Before I left for Costa Rica with dreams of surfing real waves dancing in my imagination, I made a big jar of chili oil tiger balm. I was pretty sure I’d need it, and I was right. Surfing is hard work, especially when you yank your body out of winter semi-hibernation mode and toss it into the ocean with little to no warning. I was left with many sore muscles, and this tiger balm was downright fantastic.
I’d been eyeing New Direction’s chili seed essential oil for a while, and when the price dropped so 100mL (3.3 fl oz) was less than $5 I couldn’t resist anymore. The reviews made it sound like a magical (and only mildly torturous) healer of sore muscles, so I thought a batch of chili spiked tiger balm was just the thing to start with.
I’ve dropped the amount of peppermint a bit to make room for the chili oil, but even so this balm feels cold on the skin, not hot. It’ll still leave red tiger stripes on your skin mere minutes after application, though.
With the addition of the chili this tiger balm amps up circulation like you wouldn’t believe. Be sparing with your application—I have found myself near tears in my bathroom seconds after over-indulging!
In the past I’ve had some troubles with my tiger balm, in that everything needs to be melted together, but you don’t want to heat up essential oils too hot, and especially not this many eye-watering ones. This time I figured out something new, and it makes pulling everything together a cinch.
I got these awesome little 15mL jars from New Directions Aromatics.
Chili Oil Tiger Balm
5g | 0.17oz camphor essential oil
6g | 0.21oz cajeput essential oil
5g | 0.17oz menthol essential oil or menthol crystals
2g | 0.07oz cassia essential oil
4g | 0.14oz peppermint essential oil (USA / Canada)
4g | 0.14oz chili seed essential oil26g | 0.92oz cocoa butter (USA / Canada)
26g | 0.92oz beeswax (USA / Canada)Combine the essential oils in a class container. I used a 1 cup (250mL) Pyrex measuring cup (mostly for the spout), but a 125mL (4oz) or 250mL (8oz) mason jar will work as well. Place that container in a very hot water bath to gently warm the essential oils while you work. I’d recommend keeping the hot water bath hot on the stove top over low heat.
Combine the cocoa butter (USA / Canada) and beeswax in a small saucepan and melt over medium low heat.
Once the cocoa butter (USA / Canada) and beeswax have melted, remove the essential oils from their hot water bath and dry the outside of the container (be careful, it’s hot!). Pour the beeswax mixture directly into the essential oils, swirling and stirring to combine. You will likely have to pop the glass container back into the hot water bath to ensure everything melts together as the mixture sets up very quickly.
At this point you can either quickly decant the melted mixture into smaller glass jars (15mL (0.5oz) or 30mL (1oz) are both good sizes). If you aren’t planning on sharing, you can just leave the mixture to cool in your mason jar, and keep it in there. If you want to do that, I’d recommend using a 125mL/4oz mason jar. Due to the high essential oil concentration of this recipe, I don’t recommend using metal or plastic containers as the essential oils can eat away at those materials. The exact jars I used have been discontinued.
Looking for information on essential oil substitutions? Read this.
Wondering about essential oil concentrations? Read this.
Great post! Love your little jars with the golden tops. I too have been playing around with the Chili EO that I bought from NDA, along with a bit of Cassia EO. The balm idea is great, but if you add a bit more beeswax a stick makes for easy application.
Another great EO for sore muscles is Pine Long Leaf. I like to use it instead of Black Spruce Pine EO. Both EOs are from NDA.
Hi Jen! I definitely have a tiger balm stick on my to-do list, I’d just love to find a glass deodorant tube to put it in as I’m a bit wary of putting something with such a high concentration of essential oils in a plastic container.
I must admit I usually just huff my pine and spruce essential oils, but I’ll have to try them in a balm soon!
All your creations are awesome!!! Thank you for sharing. Do you have a recipe for Tiger Muscle Rub? I am not sure if it is sold in Canada but this is what I mean: http://www.drugstore.com/tiger-balm-muscle-rub-topical-analgesic-cream/qxp93872?catid=280056
We have been using it for years and it is so effective. Just rub until white cream goes transparent.
Thanks again!
Thanks, Maria! That’s basically what this is 🙂 It’s just not a cream (assuming it’s a cream if you say it’s white), it’s a salve/balm (i.e. contains no water).
Marie, is there a way to make this salve into a non-greasy cream?
Hi Maria! Maybe, but it would require a complete re-development of the recipe.
Awww….that is something only you can take on. For now, have a great summer and thanks again ♥
🙂
This sounds worth trying! I also bought some of the chili seed eo a while back and I used mine to make a Chocolate Chili Sore Muscle Salve. I’ve never used cajeput eo. What does this smell like?
Oooh, very cool! I’ve been drinking a chocolate chili chai tea lately, and it’s awesome 🙂
Cajeput is really fresh/camphoraceous—I love it in EO blends for a hit of “fresh air” with bright, slightly herbaceous notes.
