Soft Lips for Less

In last Friday’s post (which you can read by clicking here), I mentioned that there was a new lip balm coming out soon from a very famous brand and that lip balm will cost $50! That really tweaked me because I had gotten hold of a lip balm that it was being compared to (also $50) and the ingredients list for that product was basically Vaseline, wax and some essential oils. Now, that may not sound like a big deal to you but coincidentally, two days earlier I made my OWN lip balm that costs significantly less than $50 to make (less than $7.00 for the ALL of the lip balm you see above plus some left over for another project) AND it had far superior ingredients than Vaseline! So, it just reminded me of yet another way that some in the beauty industry really take advantage of women’s fears by having us think that one has to pay a lot in order to get a good product. Not true! In fact, my lip balm is a perfect example of something that you can make yourself that is a thousand times better than much of what you can purchase in a store.

Now, I know what you’re thinking…”But Denise!!! There’s no way I could make that! It’s too difficult and I could never find the right ingredients!” Sorry…if you can get on the internet to read this blog post, you can make lip balm. There are definitely no special skills required.

All of the ingredients I used can be purchased from your local drugstore, Whole Foods, health food store or about a million places on the internet. I will tell you where I purchased my ingredients plus provide links. You will kick yourself when you find out how easy this is and if you actually do decide to make your own lip balm, you lips will thank you (you can also use this stuff as a cuticle cream as well!)!

OK. Here’s the basic recipe, which is from one of my favorite cosmetic formulation blogs, Point of Interest. I weighed mine out in grams but I’m going to simplify it for you.

20% beeswax
25% soft butter (I used shea butter)
15% cocoa butter
40% liquid oil

Let’s talk about the “liquid oil” ingredient for a second. Basically, what you want to do is pick some oils that you like and that you get easily. Some good choices are sweet almond oil, castor oil, jojoba oil and coconut oil. All of those are easily available at Whole Foods, many drugstores and health food stores and at many grocery stores. There are soooo many oils you can potentially use (heck, you can use olive oil if you want)! You’ll see a list of oils from the Point of Interest blog by clicking here, here, and here. Susan’s blog is awesome so check it out!

Besides your main moisturizing oils, you’ll want to include some Vitamin E (which comes in oil form) because that acts as an antioxidant and helps keep the other oils from going rancid (always include this). I also used a small amount of peppermint essential oil to give the lip balm a slight “chocolate mint” flavor (the cocoa butter makes it smell slightly chocolaty). Literally, you take all of your ingredients, put them in a Pyrex measuring cup (you don’t need a big one) and either microwave it in 20 second spurts until melted or place the Pyrex measuring cup in a frying pan with a little water surrounding it (I did it this way), and then heat it slowly until everything melts. It’s that easy! Now, if you’re not familiar how the percentages work, I’ll spell out the recipe in measurements that we all know.

Total: 20 Teaspoons

4 teaspoons beeswax
5 Teaspoons shea butter
3 teaspoons cocoa butter
8 teaspoons liquid oil ( try 1 teaspoon castor oil, 1/4 teaspoon vitamin E, 1/8 teaspoon peppermint essential oil, 3 1/8 teaspoons sweet almond oil, 3 1/2 teaspoons coconut oil)

Once you get everything melted (the beeswax will be the last thing to melt), pour the lip balm into either small pots or tubes, like I did above. You can use any small, clean container that you already have (wash in soap and water and then air dry) for your own use or purchase small containers and tubes at one of the suppliers I’ve listed below. Filling the tubes is super simple===just screw the insert down, fill the tube by pouring the balm in slowly (it may get a little messy) and then top off the “dimple” that forms as it dries (or not). If it cools too fast as you’re pouring, just re-melt. Let the balm cool without the lids on and within about an hour you’re ready to use your lip balm. So simple!!!

A couple of notes about making the balm. Mine looks yellow because I used natural beeswax, which is yellow. The yellow does not show up as a color on your lips but if you don’t like the color, just use refined beeswax which is a cream color. One of the oils I used when I made mine also added to the yellow color (rosehip seed oil) but, again, it doesn’t show up on the lips.

In the “modified for teaspoons” recipe I showed above, literally every ingredient can be purchased at Whole Foods for not a lot of money. You just need a small amount and any of the oils you purchase that come in larger quantities can be used to moisturize, take off makeup, moisturize your cuticles, etc. Here are a couple of other suppliers if you’d rather order online (my preference):

LotionCrafter (Great company and so knowledgeable!)