Skip the trip to the drug store and make your own lip balm at home using just a few natural ingredients? These beeswax-and-honey-based lip balm recipes will keep lips moist and shiny. Plus, the little girls in your life will love creating their own beauty products.
Instructions:
Use a double boiler (a heat-proof glass bowl resting on the topof a saucepan filled 1/4 full with boiling water) to melt thebeeswax, Castor oil and honey together. Once the wax has melted,remove the bowl from the heat and stir in the peppermint extractand half a tube of a natural, pink-colored lipstick until wellmixed. Set the mixture into a shallow ice water bath and stirrapidly until all of the ingredients are incorporated and the balmhas a thick, frosting-like consistency. Spoon the lip balm into1-ounce tin containers and tightly replace the cap.
Allow the balm to set up in the tin containers for at least twohours before using. Both recipes can easily be doubled or tripledto make larger batches of lip balm to give as gifts (be sure tomake labels so the recipients know what they are getting). Homemadelip balms should be used within one year.
TIP: If you want a firmer lip balm, use less base oil in yourrecipe.
Materials:
Pink Peppermint balm
- 3 or 4 one-ounce tin containers
- 8-9 Tbsp. of Castor oil (can substitute jojoba, almond orsoybean oil)
- 2 tsp. of beeswax pastilles (small beads of beeswax that melteasily)
- 1½ Tbsp. of honey
- 30-40 drops of peppermint essential oil
- ½ tube of a natural, pink-colored lipstick to add color(optional)
- Saucepan, heat-proof bowls, whisk, ice, cold water, stickersfor labeling
Honey Tangerine balm
- 3 or 4 one-ounce tin containers
- 7-8 Tbsp. of Castor oil base (can substitute almond, jojoba orsoybean oil)
- 2 Tbsp. of beeswax pastilles (small beads of beeswax that melteasily)
- 1 Tbsp. of honey
- 15-20 drops of tangerine essential oil (can substitute othercitrus oils such as grapefruit or orange)
- Saucepan, heat-proof bowls, whisk, ice, cold water, stickersfor labeling
All of the supplies for this project are available onlineatMountain Rose Herbs. For more information on
homemade beauty and personal care products, see “Organic Body Care
Recipes” by Stephanie Tourles or “Earthly Bodies Heavenly
Hair: Natural and Healthy Personal Care for Every Body” by Dina
Falconi.