How to make your own lip balm (and where to source the ingredients from)

I’ve been on a quest to de-toxify our home and find natural, eco-friendly alternatives for some of our lifestyle choices. But let me be honest - I’m not a thorough eco-warrior who has banned plastic totally from her life, cloth diapers her child all the time, grows all her food or eats only organic food, has given up make-up or become totally minimalistic.

I’ve chosen the middle path, which marries some of the conveniences of urban, modern life with some of the wisdom of old-fashioned, DIY, natural living. For now, this works for us.

And this is what the middle path looks like on most days: we cloth diaper our son a few times a day but use disposables too; we grow a small portion of what we eat and source a large portion from the local market; we’re slowly exchanging the toxin-laden home cleaning products for homemade cleaners that are just as effective (a post with recipes on that soon). We compost our kitchen waste and make our own wrapping paper instead of buying the shimmery plastic ones.

We’ve still not given up on our plastic utensils, but are also using more of steel and glass in the kitchen. We try to recycle old plastic bags and carry cloth bags while shopping. And, I’m trying to make some of our body care products – body butters, ‘talcum’ powder, lip balms, mosquito repellents, hand sanitizers and toothpaste. (In case you're wondering why I'm doing this of all things - here's what's in our commercial cosmetics.)

If you’ve been trying to add a dash of green into your life and some of these things have piqued your interest, then you might like to give this recipe a whirl. How ‘bout making your own lip balm and ditching those jars of petroleum jelly or tiny pots of store-bought lip balm?

Our homemade, non-toxic, essential oil-infused lip balm

I do love my Lavender Lip Balm (I’ve adapted the recipe from 'My Buttered Life’). It’s nourishing, soothing and natural. It’s easy to make and takes a small sliver of your Sunday to whip some up.

What you need:

30 gm of Beeswax

30 gm of Shea Butter

30 gm of Coconut Oil

10 drops of Lavender Essential Oil (or an essential oil of your choice)

You’ll also need some small containers to store the lip balm in – I recycle old lip balm containers

A saucepan and a pot

Method:

Before you start, set up all the ingredients on your kitchen counter. Make sure you have everything at hand.

Grate the Shea butter and the Beeswax with a cheese grater, and keep aside.

Now fill up the pot with water and bring it to a boil. Then, reduce the heat to low.

Drop all the ingredients except the essential oil into the saucepan and place it over the hot water. Stir with a wooden ladle when the ingredients begin to melt and meld together. (Don’t let the mixture bubble and boil).

When the Shea butter, Beeswax and coconut oil have turned into a pool of golden liquid, add the essential oil, give it a quick stir and take it off the heat.

Pour into the containers and let it cool.

Label the containers and use J.

P.S. When I wrote about making your own body butter, a lot of you asked me where I source the raw materials from (in India). I buy the shea butter, beeswax and cocoa butter from Ekta Singh of Green Junction. And I highly recommend her products; do check her Facebook page out.

P.P.S. I found the Story of Cosmetics very interesting. It gives you something to think about, right?

Do join the conversation at my Facebook page!

#naturalliving #diycosmetics #safecosmetics