How to make Herbal Lip Balm

Make your own lip balm with skin-beneficial herbs

Learn how to make herbal lip balm using a flexible recipe of oils and herbs

Winter takes a real toll on your skin but especially your lips. Keeping them protected and moisturized is key to making sure they don’t crack. If you suffer from cold sores, winter stress can cause also cause a break-out. Instead of buying your next lip balm, make your own! It’s easy to do, requires very little in the way of ingredients, and is a fun and natural project.

One of the best things about making your own lip balm is that you get control over the ingredients. Depending on your own philosophies or health needs you might want to avoid using things like petroleum jelly, nut oils, and animal products. The recipe below is flexible, meaning you can use whatever you’d like or have on hand.

Herbal Lip Balm Recipe

Makes approx. three 10ml containers. Feel free to double or triple the amounts.

• 1 tsp solid oil, wax, or butter* – Such as Beeswax, Soy Wax, or Cocoa Butter. Use just one or a mix.
• 4 tsp infused liquid oil* – choose one with conditioning properties and a mild flavour such as Grapeseed oil, Rice Bran oil, or Sweet Almond oil.
• Herbs. Your choice of dried peppermint, chamomile, calendula, plantain, or other skin-loving herbs
• Optional – three drops of an appropriate and skin-safe essential or natural flavour oil. Peppermint and Chamomile are excellent choices.

* If you’d like your lip balm to be harder then use less liquid oil and more hard oils. And vice-versa if you’d prefer a softer balm.

Containers

Use any small tubes, pots or jars you have on hand. If you reuse containers just make sure to clean them let them dry completely. You could reuse lip stick tubes, lip balm pots, Altoids tins, or any other food-safe tin, glass, or plastic container.

To clean containers for use in beauty products, wipe all the oily residue out first. Then run them through the dishwasher and they’ll be ready to go. If you don’t have a dishwasher, wash them in hot soapy water, rinse them in scalding water and then dry with a clean cloth. Only use containers that are fully dried since moisture can cause oils to go rancid.

Infusing the herbs into oil

There are two ways to infuse dried herbs into oil. The cold infusion method or the hot. In the cold infusion method, mix 8 tsp liquid oil with 3 tsp dried herbs in a glass jar. Seal and place in a warm place, like a window sill or in the kitchen and leave to infuse for 2-4 weeks. Give it a shake every day or so and then strain the infused oil off to use in this recipe.

There’s also the hot infusion method. Place the same amount of liquid oils and herbs into a small double boiler. A double boiler is essentially a pan floating in another pan of boiling water. Simmer the water in the outer pan let the oil infuse with herbs for 30 minutes. Strain the oil out at the end and use immediately.

Your infused oil may have herbal residue in it — this is perfectly fine.

Make the Herbal Lip Balm

Use the same double boiler method to melt the solid oils/butters. Once melted, pour in your infused oil and then keep stirring until all the oils are completely melted — when you add the liquid oils it’s likely that you’ll see some solidification. When fully melted, add your optional essential and stir.

Pour the hot melted oils into clean lip balm containers and allow to cool. Cool until they’re room temperature which could take an hour or more. Afterwards, you can put the tops on the containers and your lip balm is ready to be used.

Shelf life of homemade lip balm

Once poured and cooled, lip balm is good for up to two years. The longevity is based purely on the nearest expiration date of the ingredients you’ve used. Look on the backs of the bottles and tea boxes and find the closest date. Use that date as your best-by date.

Herbal lip balm is a fun and easy project to make on your own or with friends. Make them during the colder months to use on your own lips or as handmade gifts. The sky’s the limit for how you customise yours! For more ideas on making beauty recipes browse Lovely Greens’ soap & beauty recipes.