This balm was inspired by a recipe request from Phoebe, who loves Badger Sleep Balm. I liked the idea, but decided to head off in the “calming” direction instead of the “sleepy” direction. The resulting calm balm is addictively fragrant, with a complex, can’t-quite-pin-it-down scent blend. It’s smooth, but not too soft, and is downright lovely.
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The base of the calm balm is a simple blend of safflower oil, unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada), and beeswax. If you don’t have safflower oil on hand you can feel free to use any other relatively light, low-scent carrier oil like olive oil (pomace) (USA / Canada), grapeseed oil, sunflower seed oil (USA / Canada / UK / NZ), or almond oil.
To this base I’ve added a flurry of calming, soothing essential oils. Herbaceous rosemary, warm ginger, camphoraceous fir balsam, and spicy frankincense start the balm off with a warm, spicy base.
On top if that I’ve added sunny red mandarin, calming lavender, soothing chamomile, and sweet rose geranium to brighten up the blend.
In the end, no one essential oil is distinguishable, but the blend is fantastic (and at least a little addictive). It’s a little bit of wearable aromatherapy, perfect for keeping in your desk drawer at the office for stressful days. I love it.
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Calm Balm
16g | 0.56oz safflower oil
16g | 0.56oz unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada) (I used refined to let the essential oils shine)
7g | 0.25oz beeswax (USA / Canada)5 drops rosemary essential oil
7 drops ginger essential oil
11 drops fir essential oil
5 drops frankincense essential oil
10 drops red mandarin essential oil
20 drops lavender essential oil
3 drops chamomile essential oil
6 drops rose geranium essential oilWeigh out the safflower oil, unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada), and beeswax into a small glass measuring cup and melt over a double boiler.
Once everything has melted, remove the measuring cup from the heat and stir in the essential oils. Pour into a tin and let it set up before using.
This recipe perfectly fills a 30mL/2oz tin.
Because of the red mandarin essential oil I do not recommend applying this before going out into the sun. If you’d like to, swap the mandarin EO for litsea cubeba.
This sounds amazing! I love every single thing you do! Every last thing.
Thanks so much, Kathie 😀
Another great ‘recipe’! I love all of the oils here except rose geranium which I thinks takes over everything and is not my favourite. Could I replace it with jasmine or do you have any recommendations as a replacement?
Hi Clare! You really can’t smell the rose geranium or distinguish it at all here—I’d recommend trying the blend as is. You could try jasmine, but I can’t really speak to how that’ll work as I am not a fan 😛
Hi what amounts would you need to make a jar 8oz jar? Thank you
If you have never made this recipe before, please don’t scale it up to make 8oz! That is SO MUCH! As noted in the recipe, this makes 2oz, so simple math should bridge the gap to 8oz for you 🙂
Sounds very nice! I also enjoy the badger balm,but would love to try your recipe out. I do not have red Mandarin, chamomile or fir EOs.. Would bergamot be a good replacement for the Mandarin you think? Any other replacement suggestions for the other EOs I don’t have?
Check out this article 🙂
Hi! If I do not have “balsam fir”, what else can replace for it.
Hi Agnes! Cedarwood would be a good alternative 🙂
I tried (but I don’t think I succeeded) submitting a request for you to make a version of Kevin Murphy SHIMMER SHINE. It’s a dry oil shine enhancer for the hair with very fine gold shimmer (prob gold or bronze mica) added. I understand it has a very musky earthy fragrance which I probably wouldn’t like, but with a very light floral scent with a soft musk would be perfect (for my taste anyway). It would be great for summer, or special occasions, and I believe that it costs an arm and a leg, so a homemade version would be wonderful!
I got it 🙂
Thanks! Sorry I put my request in the wrong place! Marie, I love your blog. You have inspired me to make lots of wonderful items!
No worries 🙂 Thanks for reading & DIYing with me!
Hi, I recently opened an etsy shop for selling handmade body materials. Is it ok if I use your recipes? I can give credit if you want.
Hi Ayse! Honestly, I would prefer it if you didn’t. I run this website so people can make things for themselves and stop buying things, not so they can purchase things made from freely available recipes from somebody else.
I NEED this! There are people that piss me off constantly 🙂 Must.stay.calm.
Um, silly question but his do I use it? Do I smear it on my hands, forehead, neck?
Thanks!!!
I like to apply it to my wrists and behind my ears, but it also makes a lovely body butter and is quite nice on rough skin 🙂
Thanks Marie! And sorry for the autocorrect typos 🙂
;P
Sounds lovely, another balm to try!
