This idea came to me from Sarah over on the East Coast of Canada, who told me about making candy cane lip balm for Christmas last year. The idea stuck, and here we are! What could be better for Christmas gift giving?
We’ll kick the scent department off with the base oils—beautiful, chocolatey cocoa butter (USA / Canada) and rich, fragrant virgin coconut oil. Once blended, these oils make a great starter for some candy cane scented goodness. Mmm.
To that, some vanilla-like benzoin and tingly, menthol-laced peppermint give us a great, seasonal, sweet, minty balm. If you’re not used to vanilla in your candy canes you can drop the benzoin, but I sure like it.
The colours come from a pretty red mica (I used this one). If you don’t have a red mica you like, feel free to use some red iron oxide with a bit of silver mica for a hint of wintery shimmer, or even a bit of carmine.
Like all lip balms this one is really just measure, melt, stir, and pour. It also pairs beautifully with my matching lotion 🙂 Happy (impending) holidays!
Candy Cane Lip Balm
10g | 0.35oz beeswax (USA / Canada)
12g | 0.42oz virgin coconut oil
7g | 0.25oz cocoa butter (USA / Canada)
20g | 0.7oz sweet almond oil (USA / Canada)4 blobs benzoin essential oil
12 drops peppermint essential oil (USA / Canada)
2 pinches red mica (I used this one)Combine the beeswax, coconut oil, cocoa butter (USA / Canada), and sweet almond in a small saucepan or in a heat-resistant glass measuring cup and melt gently over low heat/in a water bath.
Once the oils have melted, remove the mixture from the heat and stir in the essential oils and mica with a flexible silicone spatula. This recipe will fill 10–12 lip balm tubes, depending on how much of the mixture ends up on your counter 😉
Hi Humbebee. I enjoy your emails thanks. I’ve been asked to make a Maple Syrup lip balm. Do you have a recipe for that?
Sincerely
Susan
Hi Susan! I don’t at this point, but I actually have a ton of maple syrup laced DIY’s on my to-do list, so stay tuned 😉 Thanks for reading!
Hi there! I’ve been reading your blog for awhile and love it – it’s inspiring and informative. This recipe looks great, but I wanted to ask you whether you have considered alternatives to mica? I’ve been reading about the ethical concerns around child labour used to mine mica and don’t want to use it, but am having trouble sourcing a substitute. Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
Hi Carol! The best I can do here is recommend you contact your suppliers and find out more about their supply change and see if you can source some with a clean history. Micas do a lot of different things in cosmetic recipes, and while you can try to replace the things that they do, it’ll never be quite the same. In something like this, where all we’re really getting is colour and shimmer, you could use a bit of red iron oxide and some cosmetic safe glitter and likely not notice much of a change.
However, in something like a mineral make-up or an airbrushing powder, you’d have a really hard time effectively replacing sericite mica. It’s sort of like looking for a substitute for a peach based on it being sweet, orange, and fuzzy. Maple syrup is sweet, traffic cones are orange, and my socks are fuzzy, but combining those three things doesn’t get you anywhere near a good peach alternative :/ I’ve recommended a blend of arrowroot starch, magnesium stearate, and a silver mica in the past, but that still has mica. Perhaps silica microspheres instead of the mica?
Is this my request or another East Coast Sarah? Pregnancy brain does not, in fact, go away post-partum… Either way, definitely adding it to my Christmas DIY gift list (much shorter this year, and may be limited to lip balms. Oh well!) 🙂
Yes, it is you! I think you said you’d made some last year, though who knows 😛 Also, stay tuned for some holiday bath bombs—those are nice & easy gifts, too 🙂
I wonder what color you would end up with if you added no mica at all? I haven’t ventured into buying the micas and oxides yet… I might try putting these in RED lip balm tubes and skip the mica altogether.
Can’t wait to try this one!
I make a similar recipe without mica and it comes out pale yellow in color, but completely sheer on the lips.
Thanks, Gina!
Assuming you use golden beeswax, they’ll be a slight golden colour. If your beeswax is white, they’ll be less golden. Like this 🙂
As soon as my order of coconut oil gets here, I’m making this one. And maybe a batch with no color also. I can’t leave my boys out. They’re lips will get chapped!
Enjoy the candy-cane-y goodness! 🙂
This looks great! Could I substitute benzoin for honey? Or vanilla extract? Don’t have any and don’t want to wait! ☺️
Hi Amie! Benzoin and honey have pretty much nothing in common (aside from both being sticky), so please don’t do that. The honey also won’t emulsify without some serious added effort. And then read this on vanilla extract 🙂
Fabulous! Thank you so much! I have been making soap and cosmetics for a while but always do the same basic things I’ve been taught. I want to branch out and be more creative. Your website is so fun! Keep up the great work!
