Homemade Tinted Lemon Lip Balm

I am obsessed with lip balm. When I was in high school, I wore holes through my back pockets, because I always had a stick with me. I just can't handle dry lips, apparently. So, it's surprising that it took me so long to try and make my own. There are countless recipes online for lip balm. It's kind of crazy. Why would I want to add another recipe to the mix? I highly doubt there is anything original about my lip balm, but I suppose originality isn't really my concern. I just need an excuse to use my new DSLR camera and be on my laptop for hours at a time. The life of an introvert. 

To the balm! I used to formulate my recipes with exact measurements, but now I approach it with the same technique I use for cooking; eyeball it and hope for the best. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. My homemade products deal mostly in ratios. Lip balm has a very simple composition. One part wax, one part butter, one part oil. Here's what I needed to make my tinted lemon lip balm:

Ingredients:

• One part beeswax. I got my hands on some wax from a local beekeeper. It's much better than the cosmetic grade beeswax, because it smells like honey. But, if you want a cleaner, less fragrant wax, go for the processed stuff. Both work. 
• One part shea butter. I used the refined version. 
• One part oil. Or actually 1/2 part coconut oil, and 1/2 part jojoba oil. Coconut oil is everywhere now, but jojoba oil is a bit more expensive and can be substituted for any other liquid oil. Sunflower oil is a great one for lip balm. 
• Essential oils of your choosing. I used lemon. Ten drops did the trick for this small batch. 
• Mica powder to tint. I used to use Coastal Scents to buy samples of mica powder, like the cellini red I used for this lip balm, but it seems they stopped selling the powders. So, what the crap?! I just ordered from them not that long ago! But I found this site, with similar products. I think it will work. When buying mica pigments and powders, just make sure it says it is safe to apply onto your lips. You don't need much. A lot of references recommend that you use only 5 to 10% powder in your recipes for lips. 

Tools: 

• I use a makeshift double boiler. Fill a pan with a little water and set a metal or glass bowl over the top. I use medium heat. 
• A spoon! And possibly a straw! Or, a Popsicle stick if you have one handy. 
• Measuring cups if you like (for example, my recipe was a smidgen less that 1/4c for each part)
• A stove or a hot plate. 
• Wax paper to keep your work surface clean (Optional, of course. Depends on how messy you are feeling.) 
• Lip balm tubes. 

I tossed all of my ingredients (except the essential oil and mica powder) into my metal bowl. I had to cut up my wax chunk so that it melted faster, just fyi.

And we're melting. And we're stirring. And we're melted!

I always remove my mixture from heat to add my last two ingredients. Using a straw with a section cut out (it looks like a little pointy scooper), I dug around in my mica powder pouch until a had a little mound on the tip. You could use the Popsicle stick here if you had one. I should buy a pack. I've been meaning to do that. But I digress. It's maybe an eighth of a teaspoon total...or a sixth. It's a small amount, anyway.

I try to work quickly so that my mixture doesn't start to solidify. I stirred in the mica powder, and then added 10 drops of lemon essential oil. I stirred some more and was ready to pour. Ha! Rhyming.

I had this brilliant idea to pour my mixture into a cup with a pour spout so that I could have an easier time filling the lip balm tubes, but it failed.

Look at those splatters and drips. Towards the end, I just dumped the mixture back into the metal bowl and used that to pour. Weird that it worked better. If your mixture starts to set in the bowl, just pop it back into your pan of hot water. It will usually melt quickly.

There are little tools to help with the messes made from filling lip balm tubes. Like this nifty thing. If I start making a lot of lip balm at once, I may invest in this. If you are really picky, you can take a flat scraper thing and smooth out the tops of your balm, but it doesn't bother me to have the dimples.

And there you have it. Recipe number 1,452,901 on the internet for making lip balm. How exciting!? Well, it's a project that pays for itself rather quickly, so it actually is pretty cool. It took me 15 minutes to make 11 tubes of lip balm, that could be sold for $3 a pop and labeled 'artisanal'. Or, find some friends that want to experiment with homemade beauty products. Spend $40 on supplies, and make a girls (or guys) night of it. Everyone walks away with some useful products. I'm just throwing some ideas out there...

Anywho, if you liked this project, check out these other homemade beauty product recipes:

Natural Face Cream
Shimmer Body Butter
Styling Hair Paste

If you have any questions, please comment below. Also, I would love to hear about your experiences with making lip balm, if you have any. Oh, and I will be posting a quick tutorial about making lip balm labels shortly.

As always, thanks for checking out my post!