Everyone should have a simple, go-to lip balm recipe like this Sweet Vanilla Butter Lip Balm in their DIY health & beauty care arsenal! Learning how to make your own chapstick is incredibly easy and much more healing and protective than the tubes you’ll find in the stores. Normally, I find them to be drying and I’ll have to continually reapply or my lips end up just as bad off as they were before.
Not so with this lip balm.
Our chilly, windy, early spring weather found my lips horribly chapped. Phoebe thought that would make a great time to head butt me not once, but twice while she was up overnight with a cold, busting my chapped lips and leaving me a bloody mess. I was a train wreck.
The next morning, I whipped up some of my Sweet Vanilla Butter Lip Balm, applied it a few times over the course of the day and by the next morning, my lips were completely healed!
Flavored with vanilla essential oil & sweetened with a touch of honey, the butters are wonderfully moisturizing and the beeswax protects your lips. I like to tint my chapstick. I consider that step insurance that at least a few tubes won’t get snatched up by my kids. You can use madder root , beet root, hibiscus powder, or alkanet root powder to your color preference or use about a ¼ teaspoon of your favorite lipstick.
{Lip Balm Supplies & Ingredients}
If you don’t have the supplies and ingredients on hand, the upfront costs of making your own chapstick might seem cost prohibitive, but really a whole batch makes 10 tubes which would cost at least $20 if you bought that many from the store. And if the store chapstick does to your lips what it does to mine, you’ll go through a stick of that a whole lot faster than a homemade one!
A little of the ingredients goes a real long way! Either they will last you forever or you will find yourself experimenting with other handmade beauty products.
Cocoa Butter
Shea Butter
Sweet Almond Oil
Honey
Beeswax
Vanilla (10 fold Oleoresin)
Lip Balm Tubes
Disposable Pipettes
Sweet Vanilla Butter Lip Balm
- 1 Tablespoon cocoa butter
- 1 Tablespoon shea butter
- ½ Tablespoon sweet almond oil
- ½ Tablespoon honey
- 5 teaspoons organic beeswax
- 8 drops of essential oil (Vanilla (10 fold Oleoresin)is my favorite)
- Set up a double boiler system on your stovetop.
- Measure out all of the ingredients except for the essential oils into the bowl.
- Bring the water to a boil until all of the ingredients are melted.
- Remove from the heat and add in your essential oils or colorings if you're using them.
- Quickly divide among your containers using a disposable dropper.
This sounds wonderful! Quick question, when do you add the essential oil? After everything is melted in the bowl?
Oops. Kind of important step I missed there, thanks for pointing it out Kathy! Yes, once everything is melted, add in the essential oils. 🙂
I tried adding honey to a similar recipe a while back & found it didn’t blend into the mix well. Is there a secret to this step? Thx.
You know what’s funny (not really )? My daughter brought me a tube about 4 hours before you commented and showed me that the honey had all settled in the bottom. I did not have this issue at all with the batches I made over the winter. Maybe keeping them cool will help. But that kinda stinks if you want to put it in your pocket. I’ll look into it and get back to you with a suggestion. Until then, you can always leave the honey out.
Hmmmm…I have tons of local honey & was hoping to use it for my balms. But my experience made it a useless effort if it doesn’t blend. I appreciate any help you can find about this! Thanks!
Ok, so some people say that if you allow the oils to start to cool and then mix in the honey it works, but it cools so quickly out of the bowl that it would harden inside the dropper I suggested. Another option would be to substitute some of the beeswax for an emulsifying wax since honey is water soluble (not oil). Mountain Rose Herbs also carries that product.
I will look into that product at MRH. I like them a lot so will probably get some of it. I also just poured my hot balms into the tubes. Maybe I could let it cool just a bit before adding the honey to see if that works. But if it doesn’t then I’ve made balm without the honey essentially. Maybe it would just be easiest to order the emulsifying wax. Thanks!
I made it. (without the honey, just to be safe) I LOVE IT! I use sweet orange oil because I don't have the vanilla…yet. 🙂 Thank you!
I really don’t want to purchase vanilla EO at this time. (I already have too many EO’s. lol) Can I substitute with Vanilla extract? I know they are not the same.
You could try it and not be out very much because of the small amount of supplies. I would definitely try using an emulsifying wax so the liquid doesn’t separate out from the oils. You can find it here: http://bit.ly/1Qt6q2m
I can never get the honey to fully incorporate 🙁 So I have been leaving the honey out. I am sure its something I am doing. Also, I made some vanilla infused almond oil. I am going to make lip balm using that and see how it does.
Sorry you're having troubles Charlotte. I did have a batch where the honey didn't mix in well. I'm not sure what I did differently with it to be of any help. Mountain Rose Herbs sells an organic Emulsifying Wax that you could use instead of beeswax and that should take care of the issue. I shortened the link to their site. Here it is: http://bit.ly/1Qt6q2m Your substitution sounds lovely!
I tried a different recipe I had but the ratios were about the same. and I used Vanilla Oleoresin from Plant Therapy. anyway after I let the mixture cool a little when I added the Vanilla EO it stayed seperated and then sunk to the bottom when I went to pour it into my lip balm tubes. do I need a different vanilla EO? or should i use some emulsifing wax?
I have that happen sometimes, but not always. I now use an emulsifying wax (Mountain Rose Herbs has an organic one) so it doesn’t happen.