Natural Tinted (or un-tinted) Lip Balm is a great alternative for those (like me) who don’t regularly wear lipstick. If you are a lipstick girl, check out this recipe for homemade lipstick.
Tinted Lip Balm is a smoother and and glossier recipe that lipstick, and more like a traditional lip gloss. It is made with completely natural ingredients and a little goes a really long way. I colored the one above with a tiny drop of natural red food coloring and added lemon and vanilla for scent, though you could leave it unscented or add an essential oil you like.
I re-used an old tin for this recipe, but you can also find cute 1/2 ounce and 1 ounce tins online that I use when I make these for gifts. By adding slightly more beeswax, this also makes a great lip balm in a chap stick container as well. My daughter also loves this lip balm because it is a natural recipe so I’ll let her use a tiny amount and she feels special because she is wearing “make-up.”
Tinted Lip Balm Recipe
This recipe also has many of the same ingredients as Homemade Lotion Bars, Homemade Lotion, DIY Deodorant and more, so if you keep these ingredients on hand, you can make endless variations of natural beauty products.
Lip Balm Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil
- 1 tablespoon beeswax
- 1 tablespoon shea butter
- 1/2 teaspoon red or rose mica powder
- optional: 2-4 drops of peppermint essential oil
Lip Balm Instructions
- Melt the coconut oil, beeswax and shea/cocoa butter in a glass jar sitting in a small pot of simmering water (not boiling) and stir gently until melted (be careful not to get any water into the mixture).
- When melted, carefully stir in any colors or essential oils, if using. My favorite is lemon and vanilla for scent and a little red coloring or cocoa powder for color. A couple drops of peppermint will make it similar to Burt’s Bees Lip Chap.
- Once colors/scents are mixed in, use a dropper to transfer to tins or lip chap containers. Let cool.
- Apply the versions in the tins with your finger or use the version in plastic container as you would regular lip chap.
Ever made your own lip balm or chap stick? Ready to try this one? Share below!
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How much will this make? I am trying to figure out how much to make if i want to have 30 of them …xmas presents
Does it matter if the Cocoa powder has been “processed with Alkali”? I recently bought some organic baking cocoa, and was thinking about using it for this recipe, but don’t know if I should…
What is the brand?
Equal Exchange baking cocoa
From what I can tell, it should be fine
thank you!
What if I tinted the balm with steeped tea? ie: hibiscus tea
Please disregard my question. Clearly I wasn’t thinking this through. I’m going to get the natural food coloring:)
I used beet root powder in mine and it just floated in the mixture, it didn’t really tint it. Maybe I should put it in in the beginning next time so it has time to infuse?
That is strange… putting it in at the beginning probably would help though.
Any idea where you can get a glass container with a stainless steel rollerball applicator? I have been using coconut oil on my lips and was thinking about tinting it, so this recipe is awesome-thx for sharing!
Have you tried Amazon? I haven’t seen those, but if you’re able to find them, please share the link! 🙂
where would you get the containers
There is a rollerball applicator in mountain rose herbs (containers, bottles) but the rollerball is made of plastic.
I believe perfumeoils.com has glass roller bottles with stainless steel balls
I found roller ball containers on Amazon. Sold as a pack of 6 for around $10.
I ordered a 6 pack of glass tubes with stainless rollerballs from Amazon for 6 bucks. The are perfect for essential oil scents or lip balm/gloss
Where do you get natural food coloring?
Didn’t you have the recipe before as 1 parts each ingredient? Why did you change the shea butter/cocoa butter quantity?
I made the previous recipe and it was perfect consistency for a lip balm container. 1 part coconut oil, beeswax, shea butter.
Thanks for the blog, one of my favorite sites!
