This simple homemade lip balm recipe is doable for everyone – and super cost effective. You can make it for less than $0.60 per tube, even with organic ingredients!
When I first learned how to make lip balm, I was immediately surprised at how easy it actually was. I pictured someone in a lab coat concocting a magic potion of sorts for chapped lips.
Why DIY Lip Balm is Awesome
First of all, I’m one of those people who carries a tube of lip balm on me everywhere I go. It’s a habit I picked up in the third grade and just never let it go.
So I couldn’t imagine that something so constant and necessary in my life could be so… simple.
In fact, I could make DIY lip balm with as few as two ingredients!
So when I realize how simple it is, what do I do? I make a whole year’s worth of homemade lip balm at once, of course!
I gave up conventional lip balm years ago when I started switching over to more natural products.
I’ve been opting for the chic organic stuff with pretty pictures and feel-good promises on the label.
But who am I kidding? That stuff is not cheap!
And considering how much lip balm I go through (did I mention my daughter loves it too? I’m telling myself the habit is genetic), price is a factor.
The good news is homemade lip balm is quite wallet-friendly.
When I added up the amount of each ingredient I used to make this lip balm recipe, it worked out to as little as 60 cents a tube (depending on whether you use essential oils or powder for tinting).
If you buy your ingredients in bulk, it can be even less!
My Tips for How to Make Lip Balm
Maybe it’s just me – but I don’t like to apply homemade lip balm with my fingers. They invented those handy little tubes for a reason!
So if you’re like me, grab yourself a handful of empty lip balm tubes before you get started.
I ordered a pack of 25 (which was just about right for this recipe). The more you order, the cheaper they get.
The next handy gadget I highly recommend for this lip balm recipe project is a little stainless steel funnel – this little baby will make the whole job much easier.
I tried a dropper and boy did that thing clog up fast! I will go with the funnel from now on.
If any of the liquid hardens and starts to clog up the funnel, you can easily use a toothpick to fix that (trust me, that doesn’t work with a dropper!).
If you want to have some fun, add a little natural color to your DIY lip balm!
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I used beet root powder and hibiscus powder to color my homemade lip balm. Use about 1 1/2 teaspoons of powder if you want to color this whole recipe.
Of course I had fun and added some of my favorite essential oils for scent and therapeutic benefits!
My favorite was lavender, which supports healthy skin and is great if your lips tend to get cracked or dry.
(Careful wearing citrus lip balms in the sun – citrus oils can cause photosensitivity.)
NOTE: Some essential oils (such as cinnamon and clove) need to be diluted more or they can irritate the skin. I advise avoiding stronger essential oils in this recipe just to be safe.
NOTE #2: I ONLY recommend high-quality essential oils to add a nice scent (and therapeutic benefits) to your DIY lip balm.
Remember, some of what goes on your lips ends up in your mouth! That is NOT the place for artificial fragrances and flavors.
Here’s where I get my essential oils.
Lip Balm Recipe: How to Make it at Home for $0.60 Per Tube!
Ingredients
- 6 tablespoons organic coconut oil olive oil or shea butter are also good choices
- 2 tablespoons beeswax granules
- 1 1/2 teaspoons organic beet root powder or hibiscus powder** for tint optional
- 30 drops of your favorite essential oils optional – here’s where I order my essential oils
Instructions
- Put the coconut oil (Cocos Nucifera Oil) and beeswax (Cera Alba) in a double boiler over medium heat
- Stir until emollient has melted together
- Add essentials oils (my favorite is Lavandula Angustifolia!) and tint powder (Beta vulgaris)
- Fully mix in until the salve is consistent.
- Turn off the stove and carefully pour the liquid into each lip balm tube. The mixture can harden quickly, so don’t be too slow about it.
- Let the mixture cool for about an hour, before using as a regular lip balm.
Notes
More of our favorite all-natural DIY recipes:
- The Best Essential Oils for Your Skin Type
- 20+ Gorgeous Sugar Scrub Recipes
- DIY Whipped Coconut Oil Body Butter
- How to Use Coconut Oil for Acne
- Homemade Mouthwash for Remineralizing/Whitening Teeth
- DIY Hand Scrub Recipe
- DIY Coffee Body Scrub for Luscious Legs
Ready to learn more about essential oils? Start my FREE SUPER SIMPLE 9-STEP EMAIL COURSE to start learning – without all the stress! I focus on the absolute essentials (pun totally intended, haha) and keep everything simple.
