How to make lip balm

Lip balm is an essential part of anyone’s skincare regime in all seasons: it can help protect and nourish sun-damaged lips in the hot summer months with the benefit of UV protection, and is equally effective at moisturising dry, chapped lips in the cold winter season. At Tegoder Cosmetics we have a range of lip balms that are vitamin-enriched or contain UV filters to keep your lips in perfect condition, whatever the season.

If you like to take a home-made approach and have some time to spare, it’s also possible to make your own lip balm at home. There are lots of ways to do this, so we’re going to run through some of our favourite methods for how to make your own lip balm.

How to make beeswax lip balm

Beeswax is a superb ingredient to use in lip balm - it’s natural, readily available, has a wonderful natural scent, and helps keep skin moisturised. Other benefits of beeswax include its hydration and conditioning properties which mean it softens the skin. It’s a natural emulsifier so it helps bind the components of the lip balm together. Not only this, but it also increases the thickness of your lip balm, helping to give it structure to allow for better application.

What will you need for beeswax lip balm?

• Coconut oil
• Shea butter
• Beeswax
• Tins or tubes to store your end product (empty containers are available to buy on Amazon)

Method

• Use an equal mix of coconut oil, shea butter and beeswax (25g of each makes approximately 10 batches of lip balm).
• Mix the ingredients together in a microwave-safe bowl.
• Microwave the mixture for 10 seconds at a time, stirring after each time.
• Continue until the mixture is melted. It will take between a minute and 90 seconds.
• Pour the mixture into your containers and allow it to cool and set.

It is possible to make coloured lip balm with beeswax as well - simply add some food colouring of your choice to the melted mixture to tint the lip balm to your preferred shade.

How to flavour your homemade lip balm

As well as adding different colours to your balm, you can also add your favourite flavour. There are lots of interesting ideas for adding flavour.

Rose petals add a beautifully subtle scent to lip balm. To make natural lip balm with rose petals, you’ll need some roses and some rose flavour oil.

Use the smaller inner petals from the rose and place them in the container you'll be using (this only works if you’re using round tins for your lip balm, not tubes). This will add a beautiful floral look to your balm.

To get the full scent, add a few drops of rose flavour oil into the warm mixture before it sets (add more or less rose oil depending on how subtle or strong you’d like the scent). Finally, pour the warm lip balm mixture into your container, over the rose petals.

If you’re after a citrus-scent, it’s easy to make lemon lip balm, or orange lip balm. Take the same approach as with the rose petals (instead of rose petals, add orange or lemon peel to the container, and incorporate a few drops of lemon or orange oil to the warm mix before pouring it over the peel and allowing it to set).

Other great ideas include adding ground-up coffee beans to your base lip balm mix, with some coffee flavour oil. Lavender oil and mint are also excellent alternatives.

While beeswax has lots of great properties to make lip balm, you don’t have to include it. You can make your own lip balm without beeswax - read on for some other ideas about alternative ingredients you can use.

How to make lip balm with Vaseline

Vaseline is a really good ingredient to use in your lip balm, as it has lots of helpful properties to help look after your lips - it helps seal in moisture and repair chapped lips.

• To make a lip balm using Vaseline (petroleum jelly), simply spoon 2 tablespoons into a bowl, and add your own choice of scent - any of the oils already mentioned will work well, and even something like cocoa powder will work, to give it a chocolatey hint.
• Stir the flavouring and Vaseline together until it is well mixed.
• Add the mixture to your container for a beautifully scented, moisturising lip balm.

How to make lip balm with wax chips

We’ve looked at how to make lip balm with beeswax, but it’s possible to use other types of wax as well. A great option for vegans is carnuba wax which helps thicken the mixture and adds a lovely shine to the finished balm. Paraffin and lanolin are also popular alternative choices.

Using wax chips is useful as they melt quickly when warmed. Follow the same procedure as the beeswax method above, substituting the beeswax for alternative wax chips of your choice.

How to make homemade lip balm for kids

All of the methods in this article are perfectly suitable for children, with the caveat that the mixture is hot when it’s been melted in the microwave, so additional care should be taken if children are helping to create the lip balm.

That aside, kids love to get involved with the creative process, and to make it more appealing, different flavours and scents can be used. Let them go crazy with whatever food colouring they like, and more kid-friendly flavours tend to be things like chocolate (add cocoa powder to the mix), honey, watermelon, banana, pineapple and cherry, all of which are available in flavoured oil selection packs.

If, after all, you decide that you’d like to get your hands on some ready-made lip balm, you’re in the right place. Our collection of lip balms are developed to moisturise, nourish and protect, and to provide the lips with all they need in order to look and feel gorgeous.