Skin Care: Make Your Own Lip Balm

I’ve always had quite sensitive skin. Harsh chemicals and fragrances irritate, my skin can become very dry and I can get break outs of eczema on my hands. Because of this, I try to make sure the products I put on my body are natural, but I don’t always know what ingredients are going on in the things I buy. I still want to smell nice, I still want soft skin and I don’t really want to have to worry about some weird chemicals hanging out in the stuff I buy at the shops.

So I thought I’d have a go at making my own products at home using natural and organic ingredients and I couldn’t believe quite how simple it all was. You’re basically mixing up a few things, melting others in a bain marie, adding essential oils for fragrance and you’re good to go. If you can make a simple recipe, you can make your own beauty products, I promise.

I made three different products – a salt scrub, a body butter and a bunch of lip balms. It was all so surprisingly easy and I had such fun making them. Not only that, but my house smelled absolutely AMAZING! I couldn’t wait to use it, and smell that good myself.

Peppermint and Vanilla Lip Balm

Finally, I made my own lip balms. Using a combination of coconut oil, olive oil and almond oil along with beeswax, essential oils and a couple of items to tint them, I ended up creating 6 little pots of wonderful glossy lip balm that keep my lips nice and moisturised. I find during the day, I’m constantly reapplying my lippy because my lips dry out so quickly but since making these, I rarely have to reapply it. It keeps lips soft and moisturised with just a hint of glossy shine.

The beeswax is necessary to give the balm structure – without it, especially in the summer heat, you might find it becomes an oily mess on the bottom of your bag or pocket and we definitely don’t want that! If you are a vegan, you can substitute the beeswax for Carnauba wax, which works just as well to keep it all solidified.

The beeswax takes a little longer than the shea butter and coconut oil to melt down and it does leave a waxy residue on your bowls once it cools. I found returning my used bowl and spoons to the bain marie to melt any remaining residue and then wiping them with kitchen roll when everything was still melted prevented everything from becoming really difficult to clean afterwards. Just please remember to use oven gloves to handle everything – you don’t want to burn yourself, as everything will be very hot!

I used peppermint and vanilla essential oils for these. You don’t want to be tasting it on your lips all day but a few drops gives it a lovely scent and really, the sky’s the limit in terms of what you might choose to use yourself.

You can use a beetroot powder for your tint as well. I used what I had, a golden bronzing powder and a dark lipstick that I never really wore, to tint mine but there are other things you can use to tint it as well (powder blush works too!). I did find that it doesn’t add a lot of colour, just a bit of a sheen in comparison to the untinted version so if you want a stronger look, use more than is noted in the recipe below.

I purchased some small lipbalm tins which made them look quite professional, too! I’m already considering making more as gifts in the future.

Here’s how it’s done…

Melt the coconut oil, almond oil, olive oil and beeswax in a glass bowl over a pot of simmering water until fully liquidised. The pastilles will take a little longer to melt but be patient, they will liquidise eventually!

Turn off the burner but leaving your bowl in the hot water, add your essential oils and mix well.

If you are not going to tint your lip balm, carefully pour into your tins.

If you are going to tint them, you need to move quickly as it hardens very fast!

Divide up your mixture depending on how many different tints you’d like. Use bronzing powder, lipstick or beetroot powder and mix until fully dissolved, then pour into tins.

If it starts to solidify during the mixing process, scrape the mixture back into the bowl, and return to the bain marie until it liquefies again. Pour into tins.

Do not cover until liquid is completely cool, which will take around 1 hour.

Now because these contain some natural ingredients (especially due to the almond oil content), they are best stored in the fridge, although you’ll still get a couple of months use out of them before you would need to throw them away – and believe me, you’ll definitely use them up before you have to do that!

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