That way you can learn what you need without information overload! Start my free course now!
Elizabeth is the founder of The Nourished Life and has been writing about natural living for 12 years. Her work has been featured at Shape, Bustle, and Mother Earth Living. Her mission is to help you lower your stress levels and find fun ways to become happier and healthier. Read more about Elizabeth here.
I have made lip balm but not sure about one thing.
I used watermelon flavoring and also tried essential oil.
Someone said not to use essential oils. Is it ok to use flavoring, I bought it where I get essential oils, they aid its for lip balm. Could you use flavors you use for cakes or in baking?
Thanks.
I’m sure you can, but I don’t personally recommend it because flavorings are usually full of artificial ingredients. I use high quality essential oils that are safe for using in a recipe like this.
What types of fragrance oils can you use in lip balms? I also make soy candles so can I use those fragrance oils in the balms?
I would definitely avoid fragrance oils in lip balms – simply because of the chance of eating artificial fragrances. I prefer to use small amounts of high quality essential oils.
I love these! I tried to make lip balm years ago and it ended up all chunky. I wonder what I was doing wrong. 🤷♀️I thinj it’s great your going the natural route and I can’t believe how inexpensive they are. I’ll have to make a batch and give them out for Christmas gifts this year!
I cannot wait to try these ratios also! I love a silky lip chap and have always used a 2-1 ratio of a mixture of organic ingredients to organic beeswax. So glad you loved this and I hope I do too😊
If you used a butter (such as shea butter or mango butter, for example), they can turn grainy easily. You may not have done anything wrong. Butters such as these melt and feel wonderful on the lips, but they need to cool quickly once melted to avoid turning grainy. When you first make the recipe, put them in the fridge to cool quickly and they are much less likely to get grainy. The difficult part is when you keep them in the car or other places where they may heat up and then cool much more slowly…they will often still get grainy when this happens. I haven’t found a great solution for this except trying different recipes and allowing them to cool slowly to see which recipe is the best for not turning grainy. I hope this helps.
I like to use a small amount of vanilla extract in my lip balm concoctions. It smells divine and tastes pretty good, too! Also for badly cracked lips which I am prone to I add a small amount of calendula infused oil to the mix, very healing for sore skin.
Love those ideas!
I love the smell of Almond… can Almond Extract be used? Can’t wait to try this recipe and give these out to family/friends as gifts!! This is only fueling my arts & crafts passion and chap stick addiction (seems like the perfect storm) :o) thank you!!
I’d be concerned the liquid almond extract won’t blend and emulsify with the oils.
Wouldn’t almond extract work the same as the vanilla extract someone mentioned above?
It might with a very small amount. I haven’t tried it, so I can’t guarantee it.
I live on lip balm also, lol. I’m wondering about the melting point, as coconut oil gets soft at room temp. If I carry this in my pocket will it melt all over my jeans?
The beeswax will prevent it from melting – even if you make it with olive oil, it won’t melt in your pocket. 🙂
This is a great tutorial, and has really spurred me to decide to make lip balm. I checked out the amazon link you provided for the lip balm containers, and I think this is a project I must do soon!
Awesome! Let me know how it goes. 🙂
I love making chapsticks & used hibiscus powder recently, but it turned out more grainy and the tint didn’t seem to transfer to the skin well. Is there something I could be doing wrong maybe during the process or is there a brand that you recommend for best results?
I didn’t use much powder, and the one I used was very fine, so I didn’t have any trouble with a grainy texture fortunately.
I purchased the hibiscus powder you recommended and it was too grainy to incorporate into the lip balm. 🙁
So sorry about that! I’m not sure what went wrong.
I infuse my colorants in the oils I’m going to use so i don’t in the risk of grainy lip balm ?
That’s a good alternative!
Put the powder into a food processor or a coffee grinder and grind into a finer powder. This is what I do and it works great.
THANK YOU!
My friends and I found a way around the hibiscus powder not dissolving and thoroughly mixing. We put the tint powder in a disposable tea filter. Once the oils were melted, we let the tea filter sit in the pot for a few minutes while continuously stirring over the double boiler. We left the filter in until we got the color we were looking for. Loved the final product! Will definitely make it again.
Could I use flower essence flavoring? I believe it is a special processing in which they are able to capture the flavor without any additives.
That might work – depends on whether they’re oil soluble.
