Natural Lip Balm Recipes: Different DIY Lip Balm Formulas for Different Consistencies

I’ve been making natural skincare for a while now (and still lots to learn!) and one of the things I took some time to get my hands dirty on was lip balms, believe it or not.

I was actually formulating complicated emulsions (using co-emulsifiers and making products like facial cleansers as well as other facial creams) and still hadn’t given lip balms a try, not sure why. Lack of time, most probably.

Also there was something else. The consistency. I knew it wasn’t just a matter of getting right on to making the natural lip balms. I needed to know PRIOR to getting started what the lip balm was going to feel like in terms of solidity.

This isolated factor delayed my project for around 3 to 5 months. That’s a long time! I was just too busy to look at experimenting with the different consistencies regarding amount of beeswax vs the other ingredients.

I also had to look at the butters I was going to add. Was cocoa butter better for the balm than shea butter? Should I add both for the right consistency/benefits? Which oils were best… was coconut oil the better option?

What about essential oils? Should I/shouldn’t I add them? (Formula Botanica insists we shouldn’t add essential oils to products that will be applied to delicate areas like lips or around the eyes, like eye contours) but then they have published lip balm recipes which do have essential oils as part of the formulas; check here (mandarin essential oil at 0.2%), and on a formulation given at their course they added grapefruit essential oil as the suggested aromaceutical, so there you go…

I’m not sure why they suggest citrus types of essential oils for lip balms, I personally would have thought vanilla or mint would be more appropriate but maybe I need to do some more research around this to be honest.

The best thing is to keep it safe in my opinion. Either add a tiny little amount of essential oil or none at all. More on that below, anyway.

Different Natural Lip Balm BASE Formulas

My natural lip balm formulas incorporate beeswax in them, so if you’re looking for a vegan recipe these won’t be any good for you. I’m assuming candelilla wax can replace beeswax for the recipes but I’m not sure about the percentages so please check elsewhere.

With that out of the way, let’s have a look at the ingredients you’ll need to make your homemade lip balm recipe.

I was given different formulas at my Naturally Thinking Cosmetics Course, but we only created one of the formulas which is the one I decided to make at home in the end.

Here are the different formulas:

1. An effective formula using stearic acid as the thickener

• 10% stearic acid
• 50% butters (cocoa, shea, mango, etc)
• 40% liquid oils

I admit I haven’t done the formula above but I’m very interested in making it at some point to see the difference between the results. I’ve seen some of the lip balm recipes by Marie Rayma from Humblebee & Me use stearic acid as the thickener.

2. Here’s a formula similar to the texture of vaseline (thin)

• 60% butters (cocoa, shea, mango, etc)
• 40% oils

This would be thinner than most lip balms but worth giving it a try to check out consistency.

3. Average Homemade Lip Balm Recipe with Beeswax

Here’s the percentages I was given regarding amount of beeswax vs the other ingredients (butters and oils):

• 30% beeswax
• 30% butters (cocoa, shea, etc)
• 40% oils

But I must admit I find that this is too hard as an end product. Especially if you’re using cocoa butter! Other beeswax lip balm recipes I’ve seen use around 20% beeswax (see more recipes below).

**That’s the reason I took so long to get going with finding the perfect lip balm recipe (at least for me). I knew the formula I had been given was too ‘solid’ and I didn’t fancy spending hours/days finding the perfect consistency. So I ended up spending months instead. Ouch.**

Formulas from Other Trusted Websites

Before venturing into finding out the perfect consistency for me I checked out other trusted websites (Formula Botanica, Humblebee & Me, Majestic Mountain Sage, etc).

Here’s the base for a lip balm recipe from Formula Botanica:

• 20% beeswax
• 39% shea butter
• 40.5% avocado oil
• 0.5% essential oil (no more!)

Link again here.

Homemade DIY Lip Balms Recipes from Humblebee & Me:

Here’s the page where you find all of Marie’s (very diverse!) recipes for lip balms (including vegan, colourful balms, lip balms with maple syrup and more): here.

DIY Lip Balm Recipe from Majestic Mountain Sage:

• 20% beeswax
• 25% soft butter (coconut oil, shea butter, etc)
• 15% solid butter (cocoa butter)
• 40% liquid oil (sweet almond, olive, avocado, etc)

Here’s the link.

(A vegan version of the above:)

• 10% candelilla wax
• 30% soft butter (coconut oil, shea butter, etc)
• 20% solid butter (cocoa butter)
• 40% liquid oil (sweet almond, olive, avocado, etc)

Lip Balm Recipe with Honey from Majestic Mountain Sage:

• 45% sweet almond oil
• 15% cocoa butter
• 10% coconut oil
• 10% lanolin
• 20% beeswax
• 1.5% honey, liquid

(I added the percentages which ends up being 101.5%, their recipe is given in grams but I prefer to have the percentages here.) Here’s the link to their recipe with instructions.

Lip Salve Recipe with Aloe Vera and Coconut Oil from Soul Salve:

This recipe is a little bit more complicated, but I love Blake Manion’s products and website. Blake lived in Spain where he learned about plants medicinal properties in an organic farm. He now makes beautiful salves, check out his products here.

Interesting what he says regarding the difference between salves and balms:

The difference between balm and salve is that balms are typically fragrant and hydrating, but are not made with the intention to “mend” a topical ailment. The beneficial properties of a salve will come from the herbs infused into the oil, the plant extractions added, and the essential oils used that otherwise may not be incorporated into a balm.

Check out his recipe here. Below, ingredients and amounts:

• .35 oz coconut oil
• .15 oz beeswax
• 2 drops vitamin e oil
• 3 drops aloe vera gel (fresh or processed) 
• 2 drops apple cider vinegar, unfiltered
• 3 drops lemon balm extract

I haven’t done the maths properly in terms of percentages for the above recipe but the amount of beeswax seems to be approx. 30% of the total amount. Note that he doesn’t use butters, only coconut oil, which does go solid at room temperature. Interesting to see how the salve ‘behaves’ within different temperatures (summer/winter/inside pocket/inside bag/left in car/etc).

I’ll give this recipe a go at some point in the near future. His mix is very interesting indeed, and I like the fact that he adds plant extractions. I find this VERY interesting indeed.

**I love the way he wants you to ‘kiss the salve’ as the perfect application method and also he thinks you should keep it in your pocket, which gives it your body temperature, making it the ‘perfect’ application. Sweet!

**A little treat from Blake: check out his coconut, clove and aloe vera salve here.

SwiftCraftMonkey:

SwiftCraftMonkey is now under membership so I can’t really say (you’ll have to pay to become a member) but Susan does have a lot of interesting posts on lip balms. That’s all I can say : ) Oh, and the link is here.

Other Resources:

Will add more as I find them, but so far I liked this one here.