We’re celebrating Spring Cleaning Week with our friends at Crafting a Green World, and I’d like to share one of my favorite recipes for a clean, healthy body care product: homemade lip balm.
Let’s be clear: most lip balm are made with icky stuff. Chapstick, Vaseline and others contain mineral oil (derived from fossil fuels, gross), or made with parabens, which are know endocrine disruptors. Even some of the natural brands may have unsavory ingredients inside: Burt’s Bees and Dr. Hauschka use carmine, a red coloring made from crushed beetles, which makes this vegetarian totally grossed out. So let’s ditch the gross stuff and choose lip balm ingredients that are moisturizing, healing and totally edible!
Homemade lip balm is much easier than you think, and it’s some of the best lip balm I’ve ever tried. It’s smooth and chocolate-scented, just a little glossy – perfect for guys and gals. This can also be used as a hand salve during the cold dry months of winter. Rub it onto your elbows, hands, or feet for instant relief.
Homemade Cocoa-Honey Lip Balm
3 Tablespoons chopped (edible) cacao butter
2 Tablespoons finely chopped or pelletized beeswax
1-2 teaspoons coconut oil
20+ drops vanilla essential oil
- Have empty lip balm containers, small glass jars or lip balm pots available and cleaned before starting. Add cacao butter and beeswax into a small glass bowl. Place over a pot of boiling water and melt until liquified.
- Add the coconut oil and the vanilla essential oil, stir to combine.
- Immediately pour the liquid into your pots, tubes, or jars. Set in the fridge for about 10 minutes to set, and then remove. Please note that it will remain stable at warm, but not very hot, temperatures. Makes about 2 ounces lip balm.
Some notes about ingredients:
- Cacao butter is the yummy fat that comes right from the cacao beans. Use pure, food-grade cacao butter (Navitas Naturals, Artisana, Terrasoul, and Pacari are all good choices); avoid the cacao butter mixtures, as it probably has other ingredients besides cacao butter and might not set properly. You can also use it to make homemade chocolate!
- Beeswax can be found at your local health food store, usually sold in small bricks or in pellets.
- Coconut oil is my favorite and works the best as it helps the lip balm set, but olive oil will probably also work.
- Play with the flavors of the essential oils: try peppermint, orange, lemon or other delicious flavors, but always use a very small amount of anything spicy (cinnamon, clove, mints); use only about 5-10 drops of these strong flavors!
This post contains affiliate links; if you purchase any of my recommendations, I make a small commission. Thanks for the support of VWJ!
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