The weather is changing to cooler temps so that means that our poor little lips are going to get a beating, especially on those windy days here in Minnesota.
To help protect those lips, I’ve made a lip balm that contains one of my favorite flavors – coconut!
Paired with a sweet orange essential oil, it is perfect for just about anybody. It has a nice uplifting sensation followed by a relaxing hint of coconut.
My finished product!
It was so easy to make and I can’t wait to try experimenting with other flavors. Never having worked with cocoa butter before, I was surprised at how it melts when it comes in contact with your skin. It sure made my fingers smell nice though!
Ingredients ready
In getting the beeswax ready, I used a knife and slowly scraped off shavings. This was very hard and time consuming. After this, I knew there had to be a better way. I did some googling today and found this wonderful blog from Natural Living Mamma about how to make working with blocks of beeswax easier. Just melt the large block down, pour small amounts on a sheet of wax paper and let harden. Then store the small pieces in a container, like a zip-lock bag, for future use. So, before my next project, I need to do this along with trying to see how much equals an ounce so it’ll make it easy for measuring.
Beeswax
Otherwise, the rest of the process went very smooth. All ingredients melted together very nicely. It does take a while to totally melt the beeswax, so don’t try to speed up the process by turning up the heat. Beeswax can burn and will lose its aroma. Just let them melt gently. The outcome will be much better.
Waiting for lip balm to be completely cooled before putting on caps.
Side note regarding the cost to make your own, starting out at first, it can be a little spendy. But once you start building your inventory of supplies, the cost should go down. Especially once you accumulate some of the oils needed or other bulk supplies. I also watch for sales to save money. Many of the suppliers will hold monthly sales, so watch out for those. I follow some of them on Facebook, so I’m able to see when sales are running.
Ingredients and why I used them:
Sunflower Oil
It’s main purpose is a carrier for the essential oil used. It is also a great skin moisture retainer and soother agent. Sunflower oil contains protein and folic acid, both which help build and repair body tissue. It’ll help repair those chapped lips in no time!
Coconut Oil
The health benefits of coconut oil are numerous because of its properties, such as being antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti-fungal, antibacterial and soothing. It’s good for your hair, skin, stress relief, cholesterol level maintenance, weight loss, helps boost your immune system, helps with proper digestion and regulates metabolism. It also provides relief from kidney problems, heart diseases, high blood pressure, diabetes, HIV, and cancer, while helping to improve dental quality and bone strength.
But in this instance, I’m using it for its soothing capabilities. It is an effective moisturizer and has no adverse side effects when applied to your skin. Another plus to using coconut oil is that it helps delay wrinkles and sagging skin!
Cocoa Butter
Here is another moisturizer. Because of its nutrients and fatty acid content, it is able to soak in further then just the top layer of skin. This really helps in moisturizing and nourishing the skin.
Cocoa Butter is also an antioxidant, which helps your skin fight off free-radicals and can maintain its youthfulness.
Beeswax
This is good for locking in moisture and protecting the skin from damaging environmental factors. It also aids in healing wounds, so for chapped lips, this is great!
I’ve used it in my lip balm for those benefits and also because beeswax is what maintains the consistency of it. It helps thicken all the products and hold them together.
Sweet Orange essential oil from Barefut
Vitamin E
Vitamin E is the soldier in all this by being the preservative and keeping the lip balm from going rancid.
Essential Oil – Sweet Orange (I used Barefut brand)
This essential oil is one of the most popular because of its uplifting aroma. That is why its used here, but it does have other benefits, like being high in antioxidants.
