Wax and Bubbles

Fresh mint is a great addition to any food. Add some mint leaves to a fruit salad just before serving, or finely mince about 1/2 cup of fresh mint leaves and add to your next batch of brownies or sugar cookies. Mint even gives breads some extra zing. And of course, mint sauce is a great accompaniment to meats, such as lamb. You can make hot beverages from the fresh or dried leaves. Add about 1 tbs. of fresh leaves or 1 tsp. dried leaves for every cup of liquid. Place the mint in a metal mesh ball or even a tea spoon. Using mint in the kitchen for various dishes is a no chef-thinking thought to many and using it in teas and beverages to give your drink that added perk is a great way to incorporate mint in your daily routine of meal fixing, but not many know to use them with your personal care products.

Adding it to your personal care products gives it that much more boost of healthy benefits. You can use mint in soaps, shampoos, and even some lotions and lip balm. Wax and Bubbles has given many recipes to make for yourself in ways to add mint to any personal car product.

One thing you need to know before adding mint, is the different kinds of mint there are. Especially if you plan on growing your mint yourself, here is a simple list of the mints that are hardy enough to be grown and used for meals and personal care products.

• Apple Mint (Mentha suaveolens): This apple scented mint has a light green appearance, fuzzy leaves on the stems of 18 to 24 inches tall. Its subtle flavor is a good addition to fruit punch or even some smoothies and can be added to glycerin soap recipes as well.

• Pineapple Mint (M. suaveolens ‘Variegata’): This mint has lovely, dark green, fuzzy leaves edged with white. Allow it to cascade over the edge of pots for an attractive patio display and can be added to many lotions to give that added scent that is needed.

• Orange Mint (M. x piperita ‘Citrata’): This citrus scented mint has smooth egg-shaped leaves with reddish undersides. It may die out during the freezing winters, so be sure and plant some in a pot to bring indoors in the late fall. Add this wonderful mint to body scrubs or salves.

• Peppermint (Mentha x Piperita): Anyone can recognize the scent and flavor of peppermint. This sterile hybrid with it’s dark green, smooth leaves and small lavender flowers in the late summer is a great mint to grow in any garden or herb box. It grows 24 inches tall in good conditions. It can be added mostly to lip balm and lip salves to give your lips that extra tingle that mint is known for.

• Chocolate Mint (Mentha x piperita ‘Chocolate’): Think peppermint patty and you will have the flavor of this lovely mint. Low-growing with dark glossy leaves. It looks best neat your patio for a planting display. One a great summer afternoon add this to a cool glass of iced tea. As for health products add this to a body scrub to give it that extra burst of scent in the shower.

• Spearmint (Mentha spicata): Spearmint is a hardy ground cover with hair, medium green leaves. In favorable conditions it produces 2-inch spires of tiny white flowers. Make a facial sprits and add this mint to give your face a tingle feeling with every squirt.

• Curly Mint (Mentah spicata ‘Crispa’): Curly mint taste like spearmint with an added boost. It’s a vigorous spreader with dark green, ruffled leaves. Its assertive flavor makes it great for mint sauces or even jellies. Add it to your shampoo or conditioner and give your hair the added scent. Smells great on the head.