I just recently published this, so I don’t think it has changed, but there are a lot of recipes online… so perhaps it was a similar one? The equal parts recipe of coconut oil, beeswax and shea butter is great too! There should be a link to the natural food coloring above, but I got mine on Amazon… Thanks for reading! 🙂
I made some, but used a little ice cube like piece of bee’s wax, and it was about twice as much, so I got chap stick instead. The beet root powder that I got didn’t break down into color, just floated to the bottom. It was cheap by the ounce at the local store, but I’m going to order some of the natural color drops for next time. This was my first time making anything like this, there’s definitely a learning curve 🙂 I love lip gloss and use it constantly, I’m probably addicted, so thanks for this recipe.
I have the same problem, hmmm…Did you ever figure out why the beetroot powder was sinking?
I have the same problem with beetroot powder too. I gave up on it, and will look for the natural food coloring. I have never seen hibiscus powder before, and was wondering if that was more fine. In a pinch I will use my mineral red pigment. All minerals, and also natural. Frustrating. Just keep trying different things.
Did you find a tried and true method of tinting your balm?
If you want to make a tinted balm/gloss with beetroot, you’ll have to infuse the pigment into some water or glycerin, strain out the powder, and use an emulsifying wax instead of beeswax. You could also use alkanet root powder, which is soluble in oil. Infuse the alkanet into your oil of choice, strain out the powder, and use beeswax or any other wax. You can get what you need at Mountain Rose Herbs. Cinnamon essential oil is a great lip plumper too!
You are amazing. Several friends and I have been wondering how to tint w beet root powder. We knew it had something to do with oil vs water. I can’t wait to share. Thanks again!!
I wish I saw this an hour ago haha!! My beetroot also just floated to the bottom. I made lip balms and use eyeshadow cups to hold them. But the beetroot powder would not mix no matter what I did. Thanks for tip!!
I use a natural mica powder and get a nice color with it that provides a great shimmer and color.
I wonder which Mica did you use? Mine just makes a tiny shimmer effect but certinaly no color. I ended up buying color pigments from a friend and that worked nicely.
I just made this today with a couple tweaks:
– used sunflower oil instead of coconut (since I had that on hand)
– used Cocoa butter instead of Shea butter (I am making this as a gift for my sister, and her son is allergic to tree nuts – shea butter comes from the shea nut, so as a precaution I decided not to use it!)
– used beet root powder
As others mentioned, the beet root powder sunk to the bottom and did not mix in. The most likely reason being that it is probably polar (like water) and the rest of the stuff is nonpolar (like oil). So I added some honey to it (which is polar), and the dye mixed right into the honey. There were still two layers, though (one yellowish and one red/pink). As it cooled, I stirred it a lot, and was able to get it to mix that way! As long as it doesn’t warm up too much, it will stay mixed together. If you want to use beet root powder, I’d definitely recommend adding something polar to dissolve it in so that it mixes better as you cool and stir it!
The hibiscus powder isn’t fine enough. It floats to the bottom, too. It gives the balm a tiny bit of color, but it doesn’t really translate to the lips. I think mica or some mineral coloring is most reliable, but all of those products seem to come out of China. So, no. Not for me. There is another root powder that I’ve read about, alkanet root, I think it’s a blue-red. Never tried it, though.
Mix your powders and or even your coloring to the coconut oil. Mix thoroughly THEN melt and you will have very little to no sediment! 🙂
Just checking…..you still put the shea butter or cocoa butter in the lip balm, you are just crossing out the link……………not the ingredient, correct?
Yes, still use the shea butter 🙂
can I buy some from you or how does it work
I love making lip balm. My daughters and I made a bunch last year. They gave them to their friends as gifts. I’ve never tried adding color. Have to give that a go this year!
I’ve been using your face powder recipe for a few months now and I love it. My daughter is still very little, but when she starts wanting to put on makeup like mommy, I won’t worry one bit about brushing a tiny poof of powder on her face, just for fun. I have a feeling this lip balm is going to fall under the same category!
I actually have had a really hard time finding a lip balm I love, all because of the color. I’m really excited to try this and make it work perfectly for my complexion. Thanks for sharing!