Hi!
Do love all of the items you create and enjoy looking at them in email format. I was wondering, since I as m embarking on a Vegan lifestyle, is there anything else I could substitute in your recipes for beeswax?
Thank you for all you do….Chris
Hi Chris! So far I’ve got 3 guides that will interest you on how beeswax, candelilla wax, and carnauba waxes behave with liquid oils in different ratios. I’d start reading there, noting the differences as there are quite a few—mostly in the areas of strength and texture 🙂
What a great little product! I will be making myself a lot more of this – it’s so easy! thank you many times over!
Awesome! I’m glad you’re enjoying it 🙂
Hi Marie!
Your eyes lit up at lunch when I mentioned wanting to make up an anti-itch/bug-bite remedy, and you hinted at this. Any modifications you’d suggest to the recipe if its intended use is bug bites rather than sore muscles?
xo
Kim
Hi Kim! No modifications needed, this tiger balm kicks both bug bites and sore muscles in the butt as-is 😉
Awesome. Thanks!
I also looked up the tried-and-true calamine lotion, but the shelf life is very short and I want to travel with my itch concoction, so tiger balm it is!
I’m excited to hear how you like this stuff 🙂 I am definitely taking a jar to Manitoba!
Hi Marie!
I noticed that your chili tiger balm contains 1/3 essential oils. Is there a rule to the ratio of oils/butter to essential oils? Have you tried wintergreen? 🙂
Hi Silvia! The general rule with essential oils is generally around 2%, but tiger balm seems to be an exception, with around 33%–50% being quite common. It doesn’t really have any physical effect at 2%, which is why I often hear from people who have tried recipes using concentrations around 2%, wondering why it didn’t work.
I’ve used wintergreen in this pain killer roller that is sort of tiger-balm inspired.
Do you have any info on using or not using essential oils on pregnant women? Are there any EOs that you strongly suggest be avoided by expectant mothers? I’ve done some research and its such a mixed bag of responses. Is Wintergreen okay or not? Peppermint? Cajeput and Cassia?
Thanks in advance,
Steve
Hi Steve—this is something I’d really recommend asking a doctor about. There’s lots of conflicting information out there, and I don’t want to be the person you’re getting this important info from. I do know that wintergreen EO may cause adverse reproductive effects and birth defects as it passes the placenta barrier from the MSDS sheet, though, so I’d definitely avoid that one.
Marie,
I understand, thank you! Its what I have found as well, the conflicting information. I have compiled a spreadsheet (I know, I’m a geek) of about 103 essential oils, and cross-referenced them to the information from 9 different websites, and the results are pure chaos. Wintergreen is one of the few that everybody seems to agree on. If you want, when I am done being geeky with the data, I could send it to you.
Thanks again, take care,
Steve
A spreadsheet! You sound like a man of my own heart, haha 😉 I have many spreadsheets for calculating the cost per recipe of my assorted concoctions, which I love updating (geek alert). I’d love to see your research/data if it ever reaches a state of somewhat complete-ness (as these things sometimes never do) 😛
Hi Marie,
I am dying to try this recipe, especially when I went to the drugstore today, wanting to buy some tiger balm and discovered that they charge about 7 euros for a tiny jar! And I mean really tiny.
I never thought of making my own, but now I think I am up for the challenge. Thanks for posting this recipe.
Yikes! Somebody’s making a tidy profit there 😉
Enjoy your homemade tiger balm and have fun making it!
Heya
Have you ever tried to make a heat lotion?
It’s on my list! One reason I haven’t yet is because tiger oil is generally about 50% essential oils and lighter lotions don’t support concentrations of EOs that high. Still working on it 🙂
Hi Marie!
I am ordering oils from Saffire Blue, as New Directions has a $100. minimum order policy or they add $20. This company doesn’t have some of the oils like Chili EO, Baobab EO, Labduman (sp?) & Helichrysum. Any suggestions on substitutions?
Hi Michelle! Unfortunately all those ingredients are really hard to replace or substitute—they’re all very unique. Have you thought about looking at other suppliers? If you are in the USA you will have a lot more options than I have here in Canada, like Mountain Rose Herbs, Brambleberry, and Lotion Crafter.
If you’re in the US, heritageessentisloils.com is a very helpful website and they have very high quality EO’s, great prices and very helpful staff.
Thanks!
hi Marie! Love your recipes 🙂
My question is – have you found out how to work with menthol crystals since NDA doesn’t carry menthol EO anymore? I ran out of the EO and have a tub of crystals that I’m not sure how to “convert” into a usable liquid form! Just wondered if you’ve had a chance to experiment yet 🙂
Hi Sarah! I did get some and have done some playing, and at this point I am recommending a 1:1 switch by weight 🙂 Just melt the menthol crystals into the oil base and proceed as normal. Enjoy!
