How-To Make Lip Balm
Lip balms are a quick and easy-to-make beauty product that can be the perfect stocking stuffer or addition to your product line. Besides knowing you made this simple yet silky masterpiece, the best part is how completely inexpensive it actually is to make lip balm.
The first two things you will need to do are:
Choose your container
Depending on what you plan to do with the finished product, you can really use almost anything to hold your lip balm. If you plan to add lip balm to your product line or give as a gift to friends, family, or potential customers, you will want to purchase tubes (they come in white, clear or a variety of colors) or tins or glass/plastic jars. Most of these containers can be found at your favorite handcrafted supplier or by doing a simple Internet search. If you are a self-proclaimed lip balm addict (like myself) and you will be keeping your goods, you can easily use small containers purchased at local craft stores, kitchen goods stores or even the nearest dollar store. Whatever container you decide on, you’ll want to be sure it securely seals closed and is not too big to grab on the go and stash in your pocket.
Choose your ingredients
Like any handcrafted beauty/body product, making lip balm is a creative work of art that you can make with as few as two or three ingredients, or you can get very creative and add several ingredients to increase conditioning or to add flavor or color to your masterpiece. Let’s take a look at some of the potential ingredients you could choose from and what they would add to the perfect lip balm.
Tried and true, coconut oil is a perfect base oil to use for your lip balm. Coconut oil has many great qualities, first being its firmness. In addition, coconut oil naturally contains Vitamin E, and has a superior moisture-retaining capacity, which adds to coconut oil’s ability to prevent cracking of the skin.
Next, let’s try some beeswax. Much like coconut oil, beeswax is naturally a protectant. Bees produce wax naturally to line their honeycombs to protect where baby bees grow and honey is stored. When used in lip balm, beeswax protects the lips from environmental damage (such as drying and cracking) and helps hold in moisture; all while not clogging pores. Beeswax also contains Vitamin A and is a humectant – a water attractor -- aiding with keeping your lips hydrated. Most importantly, you will want to use beeswax for its hardening quality to pull it all together.
You will definitely want to use at least one of the above ingredients to help your lip balm solidify. In addition, the following ingredients are also popular choices:
Body Butter: Not a necessity, but if you have some on hand, you can’t go wrong adding a dash of cocoa butter, mango butter or shea butter. Any of the three will provide ultra moisture to your lip balm.
Various oils: Using Jojoba oil or Sweet Almond oil; these are are two very popular oils to use in lip balm because they are super nourishing!
Vitamin E: A couple drops of Vitamin E added to your lip balm can go a long way. Vitamin E is an antioxidant and also a nutrient for your skin that can potentially limit the environmental damage to your skin. You can purchase Vitamin E in capsule form at the pharmacy and simply puncture a couple of capsules to use in your recipe.
Essential oils: These are completely optional, but adding essential oils in your lip balm will add a pleasant smell and give you the opportunity to personalize your product.
Now that we have hit upon some of the more crowd-pleasing ingredients, let’s get on to the mixing!
For this simple homemade lip balm you will need the following…
- 2 TBSP Beeswax
- 2 TBSP Coconut oil
- 3 capsules of Vitamin E
- Essential oil(s)
- A double boiler OR
- Glass measuring cup and microwave
Because of its hardness, you will want to start by melting the beeswax on its own. You can do this using the double boiler on your stove, which will provide an even, consistent heat, or by using the microwave in small timed intervals, checking and mixing frequently.
Once the beeswax is mostly melted, add the coconut oil to melt and blend with the beeswax.
If you are using butters or additional nourishing oils, you can now add them, including adding the contents of three Vitamin E capsules (discard the empty casing), and finally add your essential oil (optional).
After all the oils are melted and mixed together, you will need to work quickly to pour the mixture into your prepared tubes or jars. The lip balm will set up relatively quickly and be ready for use in a few hours.
See – wasn’t that easy? Once you have the process down and are comfortable with it, you can experiment with different oils and completely customize a recipe of your own. Be creative; be inspired!
