Cats On The Homestead: lip balm

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Homemade Lip Balm

This is a project I have always wanted to try. From everything I have read it is pretty easy. And the best part is, I get to control what goes into the lip balm. Say goodbye to petroleum based ingredients. Goodbye to synthetic dyes. Goodbye to parabens and other preservatives.

Say hello to all kinds of goodness: beeswax, coconut oil, almond oil, essential oils and maybe even honey.

Lip balm ingredients

There are so many recipes available that before I chose one I decided to do a little investigating into the basic structure or chemical make up of lip balm to find out the propose of each ingredient.

The basic structure of lip balm comes from a waxy solid. In commercial products this may come from petroleum, various types of wax, or polyethylene. In my home made recipe I will use beeswax in combination with coconut oil which is solid at room temperature.

Commercial products also contain a combination of conditioners, humectants, and emollients which are basically things to soften and moisten your lips. These ingredients also soften the product since the waxy bases tend to be very hard at room temperature. Pretty much all of the commercial ingredients are things I cannot spell so I won't try to write them out here. For my homemade recipe I will use almond oil and the coconut oil for this purpose. You could use Shea butter and or cacao butter as well. If you were adventurous you could try palm oil too.

Finally commercial lip balms contain flavorings, fragrance and preservatives. My homemade recipe will use essential oils for for the fragrance. The ingredients themselves provide the flavoring although honey can be added for sweetness. Both coconut oil and honey will provide some preservative function to lip balm.

The recipe I chose to try is:

4 tsp coconut oil
3 tsp almond oil
3 tsp beeswax
6 - 10 drops essential oil

This recipe made about 2 oz. of lip balm. The beeswax and two oils were put into a double boiler to melt.

Beeswax, Coconut Oil, and Almond Oil

Stir a bit as the ingredients melt together.

Yes my double boiler is wayyyyy bigger than needed for this project

Once soft, mix together well then add the essential oil. I chose to try grapefruit oil.

Pour the melted mixture into your container of choice. I used half-ounce metal tins. But there are lots of other options.