Lip Balm Experiments

I'm not a huge make-up fan, and pretty much just wear it for special occasions. (And when I do, it's concealer-blush-mascara-maybe some lip gloss.) I also can't stand most lipsticks, as they feel uncomfortably heavy on my lips, so I generally substitute with lip gloss. Or - my favorite - colored lip balm. Both takes care of chapped lips and adds color.

The one beauty-related item I always carry in my purse is lip balm. I've tried a handful of different brands, and stumbled across a tube that a restaurant was using as a promotional item. The idea of a restaurant using lip balm to promote themselves still seems a bit strange, but I absolutely loved that stick. It had a nice peppermint scent, went on smoothly, and hydrated my lips.

But I was running out of it, and with no way to get more of it, it occurred to me that I could try making my own. I looked around for recipes online to see how complicated it was, and while I found a lot of recipes that call for three different types of butters, four types of oils, and many, many arguments about whether vitamin E should be used or not (and that's not even getting into the pages and pages of people extolling the virtues of organic anything and the evils of chemicals anything), I did finally find basic recipes. Here are some examples.

Oil (liquid) - olive, sweet almond, sunflower, castor, etc.
Butter (solid) - shea, cocoa, mango, almond, etc.
Wax (generally solid) - beeswax, candelila, honey

1, 2, or 3 part oil, 1 part butter, 1 part wax
2 part oil, 2 part butter, 1 part wax
1 part oil, 2 part butter, 1 part wax
3 part oil, 1 part wax

Then there's optional ingredients like chocolate (solid or powder), essential oils or extracts, and a variety of ways to add color. I've also seen people put rose petals in, though I think that's just aesthetic. If you do add vitamin E and/or something for scent, you don't need much - just a few drops, at most, is enough.

You can use a double broiler to melt the main ingredients and any solid optional ones, though you can also just use a microwave in several small 9 second bursts or just stick a glass container in a pot of hot water (which is what I do). I add the vitamin E and scents immediately after taking it off the heat.

I got a bottle of vitamin E and little bag of white beeswax pellets (I didn't even know they came white! They're just refined a bit more) and gave it a try. I had some nice olive oil in my kitchen, so I gave it a try with just beeswax and olive oil.

I suspect that the ratio is off because it turned out extremely oily. On top of that, the olive oil had such a strong smell. I used some pomegranate essential oil, but it just couldn't counter the olive oil. I like olive oil in my cooking, but apparently not on my lips.

Next I tried coconut oil, but with one part oil to one part wax, with pomegranate essential oil and vitamin E. That turned out less greasy, but not enough. Plus the smell was still unpleasant.

I was given some sweet almond oil earlier, so I decided to try that in equal part to the beeswax, and that was much, much nicer! It's got a great smell. The consistency was still too oily, though.

I decided I needed another solid to counter the oil, so I bought some shea butter (also white. I want to play around with colors at some point). It has an unusual odor to it, but it's pleasant enough and the butter by itself felt nice on my lips. This time, I tried using equal parts for all three (sweet almond oil, beeswax, and shea butter). I also decided to try leaving out the vitamin E and didn't use any scents.

This one came out much better in consistency. For fun, I reheated the balm and added in a one-half part of unsweetened cocoa powder. It didn't change the consistency much, added a nice smell, darkened it to a nice brown, and wasn't gritty.

It's still not as solid as I would like, though, so I think next time I'll try 2 parts beeswax without changing the rest and see how that goes.