if i think i’m depressed?
From the moment you think you are depressed, you could strategies by doing some research on lifestyle changes attributed to depression from reliable sources such as a therapist’s website or material before proceeding to see a therapist.
You could also directly reach out to a therapist. It is always better to seek professional help rather than wait for the symptoms of depression to grow on your mental health.
You could also check: 15 Foods That Will Boost Your Immune System
by Musa Bala | Mar 23, 2022 | Health & Wellness
Mental health professionals have always emphasized that our mental health is as important as our physical health, sometimes even more. Some people tend to easily get back to their feet after an emotional challenge while others find it difficult, this depends on their mental strength and capabilities. In this article, we’ll discuss how to be mentally strong.
When you encounter an emotional challenge, do you quickly and easily make a resolve, thereby going on with your daily life or do you tend to linger in that distressing emotional state longer than it affects your daily life? If you fall in the latter, this means you have low emotional/mental strength, however, there’s no cause for alarm. There are several practicable strategies and techniques that can develop your emotional resilience and help you become mentally strong.
Our life experiences are the mediums by which our emotional resilience is tested. The loss of a job, the death of a loved one, or the end of an important relationship; these experiences test our mental strength and the way we handle them determines how mentally strong we are.
What is Mental Strength?
Mental strength is the ability of an individual to effectively manage stressors and challenges they encounter, regardless of the situation they find themselves in.
It is important that you note that just as you go to do gym and exercise to build your muscles and keep your body fit, you must also develop your mental health through the use of mental and psychological strategies and techniques.
A highly developed mental strength helps you to develop positive self-esteem, have meaningful social connections, and ultimately, it enables you to live the life you want. It helps you to try new things, and effectively manage whatever life challenges you might experience.
How to Be Mentally Strong
Mental strength can only be developed when you commit to personal mental development, these are how to be mentally strong:
1. Master Your Emotions
Psychologists and other mental health experts often say the result is determined by your dominant thought. This means that if you think you are going to fail, you’ve already convinced yourself you’ll and there’s a good chance you will fail. It is advised that you maintain a positive mindset always, replace such negative thoughts with “I will do this” thereby convincing yourself you can, and you will eventually do.
Our emotions and dominant thoughts play a big role in how we act in our everyday experiences. So it is important that you acknowledge your feelings and how they affect your behaviours.
2. Focus on One Thing at a Time
While the ability to multitask is seen as an honorary capability, it could also heavily weigh on our minds and affect our mental strength. Always focus on your present, this will help you take in your experiences one after the other and effectively deal with each and every one of them.
When you are spending time with friends, listen to what they are saying, pay less attention to your phone, just take the moment into your mind without worrying about other things you have to do. This will help you develop a good social connection which is important to be mentally strong.
3. Embrace Challenges
As earlier explained, the challenges we experience in our daily life test our mental strength. It is advised you see challenges in your daily life as stepping stones.
When you encounter a challenge, it pushes you to act, and when your action effectively manages the challenge, it gives you clear knowledge and understanding of yourself. This knowledge is reflected in your self-esteem and confidence which is important to building a mentally strong mind.
4. Give Yourself a “Me-Time”
Giving yourself a break after a stressful day or week is important for your mental health. Take this time to do things you genuinely love to do, it could be gaming, reading, baking, exercising, or watching your favourite TV show, anything that helps you relax your mind and by extension, your body.
These me-times help keep your mind refreshed and in a better state of wellbeing to cope with everyday challenges.
5. Take Full Responsibility for Yourself
Understand that your past choices, decisions, and actions are responsible for who you are now. Don’t blame others for actions you’ve taken.
You are more powerful than you’ve realized, erase self-doubt from your mind, and believe in yourself. Once you are able to acknowledge and accept your past actions, decisions and who you are, you can be able to look forward to a more positive future. Having a positive mindset will help you face the challenges life throws at you and this, in turn, makes you mentally strong.
6. Focus on Making Yourself Happy First
It is no doubt that people feel physically stronger when they are happy, the same goes for mental strength. This is expressed when happy people say “I feel like I’m on top of the world, nobody can stop me” and many other self-confident statements.
Avoid making compromises to please others at the detriment of your own happiness. Focus on your personal goals and develop the courage to make decisions that work for you without the fear of disappointing others.
7. Understand That Everyone Makes Mistakes
It is important that you understand that everyone makes mistakes and never let the mistakes you make linger in your mind such that they affect your self-esteem and confidence.
