Storing raw stock

Most of the shelf life of a finished balm was spent before you opened the tin.

The clock is already running

An unsaturated oil began oxidizing when it was pressed. A butter began its slow separation the first time it was melted and cooled at the supplier.

So the useful question of a supplier is not the best-before date, which is a policy, but the pressing or production date, which is a fact. Some will tell you. Prefer the ones who do.

Where to keep it

Cool, dark, sealed, and off the floor. Heat and light are the two accelerants and both are free to remove.

Decant working quantities into smaller containers rather than opening a large one repeatedly. Every opening replaces the headspace with fresh air, and headspace is where the oxidation happens.

A refrigerator is right for the delicate oils and unnecessary for jojoba, fractionated coconut and wax. Waxes are effectively stable at room temperature for years.

Buying quantity

The price break on a larger drum is real and so is the risk. An oil bought at a good price and used over eighteen months delivers its last third rancid, and that third is more expensive than the saving.

Buy what you will use in a few months of the delicate things, and take the volume discount only on what is stable.

What to write on it

Supplier, lot, date received, and the production date if you have it, on the container itself rather than on a sheet somewhere.

This is the backwards half of traceability and the half nobody builds. Forwards you can find which customers got a batch; backwards you want to find which batches got a particular drum, and that only works if the drum was labeled the day it arrived.

References