Making natural lip balm is easy, economical, and fun! Here's a basic lip balm recipe (with a beeswax-free vegan adaptation) along with helpful tips for beginners and info on where to buy tubes and other supplies online.
Basic Lip Balm Recipe with Optional Vegan Adaptation
This recipe makes 9-10 tubes of lip balm. I've included info about how many parts of each ingredient to use so that you can easily halve or double the recipe.
You'll need:
Do this:
You'll need:
- 3 Tablespoons coconut, sunflower, olive, castor, almond &/or other carrier/liquid oil (3 parts)
- 1 Tablespoon shea, cocoa, &/or mango butter/ solid oils (1 part)
- 1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon grated beeswax (1 part beeswax)
- To veganize, substitute beeswax for half as much plant-based wax, so use 1 Tablespoon candelilla wax or carnauba wax (½ part vegan wax)
- 10 to 20 drops of any combo essential oils (about 3 to 5 drops of eo per tablespoon of ingredients)
- 3 or 4 drops of Vitamin E oil, works as a preservative (optional, but recommended)
- stovetop access, small pot, glass measuring cup, measuring spoons, mason jar lid or double boiler, silicone spoon or spatula, and pot holder
- empty lip balm tubes or small balm tins
- Grate wax and solid oils so that you can measure spoonfuls of it and so that it melts quicker. If you're using butter wafers or beeswax pastilles you can skip this step.
- Place wax, butters/solid oils, and liquid oils in a glass measuring cup. Place measuring cup on a mason jar lid in a small pot less than halfway filled with water. The lid is there to keep the cup from actually touching bottom of pot. You want there to be enough water to heat everything but not so much water that it's splashing up into the cup. (This is my bootleg double boiler. Absolutely use a double boiler if you have one though.)
- Gently heat until everything has melted together. Medium heat is good. I didn't notice that stirring speeds up the process. If you do stir, a silicone spoon or spatula is best.
- Once melted, remove glass cup from the stove top (using a pot holder- safety first!) and quickly stir in the essential oils and Vitamin E oil with your silicone spoon or spatula.
- Immediately pour the mixture into lip balm containers. If the balm starts to solidify before you get it into each tube, gently reheat it to return it to liquid.
- Allow your balm to cool completely before capping the containers.
Tips
- Use a glass measuring cup or a double boiler insert with a spout. The spout is going to make your life so much easier when you need to fill the tubes. I promise.
- Be sure to remove the tops from the lip balm tubes or tins while the wax is melting or before. This will save you time later when you're filling the tubes and need to work fast.
- Resist the urge to use more than 20 drops of essential oils per batch of 10 tubes. More isn't better when it comes to EOs, especially on your lips.
- To make tinted lip balm, add beet root powder, cinnamon, cocoa, or turmeric during step 4 (when you add Vitamin E and EOs). Tweak color in small increments, as a little goes a long way.
- If you wanna make different flavor or colored tubes, divide the melted wax/oil/butter blend between warmed cups with pouring spouts then add the custom eos and coloring blends. I emphasize warmed cups because you really want to do everything you can to make sure the mixture is liquid so it can be poured into the tubes. Get a friend to help you blend in the eos and pour into tubes so it goes faster.
- My favorite lip balm blend is peppermint essential oil with coconut oil, cocoa butter, and beeswax. It's super moisturizing and reminds me of a peppermint patty!
Recommended Reading & Viewing
How to Create Custom Lip Balms (blog post) by The Nerdy Farm Wife
How to Make Lip Balm (video) by Mountain Rose Herbs
Healing lip balm recipes on Mountain Rose Herbs blog here and here
Get Supplies
Support your local shops by buying as much as you can there. Of course, there are shopping options online too.
Get Supplies
Support your local shops by buying as much as you can there. Of course, there are shopping options online too.
Mountain Rose Herbs is a great source for high quality, fair trade, and organic supplies such as waxes, oils, therapeutic grade essential oils, as well as lip balm tubes at bulk prices.
Amazon also carries the ingredients you need to make these recipes. I’ve pulled them all together for your convenience here:
Amazon also carries the ingredients you need to make these recipes. I’ve pulled them all together for your convenience here:
Have you ever made your own lip balm? What's your favorite lip balm (whether homemade or store bought)?
Olivia Lane is a Blogger, Green Living Educator, and Health Coach trained at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition. She's also author of Baking Soda & Bliss: The Healthy & Happy Guide to Green Cleaning.
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