When you make a mistake, consider it a moment to learn and understand the challenge and yourself better such that whenever you experience that challenge again, you can cope better.
8. Feel Free to Ask For Help
Being mentally strong doesn’t mean you have to take care of everything yourself. Sharing your thoughts and feelings with someone could help provide insights that will likely be beneficial to your mental health.
When you feel stressed, sad, angry, irritable, or frustrated, talking to someone close to you could help as a simple word of encouragement could provide you with the comfort and motivation you need to carry on with your daily activities.
Conclusion
The bases on which mental strength is developed are self-awareness and acceptance. For you to be mentally strong, you must be aware of where and who you are, and also accept them. Only then can you begin to take steps towards developing your mental strength.
Being mentally strong is the outcome of good habits practiced daily, setting boundaries, having self-esteem, and not expecting others to control your life.
FAQs
I want to be mentally strong, how do I get started?
The first important thing you need to do is avoid or remove things that aren’t working for you. Get rid of the negative behaviours which you’ve identified to emotionally derail you and employ good habits that will strengthen your mental well-being.
If I struggle with a mental health issue, does that mean I’m weak?
Not at all, mental health issues can develop in anyone. Mental strength only helps you to manage and cope with symptoms of a mental health issue. It helps you stay mentally healthier but won’t guarantee that you’ll not be mentally ill.
Do I need a therapist to help me get mentally strong?
Some people are able to develop mental strength on their own without the help of mental health professionals. Others do best with the help and guidance of mental health experts or someone who keeps them motivated. Whenever you feel you need the help of someone to overcome an obstacle related to your mental health, reach out to a licensed therapist to help you move forward.
by Abdulsalam Yunusa | Mar 16, 2022 | Health & Wellness
It’s the eve of your job interview, your first meeting with your in-laws, or that important event that you have been looking forward to, then you feel some mild pain on your forehead or the tip of your nose, and on checking the mirror, a huge red pimple is staring right at you! Now, it’s too late to visit a dermatologist, and you wouldn’t want people staring at the blemish on your face. If this is you, worry less, because in this article, I will be sharing with you tips on how to get rid of pimples fast. But first, what is a pimple?
Pimple is among the symptoms of acne, so it is sometimes wrongly used to refer to it. It is an inflamed area of the skin with hair pores clogged with sebum (oil from sebaceous glands) and dead cells due to blockage of the pores. It is a very common skin condition, so it is expected that there will be several claims of DIY (Do it yourself) treatments that can be used to treat it.
While research is still ongoing on the treatment options currently available, several have proven to be helpful in taking out these unwanted bumps out of your face. Get ready, as I share these methods with you.
READ ALSO: 15 Foods That Will Boost Your Immune System
6 Ways to Get Rid of Pimples Fast
Before you go ahead and read on several ways on how to get rid of pimples fast that I’ll be sharing with you, it is important to know that there are different treatments for different skin types, so once you notice unwanted side effects, it is advisable that you discontinue use of that method.
Now, let’s look at the methods!
1. Apply Some Ice to the Pimple
This is useful, especially when the pimple is painful, red and swollen, these are signs of inflammation. By wrapping some ice in a clean cloth and applying it on the inflamed pimple(s), for a few minutes, the inflammation is reduced. However, this is usually a temporary measure of alleviating the discomfort. For better results, ice is used alongside other treatment methods.
2. A Paste of Crushed Aspirin Can Remove Excess Oil from Pimples
The active ingredient in aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid. It is similar to salicylic acid, which is an anti-inflammatory ingredient used in making many skin care products. While this removes excess oil and dries the skin around the pimple, there’s yet to be strong evidence of how it actually treats acne.
To do this, form a thick paste by crushing a tablet or two of aspirin then mix with water. Apply the paste on the pimple, leave it to stay for some minutes, and then wash with lukewarm water.
3. Cortisone Injection Gives Quick Results
Some home remedies might not give you the quick results you need, especially when the pimples are very painful and large. Injection into the pimples with cortisone helps to reduce the inflammation and also the size of the pimples. Cortisone is a steroid, and thus inappropriate use can result in unwanted side effects. Therefore, your dermatologist is in the best position to do this for you.
4. Use an Over-the-Counter Pimple Treatment
There are many over-the-counter pimple treatments available as gels, ointments, creams and even soaps. It is not unexpected that there will be fake products too, so to get the best out of it, it is wise to buy only the ones prescribed by your dermatologist.