Thanks so much, Amie! I’ve got LOADS of recipes up here (closing in on 800!) so you should be able to find plenty of branches to explore 😉
This tutorial looks like a lot of fun! Your recipe looks nourishing & soothing. =)
Thanks, Anne-Marie!
Can I leave it not completely mixed to keep the swirling colors? It looks more ‘candy cane like’.
I did try that, it didn’t really work—I got a sort of murky, mostly golden with some smudges of pink, pour. The majority of the mica remained at the bottom of the liquid oils, too, which would have made the last lip balm mostly mica. You’re obviously welcome to try it yourself, though 🙂
Hey Marie! I’m trying to be proactive and get my Christmas stuff going early and I think I’ll be making a set of lip balms for the ladies and hot sauces for the gents. 😀 Quick question… I love the Christmas themed essential oils you added to this lip balm and was going to try and make a couple others as well. Is it safe to in another lip balm to add some piney/clovey/spruce EOs? Any combos you would recommend? And would there be any weird skin sensitivities that you know of? Maybe even Cinnamon which could double as a lip plumper? Last year was my first year making DIY presents and this year I hope to use some of your awesome upgraded (for me) lip balm recipes. 😀 Excited!
Hi Lauren! Have you checked my giant repository of lip balm recipes (35 and counting!)? There’s a few other Christmassy ones in there for inspiration (watch for Pumpkin Spice, Red Velvet, and Cranberry!) 🙂
The three no-no EOs that come to mind are tea tree, birch, and wintergreen as all three are toxic. Other than that it’s mostly personal taste, though I would stay away from really irritating EOs like chili and cassia.
Happy gift making!
Eee! Ok, definitely no to toxic EOs. I think I’ll stick to your tried and true recipes. I’m definitely also eyeballing the gingerbread one and the red velvet one! 😀 So excited, I ordered my supplies last night. Thank you so much for all your lovely recipes and inspiration! 🙂
There’s nothing quite like waiting for new DIY ingredients to arrive, it’s like DIY Christmas 😉 I’ve got a box of my own on the way and I am so excited to dive into all my new goodies!
Have fun lip balming up a storm!
Oh man. So obviously I made a couple extra of these lip balms for me 😉 and I’ve been using them for a week or two and I have to say I looove these!! The slip is really nice, it’s not too hard or gooey, it smells delicious and MOST IMPORTANTLY for me my lips don’t have any reaction to this. I’ve tried so many different store bought brands without being able to pin down what ingredient caused the irritation. Usually after a week or so some ingredient in the mix would cause my lips to crack or peel but not this. I’m sooooooooo over the moon. DIY and HB&Marie to the rescue. Yay!!!
Yay! I’m so thrilled 😀 I LOVE this recipe for lip balms, and I rarely stray too far from this base as it is so fantastic with the coconut/cocoa/beeswax-y goodness. Woooo! Lip balm party! 😉
Hi Marie! This looks lovely! Do you add the mica at a certain temp? How about pour at a certain temp? Or watch any temp at all for that matter? 🙂 And I can leave the benzoin out completely right? Thanks!
Hi Rachel! The only temperature you’re concerned with is making sure the lip balm has cooled/thickened enough for the mica to stay suspended before you pour the mixture into the tubes 🙂 And yes, you can leave out the benzoin, but they won’t smell as candy cane-y.
Hi Marie, I know this is late, but I had 2 issues with the benzoin resin. My benzoin resin is an essential oil and doesn’t come out in blobs, it comes out in drops. I wasn’t sure how much to use. I added it to the oils before I removed it from the burner and I guess it got too hot because it wouldn’t mix in and was stuck on the bottom of the bowl. Is that what I did wrong? Will it mix in better at a lower temperature?
Hey Frann! Do you perhaps have a link to the product page for where you bought your benzoin? Mine is sold in the essential oil section of NDA, but is still a resinoid, so it’s liquid… ish. Hence blobs instead of drops, though it will drop if I warm it up. Also, it’s not abnormal for it not to incorporate immediately; I’ve found it needs more stirring than other essential oils but will still incorporate nicely, if not leaving your mix looking a wee bit cloudy before it sets up.
Hi Marie!! I need to first say how much I absolutely love your recipes! I want to make them all!! These seem like the perfect lip balm to compliment my homemade ornaments for my family this Christmas. The budget is tight so I was hoping I could use my vanilla essential oil instead of having to buy the benzoin essential oil. Can I make this subsitute? If so, how many drops/teaspoons do you think I should start with for the vanilla essential oil? Thank you so much!!!
Eeeeeek so excited to make these 😀
Hey BriAnne! You can’t, as vanilla essential oil is actually water soluble, so it cannot be used in any projects that do not already contain water.