This post is sponsored by eos®.
It started with one of Some Boy's friends last winter. Poor dude had persistently-chapped lips from all the weird weather and allergens around here, so his buddy gave him a lip balm at school. I'd been using coconut oil on him before he went to bed every night, but he needed more persistent application.
Unfortunately, anything that the big brothers bring home is pretty much inevitably consumed by the toddler. The minute we weren't looking he took a bite out of the lip balm, thinking it was some sort of awesome candy. In this case, that meant that he was eating petrolatum and salicylic acid. GROSS.
I had to seek out a solution. My sister had a bunch of eos® lip balm in her makeup drawer and told me they were non-toxic, comprised of stuff like coconut oil, olive oil, beeswax and shea butter. I looked at the packages and did a little hallelujah dance. Some were even organic! I swapped those into the kids' backpacks in place of that other product and figured it was a temporary novelty that they'd move on from in a week.
All of us were really in need of this stuff, though, due to our work on the farm and camping and outdoorsy lifestyle. Between chasing after Kraken and dealing with the goats and chickens and sheep, we inevitably end up with wind-chapped and sunburned lips. We all looked a bit worse for wear.
So the boys actually started using their eos® lip balm. They'd occasionally hand them over to me for a quick application, and before long, we were all hooked.
That lip-smoothing balm eventually became our home's number one must-have item. It's now toted around our farm and our travels like some sort of mystical medallion. We became a fraternity and these? Our Greek paddles.
Everyone has a favorite selection (or “flavor,” as the boys refer to it, which makes me even more happy about the non-toxic ingredients). Some Boy is all about Grapefruit Active Protection with SPF 30, Sidekick likes the Organic Strawberry Sorbet and Minion likes the Pearl Shimmer.
One of his favorite shows is Shimmer and Shine and I'm fairly certain he thinks this orb gives him the character's magical powers.
I'm a traditionalist, so I go with the stick version in Vanilla Bean.
I've actually started toting it around in my purse and using it for everything from moisturizing minor scrapes on my elbows and knees to softening cuticles. In a pinch, I've even heated up a bit in my fingers and swabbed it over my eyelids to get stubborn makeup off and nourish tired eyelids at the end of a long day. My mother-in-law's been touting the miraculous healing benefits of coconut oil for a few years, and I'm just now starting to realize its full potential. This little package offers convenient application and a multitude of uses that would have never occurred to me if it weren't so easy to grab-and-go.
Don't mind the paint remnants on my fingers. Such is life on a fixer-upper farm!
Then again, it's really not THAT unheard of for us to use stuff around the house in an unconventional manner. My oldest son frequently resorts to relying on his shirt as an egg-gatherer when he forgets to take the basket out with him. Come to think of it, we've used baby powder to get sand off, carabiners to remember stuff, toothpaste to remove water stains and toilet paper for fire starters, seed starters and everything else under the sun.
I guess I'll just add this to our list of cool little family hacks that help make life a little easier.
Have you ever found a surprising product that your family just can't live without?