The Manic Herbalist: My Homemade Natural Lip Balm

I love lip balm like some women love shoes. Minty, luscious lip balm. Lemony lip balm. I love it all. You could say that I'm a bit of a lip balm connoisseur. I'm finicky about my lip balm and I want luxurious, ultra moisturizing and tingly, good smelling coverage. When I go out on a run, taking lip balm is a necessity. All that inhaling, exhaling, breathing and panting and my lips get pretty dry. So dry that my lips feel like they're going to fall off about a mile or two in.

When I found out I could make my own lip balm with doTERRA oils, my love for doTERRA was forever sealed.

The combinations are endless and there's nothing weird or hard to pronounce that goes in it. You're going to love the rich, smooth, deliciousness of this recipe. Making lip balm is easy and once you have your ingredients handy, it only takes about 15-20 minutes.

To make 20 standard size tubes of lip balm,
here are the ingredients you'll need:
1.5 oz of beeswax (4.5 tablespoons). (The pellet kinds melts quicker. I get mine here.)
1 oz coconut oil (2 tablespoons)
1/2 ounce shea butter (1 tablespoon) (I like this one.)
1/2 oz cocoa butter (1 tablespoon) (I used this one.)

20 drops of doTERRA essential oil (Order from yours truly.)

(Tip: When I include doTERRA peppermint essential oil in my lip balm, I use about 15 drops extra of peppermint because I like the extra freshness and tingle.)

At least 20 standard size lip balm tubes (I find mine on Amazon here.)

Equipment:

Large skillet/saucepan with water
A 1-2 cup sized glass dish or bowl (for melting the wax mixture in the pan)

Disposable plastic pipettes or a medicine dropper (You can find them here.)
Measuring spoons

Label maker and labels (optional)

Hint: If you'd like a tint to your lip balm, add a pinch of tinted mineral blush powder.

Hint hint: You can also add 1 tablespoon of zinc oxide for every 1/2 cup of balm liquid for a 20 spf sunscreen benefit, but you'll want to use non citrus oils like doTERRA lavender, cinnamon or peppermint. Here's a reputable brand of quality zinc oxide powder.

Start by heating water in your pan. You'll want the water about 1 to 1 1/2 inches deep.

Next, measure (or weigh) the wax, oil and shea and cocoa butters and place them in your glass dish or bowl.

Here are my friends Edee (and Carol) doing the measuring and giggling.

Note: You can use a Pyrex glass measuring cup like this one, if you like. Since I made lip balm with a couple of different doTERRA essential oil combinations, so I divided the melted product up into smaller bowls. (See below.)

Next, using a popsicle stick or metal spoon, heat the wax/butter mixture until it melts and looks like this. (While your mixture is melting, now is a good time to check your lip balm tubes to make sure that the twist stick is all the way down in the tube.) Now remove the mixture from the hot stove and after a minute or two (not too much longer but just to cool slightly), and add tinted mineral powder for a hint of color (or leave it out for that manly man who will be slathering on your lip balm). Now add doTERRA oils you prefer. (Lots of possibilities here!)

Now you'll use your pipette or medicine dropper to extract the heavenly melted lip balm mixture into your lip balm containers.

Tip: working over newspaper or wax paper is helpful to catch any drips while filling your lip balm tubes. If the balm mixture starts to harden in your pipette, just squeeze your pipette so the balm mixture drops back into your bowl to remelt.

[Another] Tip (I'm full of 'em today): When filling your lip balm tubes, try to fill the tubes all the way up to the complete top to make prettier lip balm and get more use from your tubes. As the balm hardens, a little dip may form at the top. Come back around a time or two and add a few more drops to the top of each tube.

Here's my lemon peppermint. (I use a label maker to label my lip balm tubes. It's pretty smudge proof and waterproof.)

And then I made a few more after that..... This batch included some with rose colored mineral powder stirred into the melted mix ahead of time for a bit of tint. Pretty, aren't they? It helps to let them cool at least 15 minutes before you put the caps on.