I’ve been wondering, is there a rule about what should and shouldn’t be stored in a metal tin? I have a few I’d like to repurpose (it held samples of tea) and they are not lined or anything, would they be OK for this recipe (or anything with oils/EOs like balms and salves)?
I just wrote an FAQ article on this 🙂
Hello Marie!
You’re such a creative inspiration! Thank you for all of the information you so freely offer. It’s super appreciated!
I’m curious how the EO blend would’ve changed if you were going for a “sleep” balm rather than a calm balm?
Thanks so much!
Hi Aileen! The original “sleep balm” this was inspired by uses a blend of bergamot, lavender, rosemary, ginger, and balsam fir, so that would probably be a good place to start 🙂
Great idea … I took one deviation. I just used the carrier oil and poured it along with the EO’s into a roller ball tube. Fast and easy to apply at work 🙂
Cool, what a convenient and easy-to-make alternative 🙂 Thanks so much for reading & DIYing with me!
Just found your site and I love it!!! I was just wondering if I would be able to use coconut oil in its liquid form instead of the safflower oil??
Yup, that should work well 🙂 Thanks for reading!
I’ve fallen in love with the Baby Balm from Bee Naturals and I would like to try to recreate it for a friend who can’t use it because she’s allergic to citrus oils. The ingredients boast a fairly simple line up of sweet almond oil, olive oil, jojoba oil, Shea butter, unbleached beeswax, vitamin E, and essential oils of lavender and sweet orange (which I of course would be omitting for my friend ^_^)
Problem is, this would be my first foray into DIY cosmetics, so I’m not sure how much of each ingredient to use! From your guide on swapping oils, I know safflower, almond, and olive oils are interchangeable, but how should I incorporate the jojoba and the Vitamin E? Could you give me a recommendation of ratios to use?
Many thanks for such a wonderful blog!
Hey Monoui! I can’t develop you up a recipe here in the comments section, but I would recommend reading this and this for some starter info, starting small, taking lots of notes, and just trying it. No amount of question asking and research replaces actually DOING something!
Your blog rocks! I just found it.
Thank you! Happy making 😀
Just verifying, It was my understanding that mandarin (and the other oranges) was sunsafe, and litsea was not. Is there a difference among the red, green, and yellow mandarin oils? Thanks
I need to invent something since my bottle of Tranquil synergy has disappeared. There’s only roughly 3.5 hours of sunlight in AK right now and we sure aren’t going with our skin uncovered, but I like to understand things 🙂
According to Tisserand, litsea cubeba is non photosensitizing/photo-toxic. Mandarin essential oil does contain Bergapten (there is no mention of different colours of mandarin), the same photosensitizing compound found in lime, bergamot, orange, lemon, grapefruit, and several other essential oils, though at much lower concentrations than the other citrus EOs. Tisserand does say that steam distilled citrus EOs are no longer photosensitizing, though, as the steam distillation destroys the photosensitizing compounds. Mandarin is considered to be safe to use if the concentration of bergapten is 15ppm or lower, but given the difficulty of reliably determining that in a home making situation, I would advise assuming it is not safe to use before sun exposure. Happy making!
Hi Marie! We made this balm yesterday, and strictly followed instructions. The balm worked well as last step evening moisturiser for me as well, and the fragrance is calming but I feel that lavender dominates the blend (not the geranium). One thing I was not sure about is what chamomile you used – german or roman? I gambled on Roman in this recipe 😉 THANKS FOR ALL YOUR WORK!
I’ve so glad you’re enjoying it! I know from my collection of lavender EOs that they can vary quite a lot in strength, so that may explain it 🙂 For the chamomile… I think it was Roman, but honestly it’s been so long I don’t remember!
Hi Marie! So I made this balm and a few weeks later there was a several spots of white (mold, maybe?). I used sweet almond oil instead of safflower. Do you think that might be the problem? Or maybe could my Shea butter be bad? Thanks so much! Love your blog <3
It sounds like it’s gone grainy, which isn’t spoilage—learn more here 🙂
Thank you so much, Marie!
Hi I am wondering does the lavender make you sleepy it is safe to use with driving. I use rescue remedy for anxiety looking for something else too. Cath
I made some of this lovely balm. Loving all the essential oils.
Thanks so much, Marie!
This is a lovely recipe for a calming balm. I particularly love that it includes red mandarin. If folks wanted a vegan version I would take out the beeswax up the amount of shea and possibly include some cocoa butter too as it has a super soothing effect.