Benzoyl peroxide and salicylic acid are the active anti-pimple ingredients in those products so you might want to check whether the product you want to buy contains them.
The result obtained from the usage of such products is usually a reduction of excess skin oil and dead skin removal. A mixture containing benzoyl peroxide can also kill the bacteria responsible for causing acne.
A common side effect of over-the-counter treatment for acne is skin irritation, and sometimes, skin dryness. If you notice any, please discontinue usage of the product and consult your dermatologist.
5. Apply Some Toothpaste on the Pimple Overnight
While toothpaste was not made for treating pimples, its use for this purpose isn’t new to most of us. Apply some toothpaste on your pimples and allow it to stay overnight. Continue as necessary, but discontinue use if it causes skin irritation. However, toothpaste that contain gel, are not recommended to be applied to the face
6. Spot-Treat with Tea Tree Oil
An advantage of tea tree oil is that it does not cause unwanted side effects like skin irritation and drying, as seen with most over-the-counter pimple removers containing salicylic acid and/or benzoyl peroxide. It reduces inflammation as well as fights pimple-causing bacteria.
Mix tree oil with water, and apply directly on the pimples, using a cotton swab. Repeat it as necessary.
Other Fast ways to Get Rid of Pimples
- Use non-comedogenic makeup with salicylic acid to conceal pimples
- Apply exfoliating and antiinflammatory face mask for acne
- Use aloe vera gel etc.
When to See a Dermatologist
Sudden eruptions of a few pimples can be treated at home with the basic tips provided in this article, but when the pimples are recurring or not responding to treatment, it is best to see a dermatologist for proper evaluation and treatment.
How Not to Get Rid of Pimples?
Knowing how to get rid of pimples fast is important, but knowing how not to do it is relevant as well.
I know how tempting it is to pop a pimple, I have been there before. You should always resist the urge to do that, because it can worsen the condition by making the pimples redder and bigger. Not just that, it can also leave ugly scars on your face.
Conclusion
Now that you know how to get rid of pimples fast, you should also be mindful of the several causes of pimples, so that you will be able to maintain a smooth face.
Have you tried any of these methods or others not mentioned here? We would love to hear about your experience in the comments section below.
Thanks for reading.
FAQ
How to get rid of pimples overnight?
Applying tea tree oil, over-the-counter anti pimple creams, toothpaste or benzoyl peroxide at night, can improve the condition of your face by morning, but there is no guarantee that the pimple will completely disappear by morning.
Can ice remove pimples?
Ice is a good option when trying to get rid of pimples fast. It helps to soothe the skin and lessen the inflammation that resulted from the pimple. Do this by wrapping some ice in a cloth and gently press it on the pimple.
How to remove pimples naturally and permanently in one day?
One-day appropriate pimple treatment is enough to see significant results, but not necessarily permanently. To get lasting results, you need to take extra precautions like changing your pillowcases, avoiding unnecessary contact between your hand and face etc.
by Michelle Anama Abari | Mar 8, 2022 | Business & Finance
If it is one thing I love talking and writing about, it is on writing, especially when it can get you more money on writing than you could ever imagine! There are a zillion sites where you can get your article and books published on one is called Fiver, but did you ever know how to make money with Amazon publishing by yourself?
Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is a platform where amateur writers and professional writers write and get their books published at a very low cost. With KDP, you can self-publish your book on Amazon and start making money in as little as 24 hours.
This platform is way better than the traditional method of publishing whereby you have to wait months or even years for your book to get published. To avoid all the stress of the traditional method of publishing you will get to understand how to make money from Amazon publishing as you go deeper into the article.
How to Make Money with Amazon Publishing
Amazon is not just an online retailer. It started as an online bookstore and building on those roots, is a book publisher as well. Unlike a traditional book publisher, though, where you need to persuade an acquisitions editor to offer you a contract to get a book published, anyone can self-publish a book on Amazon.
Some benefits to Amazon KDP are that:
- Amazon lets you keep more of your money. A lot more.
- With over a 90million prime subscribers in the U.S.A alone, Amazon’s kindle store reach is huge.
- Self-publishing with Amazon KDP is, positively, 100% free.
Another good thing about this Amazon KDP is that you can write on anything. Be it a children’s playbook, romance novel, or even a biography or a documentary.
Some ways how to make money on Amazon publishing include…
1. Researching and Identifying a Topic
The first step towards earning with Amazon kindle should be finding out what you want to write on. You have to make sure it is a topic people are eager to read and are willing to purchase.
