Success?

I've been struggling this week to accomplish some of my projects because I'm fighting poor lighting, lack of internet, and failed projects. Well, not necessarily failed, just not 100% successful. On Thanksgiving, I decided to make some homemade lotion because my skin always gets dry in winter and I use lotion all the time. Store bought lotion has all kinds of chemicals in it that actually make your skin drier which is very counterproductive when you have patches that get so dry, they split and bleed. 

I did some research and found a bunch of recipes that would work well for my purposes. I decided to try making lotion with a bit of the aloe plant I've been growing since September. I gathered all of my ingredients and set to work. 

One of the challenges I faced was deciding how much of the aloe to use. I had never cut aloe fronds before but I experimented with different methods to get the pulp out. 

Cutting the edges off and sort of julienne-ing the plant worked mildly well. I discovered that you can't just slit one end open and massage the goo out, you just need to be patient and willing to get pretty sticky. 

So my hands ended up a sticky mess!

Then, since I could only find .8 oz bars of beeswax, I sort of fudged a little bit on the math and used two. I don't own a scale so getting the accurate amount of each of the ingredients was a challenge. 

After combining everything except the aloe and the essential oil, I melted everything down until it was all incorporated. 

Then, I mixed everything together in a separate bowl submerged in some cold water. The result was a mash that looks more like mashed potatoes, is very clumpy because I didn't have a useful blender, and the aloe chunks didn't really mix together that well so it's not the prettiest lotion that has ever been made.... 

But you know what? My hands have never been more soft! I'm going to keep experimenting and hoping that the days will get brighter so I can photograph all the projects I'm working on.