Making your own lip balm is not only fun but it's extremely easy to do. Our grapefruit essential oil lip balm tutorial below will help you make your very own lip balms in a matter of minutes with no specialist equipment needed.

Lip balms are a great way to keep your lips supple and hydrated. There is nothing worse than dry cracked lips and the best thing about making your own natural lip balms is that you can customise the recipe to suit your own lip care needs.

If you'd prefer following written instructions, keep scrolling for our step-by-step written tutorial below and read on to find out more about making your own natural lip balms in the comfort of your own home.

Please note: Our tutorial is designed for personal use only. You will need to follow all legal responsibilities before selling any products that come into contact with skin.

If you'd like to try creating your own lip balms, our tutorial will guide you through the steps to make a nourishing lip balm scented with Grapefruit Essential Oil.

Difficulty Level: Beginner

Makes: 6 x 15ml pots

Ingredients

• 17g Beeswax Yellow
• 28g Sheanut Refined Butter
• 10g Cocoa Deodorised Butter
• 25g Almond Sweet Refined Oil
• 10g Castor BP Cold Pressed Oil
• 10g Hemp Seed Cold Pressed Oil
• 1g Grapefruit Essential Oil

Equipment Needed

• Weighing scales
• Double boiler or microwave
• Heat proof jug/bowl
• Stirring implement
• Lip balm containers
• Disposable gloves

Step 1 Prepare Your Ingredients

Weigh out each of your ingredients.

Keeping your essential oil to one side for later use, add your oils, butter and wax into a heatproof bowl.

Step 2 Melt Your Solid Oils

Gently heat your mixture in either your microwave or double boiler until everything has melted. Now stir for 30-60 seconds to make sure the mixture is fully incorporated. Be careful not to overheat your mixture.

You may notice that a few pieces of solid beeswax are left floating on top of the heated mixture but these will melt during the stir.

Step 3 Add Your Essential Oil

Next add your essential oil to the melted mixture. Again, stir for 30-60 second to make sure its fully incorporated.

Step 4 Pour Into Your Containers

Slowly and carefully pour your lip balm mixture into your containers.

Step 5 Leave to Set

Leave your lip balms to set for a couple of hours. Once they are fully set, your lip balms will be ready to use!

What kinds of ingredients should I use in lip balms?

Oils

For lip balms, oils are key. They will help nourish your skin and the hydrating properties will help your lips feel smooth and plump. There is no doubt that there are many oils to choose from, each having their own benefits. For our tutorial below, we have chosen sweet almond oil, hemp seed oil and castor oil.

Sweet almond oil is a light oil which is packed with antioxidants, fatty acids and is easily absorbed. We’ve also used hemp seed oil which is full of essential fatty acids that provide both anti-aging benefits as well as having antibacterial properties. Our third oil - castor oil - is rich in monounsaturated fatty acids which are well-known humectants.

Butters

Butters are what gives the balm structure. They all have highly moisturising properties, and they will create a barrier on the lips to lock in the moisture. For our tutorial, we’ve used shea butter and cocoa butter.

Shea butter is a highly nourishing emollient, widely known for its ability to deeply hydrate even the driest of skins. Cocoa butter also provides deep hydrating properties; it is also full of antioxidants and vitamin E which is known for its restorative and healing abilities. Both butters help to create a protective barrier.

Wax

You'll need wax in your lip balm. For our tutorial, we have used beeswax. The wax helps the balm stay solid in warmer temperatures and has lubricating properties which contributes to the glide of the product on your lips.

Beeswax is also an occlusive, meaning it forms a moisturising, protective layer on the surface of the lips.

If you would like a vegan alternative, you can try using Candelilla wax. However, just bear in mind that Candelilla Wax will produce a softer balm so it wouldn’t be suitable to decant into screw up lip balm tubes. Tins or jars would be absolutely fine for this kind of wax.

Flavouring

Fancy a flavoured lip balm? You can do so with many lip-safe essential oils and flavour oils. The maximum allowance for essential oils is 1% and the maximum for flavour oils is generally 2% (but can be up to 5% on certain flavours). For our tutorial, we’ll be using Grapefruit essential oil.

To figure out the maximum safe allowance, you’ll want to look at the total weight of your finished product.

For instance, if the total weight of the lip balm recipe is 100g, 1% of the total weight would be 1g of fragrance oil (100 x 0.01 = 1g). You always want to measure all of your ingredients in weight (grams) rather than in volume (millilitres). This is because oils will often vary in their viscosity (meaning some will be lighter and some heavier) so even at the same volume, you will find they will be different weights. To account for this and to make it easier, every ingredient in your lip balm recipe should use the same unit of measure - in this case, grams.

The most important thing is to check whether the oil you would like to use is lip safe. Whilst we don’t currently carry flavour oils, you can check this information on the essential oil product pages. Simply download the IFRA 49 ^th Amendment document shown in the description.

Lip balms come under category 1 so if the IFRA documents for category 1 states the safe usage as being 1% or higher, then you can use up to the full 1%. However, even if the IFRA documentation shows a percentage of more than 1%, it is still advised to use no more than 1% in your lip balms.

What kind of container should I use for my lip balms?

There are many options you can choose to store your lip balms, from lip balm tubes and small squat jars to small cosmetic jars and tins. For our Grapefruit Essential Oil Lip Balm, we have used 15ml capacity cosmetic jars. This recipe will fill 6-7 15ml cosmetic jars depending on if you are filling to the brim.

We hope you've enjoyed this tutorial on making your own lip balms at home! Why not check out our full range of oils and butters to use for your next project?

You can also find our our recommendations for the best oils and butters to use in our post here.