One method of researching topics is keyword research to find out the types of resources that people are actively searching for on search engines. Another way to research the most profitable topics to write on is to plug in the search engine “Amazon Bestsellers” into the search engine, click on the results to see the popular topics, and consider writing a topic similar to the popular bestsellers.
By going about the above methods, you have made it easier to know what your readers want and how to make publishing and writing profitable to you.
2. Write a Good Book or Article
After you must have finished researching the topic you want to write on, the next thing is to start writing your book or article!
The first step towards writing a good book is getting a good structure. That is diving the book into chapters and also input your ideas and desired events into those chapters, that way you know how you want your book to be.
The same thing goes for an article, divide the structure into points, subtopics, and paragraphs and then you’re on your way to having a published article.
3. Format Your Book
Formatting your book is a very important aspect of the Amazon publishing platform. Amazon publishing has some stringent formatting rules that you must follow if you want your book to be published.
The reason for this is that Amazon wants to make sure that all her books are accessible from all devices, be it from a PC, smartphone, iPhone, or even an iPad or tablet. So you have to go along with all the guidelines for publishing.
4. Create a Good Book Cover
Generally speaking, why most books don’t sell is not because of their content but because of the cover page of the book. Readers are attracted to what they see and that light attracts them to read your book.
I mean, you can’t write a romance novel and the cover page has a knife, it does not make sense at all. There is someone I know who published 3 books on Amazon and he was paid 800 dollars he told me that what attracted his readers was not his book but his cover page that was where his market was, his cover page.
It is important to know that your book will appear in a feed with other people’s books, and often, when you put a lot of images together in a feed, the most appropriately designed one stands out.
So, to increase your chances of getting noticed on Amazon Kindle and make more money with Amazon publishing, you must and should pay attention to your cover design.
5. You Must Register On Amazon KDP
Now that you must have written your book, formatted it, and created a format page, the next step to making your money on Amazon KDP is to register to that platform. You have to register on the KDP.
Registering on this platform is not as complicated as you may think. All you need to do is enter either your email or phone number, then choose a password.
After you must have done that, a one-time password (OTP) will be sent to your mail or phone. After inputting the OTP, you will be redirected to a page to enter your contact address, payment details and sign a tax form. Once you must have done all these, your account will be created, and you’re ready to start publishing on Amazon!
It’s that simple, and once you have done this, you are on your way to making a huge amount of money for yourself.
6. Publish Your Book on Amazon
Like I have said, anyone can publish on Amazon and you can publish anything on Amazon. After you must have registered with Amazon KDP, you compete with other authors!
In addition, publishing a book on Amazon is not hard. From your dashboard, navigate to the “bookshelf” tab. From there, you will see an option to choose which book format you want to publish. Choose between paperback and eBook kindle, and the platform will redirect you to fill in the book’s details.
Furthermore, you can upload a book in Word or PDF format, or use the kindle creator tool to convert a book for publishing.
7. Write a Catching Book Description
When writing a book description, you have to pour your whole heart into it, boil your book down to its central topics, themes and purpose.
This description will inform every external eye on what your book is all about and what it entails. It will help you market your book, which is also your product. Make sure to give your readers a teaser, not the full plot though. Don’t forget you want them to be intrigued enough to purchase a copy and dive right into reading the book but don’t make it too informed that they can predict the end.
The trick behind writing a good description for Amazon publishing is that you need to write something interesting without necessarily divulging too much.
8. Work a Lot More
You may be thinking that after you must have made your first dollars from this platform, then that is all. No, that is not all, you need to remember that you are in competition with other skilled authors who make at least 2000 dollars a month so you have to work hard, enhance your skill, and learn from other authors.
If you are not interested in doing the necessary work, Amazon self-publishing may not be for you.
9. By Being Patient
To earn money not only from Amazon Publishing, you also have to be very patient. A few people will start making money with their little books, but for someone else, it may not be so and that is why you have to enjoy the process and also learn along the way. I mean your book will get purchased. Be patient.
In addition, being patient enables us to analyze things and situations beyond their face value. The resourcefulness, calm and empathetic behavior of patient people will make them very popular. There is a high chance of you eventually earning good money on the platform if you stay persistent.
Conclusion
Writing and getting your book published is a thing of joy for writers. Amazon KDP is a very lucrative platform to make easy cash with persistence and hard work. You can make as little as 100 dollars as starters and rise to at least 4000 dollars each month, only if you work towards that.