Love ur page
Excited about my chapstick I made tonight with wintergreen and lavender! Smells so great!
So glad you like the recipe, Heather! 😀
Be very careful with wintergreen. It’s primarily methyl salicylate and can be poisonous in relatively small quantities in smaller children. Robert Tisserand recommends no more than 1% maximum solution for this oil as a topical product like lip balm. This recipe is about 8 tbsp, should be 120 ml or so. I prefer recipes that use weight as they’re more consistent but at 120 ml, that would be no more than 24 drops of wintergreen. At the recommended 30 drops total in this recipe you should be ok since some will be lavender, but anyone who should be avoiding aspirin for any reason should not use this particular lip balm. (Essential Oil Safety, Tisserand and Young, pp 469-470).
Are there any substitutions I could use for beeswax? My husband is allergic to almost anything related to bees!
I would google “beeswax alternative” – I haven’t done a lot of research in this area, but I think there are some other options.
I use candelilla wax. It’s vegan.
I would think you should be able to use cocoa butter as it has an even higher melting point than beeswax. Plus – it smells divine 🙂
I’d also love to know about a beeswax alternative for a vegan option. Thank you!
A beeswax alternative would be carnauba wax, which is from a palm tree.
Soy wax works in place of beewax
You can use candililla wax at 80% by weight in place of beeswax in any lip balm recipe. Seems to be a tad shinier, not a bad thing unless you’re making it for a guy; most of my guy friends prefer a more matte formula.
I’ve made a similar recipe before, and I added a little honey (good for skin overall) and a little Vit. E oil. I love how easy it is to make lip balm! Never tried the color tint though. Will next time!
Hi I am looking to get a wonderful brownish tint like Burts Bee’s Cocao which they have discontinued. what would you suggest kind regards jennifer Really looking forward to doing this.
I’ve read of using cocoa powder for these types of recipes, so a combination of that and maybe a little beet root right do the trick.
I am not sure how old this posting is but with lip balms I put a few chips of semi sweet chocolate chips in mine and it was nice and turned the balm a beautiful rich chocolate color and smelled amazing. not sure if it transfers to your lips as brown except when my grandson got carried away with it but it does work well. the 70% chocolate bars work too if you crack a few pieces off 🙂
Great tips, thank Elizabeth Walling!
ho! I’m so excited for my ingredients to come and get to making these! I’m just wondering though if adding 1 or 2 drops of oil to each tube prior to adding the mixture would have the same outcome? I’d like to get multiple flavors out of one batch. Thank you!
Candace, that’s a good idea! It might work – I’m note sure the EOs will mix completely, but they might.
Well, I have an update 🙂 I made 5 different flavors from one batch! The oils blended wonderfully, I’m so happy! I did come up 9 tubes short though. Would you happen to know how many grams of co and wax it is? I buy my wax in bricks, so it’s hard to get an exact meurement. Thank you!
Awesome, so glad it worked well! Sorry, I don’t know the grams off the top of my head. I actually ended up with a wee bit too much and ended up with a little jar of “balm” that I use to soften my feet and elbows! 😉
Hey, just wondering, did you add the oils to the tubes before or after you had dumped the wax in them? I am wanting make multiple flavors and am not sure how to do it! Thank you!
Question, I just did this cause I was REALLY bored*, but can you just use straight up coconut oil?
*And lazy…
No, the coconut oil will melt very fast, especially if it’s hot where you live. Also, when you touch it to your lips it will just melt all over you. Hope this is helpful! ?
Could I use tins instead of tubes for the lip balm?
Yes, that would definitely work!
I use about a quarter of a crayon to add color to my lip sticks and lip balm. I have been using them since the last 6 months or so and haven’t faced any issues till date. Earlier I would suffer from dryness and peeling lips when I would switch to a certain brand of lip balm.
By using crayons you can have so many different shades of lipsticks/lip balms. 🙂
Hi
I would like to buy labels for the lip balm tubes. Once thast will print and stick well. Do you know which brand and where I can buy them?
Thank you.
Avery has a great assortment of labels that work great. I use round for my 2oz tins. They also have a free website for designing your labels. The website is listed on the label package. You can buy them almost anywhere. I get mine a Walmart or amazon
Vistaprint is where I buy mine
When I make mine I pack it full of vitamins. Vitamin E oil and Shea Butter along with some cocoa butter. All of which are also organic. Once I started making my own I can no longer stand store bought!