You can also decide to make this a side hustle and you see you will earn well because Amazon pays in dollars and the dollar is higher than our Nigerian currency, so why not jump on the train and earn a lot of funds from this jaw-breaking opportunity.
The steps and ways to make the money on Amazon KDP are all listed above, what is stopping you from making your money in action!
FAQs
How much does it cost to put a book on Amazon?
It is totally free. It costs nothing to publish on amazon.
Is Amazon Publishing worth it?
Amazon is totally worth it because authors are making it huge on that platform as writers.
Does Amazon pay you to publish a book?
Amazon pays you to publish a book, each book rather and you get 60% royalty on each book. Great right!
How much does Amazon take from publishing?
Amazon takes 40% from your royalties leaving you with 60% after your book is published. Authors are making it huge with this opportunity.
How do you publish on Amazon?
To get your book published on amazon, you have to have a KDP account for that to happen.
by Aisha Zakari | Jan 14, 2022 | Beauty & Fashion
Want to say goodbye to dry and chapped lips and say hello to soft and luscious lips? Want to do something fun and easy? You’re in the right place cause I’m about to put you through how to make chocolate lip balm.
Follow these steps to make a moisturizing chocolate lip balm and be sure to gift it to friends and loved ones.
First of all,
What Is a Lip Balm?
A lip balm is a substance that is added to the lips to moisturize and relieve chapness and dryness. A lip balm is generally made from a base mostly coconut oil or beeswax, vitamin E capsules for Adee moisturizing effect, a flavour, and a colour. Just like that, you have a go-to for soft and luscious lips!
All you will need to make a lip balm are:
- Small containers or tubes
- Glass bowl to mix
- A stirrer or a spoon
- Essential oils (coconut, almond, etc.)
Now let’s get started on how to make chocolate lip balm!
How to Make Chocolate Lip Balm
What’s a recipe for homemade lip balm without that chocolatey taste huh?
Ingredients for Making Chocolate Lip Balm
- 2tsp beeswax (crushed)
- 1 tsp cocoa powder
- 2tbsp coconut oil
Procedures for Making Chocolate Lip Balm
STEP 1: On medium heat, bring a pot of water to a boil.
STEP 2: Insert a glass bowl into this pot. Make sure it doesn’t tilt and fall. You can hold the glass bowl with a tong. It’d only be for a minute.
STEP 3: Add in crushed beeswax and allow to melt completely for at least 20-30 seconds.
STEP 4: Use little water to make a paste out of the cocoa powder. Give this a mix and pour this into the bowl.
STEP 5: Add in coconut oil and give this a mix till the paste is well dissolved.
STEP 6: Keep stirring for more seconds to enable the water to evapourate. Then;
STEP 7: Turn off heat and allow to cool.
STEP 8: Transfer to a container or a tube and set aside. Use this to moisturize your lips and enjoy the chocolatey fragrance.
Frequently Asked Questions about Chocolate Lip Balm (FAQs)
Q: What can I use instead of coconut oil?
A: Shea butter is a good recipe for homemade lips balm. You can also substitute shea butter for coconut oil if you have it in-store.
Q: I don’t have beeswax, what do I use?
A: Relax! You can go ahead and make your homemade lip balm without having to use beeswax. Beeswax is like a solidifier so you can go ahead to use coconut oil, shea butter, or castor oil as the base.
Q: Can I use a container instead of a tube?
A: As I said above, you can use a container or you use a tube lying around in the house. This is used as storage and anything you have available can be used. Make sure it has a cover so as to prevent contamination such as dust and dirt.
Q: How long will my homemade lip balm last?
A: Your homemade lip balm should last up to 2-3 months depending on the quantity you make and on your daily usage.
Q: Does lip balm lighten my lips?
A: Homemade lip balm does not lighten lips but helps in moisturizing. If you want lighter lips, you could use lemon or lemon oil. Lemon has been proven to be effective in lightening the lips and of course, the skin.
Q: How long does it take to solidify?
A: This should take at least 15 minutes to harden in the container or of course, tube.
How to Store Chocolate Lip Balm
Store in a cool dry place as this helps in solidifying it. You can also refrigerate it for an hour or two to speed the solidification process but after that, do not refrigerate as this could lose its form and potentials.
Conclusion
Wasn’t that fun, easy and exciting? So, what do you think about how to make chocolate lip balm? Tell me if it works for you. Check out how to make your amazing lavender lip balm.
You can also check out how to make your amazing lip scrub in 5 minutes.