Where do you get the essential oils for this recipe?
Thank you
Ashley from Alaska
Hi Ashley—scroll up to the big box above the comments for links to my top suppliers 🙂
Hi Marie,
I made this last night, and I’m not sure what I did wrong, but there isn’t a hot or warming sensation. I have looked at some of the reviews on NDA with the Chili Oil, and the most recent two say it isn’t hot/warm. Do you think that is the problem?
Thank you,
Jessica
Hi Jessica! In the article I do say that “this balm feels cold on the skin, not hot”, though it really does amp up circulation like mad. If you want a really hot tiger balm I’d recommend trading out some of the menthol and peppermint for more cassia and chili 🙂
Any opinion on switching the 4g chili seed EO for 4g cayenne powder? Maybe let it steep in the warm oils for a few hours then continue with the recipe? I own all of the ingredients except chili seed EO…
Honestly, I’d just look at a tiger balm recipe that doesn’t need chili EO—like this one 🙂
My shoulder has been aching for the last few days (from too much scrubbing the stove) and this morning I made a small batch of this (1/3 of amount because I wasn’t sure if it would work for me, and didn’t want to waste too much EOs). OMG! My shoulder feels heavenly all day. No pain, just a wonderful tingling feeling!! Thank you!
No Menthol EO, so I just substituted menthol crystals. I melted it with the wax and cocoa butter.
I also made the Ice in Cube! Can’t wait to use that also!
Wonderful! I’m so thrilled this lovely balm is bringing you relief 🙂
Hi Marie,
I am relatively new to EO and I truly appreciate your recipes! Thank you for taking the time to share. I am trying to gather the ingredients to make your chili oil tiger balm. I see you purchased your Menthol (liquid) from New Directions, however when I go to their site or even just Google it Menthol Crystals come up or peppermint. I’m just a little confused now. I know they can’t be the same thing. Did New Direction stop selling the product you purchased from them? How do I find the same Menthol essential oil you used in recipe above? Again, thank you so much for making all your recipes available, you’re awesome!
Casey
Well, I suppose I should have read ALL of the comments first. I found my answers. Thank you!
🙂
They discontinued the “oil”, though it really is more a bottle of crystals that can be heated enough to be encouraged to behave like a liquid for a while. The crystals are a perfectly lovely 1:1 swap 🙂 Thanks for reading!
Is there anywhere else (that you know of) I can buy the chili seed oil? I don’t want to have to pay the fee for not spending a certain amount at New Directions Aromatics. I just need the chili seed oil, so I don’t want to spend extra for other ingredients I don’t even need at this time.
Any help is appreciated!
Hi Vivian! I’m sorry, I don’t. Have you thought about trying one of my other tiger balm recipes? This is the only one that needs chili oil.
Hi,
This may be a really silly question, but do you do the oil measurements in grams occasionally because they’d be such a high drop number?? Also, I’m ordering more peppermint EO and looked into Japanese peppermint which is listed as having high amounts of menthol. Do you think this should alter the amount of menthol I add??
Your blog is wonderful!
Thank you,
Haley
Yes, that’s exactly why I use weight measurements for this recipe 🙂 It’s also for accuracy, because a “drop” is not a measurement, and when you’re in the 1000’s a small variation in a “drop” between my “drop” and yours can seriously effect the outcome of the recipe.
I’d try making the recipe as written with your peppermint EO of choice, and if you think it’s too cold, reduce the amount next time 🙂 You could do it the other way around as well, I suppose, but I guess I prefer to err on the side of too strong than too weak 😉
I would love to add some emu oil and herb infused (arnica & comfrey) olive oil to this balm…any suggestions on how much to add would be welcome as I would hate to mess this up and potentially waste all these yummy EOs. I’m guessing I would probably have to adjust cocoa butter and beeswax as well? Thanks for all your great info!
Hi Meg! I’d check out this tiger balm recipe instead, and work at swapping out some of the liquid oils in it (it also already contains emu oil). That said, I have fussed about with tiger balm quite a lot, and it’s a tricky one since it’s 50% EOs. You don’t want to get the EOs too hot as that destroys them, but the waxes have a very high melting point, and blending the two requires everything to be quite hot. By using a naturally brittle oil like cocoa butter I’m able to reduce the amount of wax called for, reducing the temperature and damage to the EOs. All that is to say you might want to infuse the herbs into some melted cocoa butter 😛
Hey Marie,
I’m finally getting around to making this and I’m overjoyed; ski trip looms in the distance. Quick question about the cocoa butter, could you sub it out for kokum butter just for a more dry feel?
Hey Jade! You should be able to, though I haven’t tried it myself 🙂
Hi Marie,
I got around to making this, and I am not sure if chilli seed oil is variable in heat (mine is from New Directions in Australia and labelled Capsicum annum), but my balm ended up a dark burgundy compared to yours(this should have been a warning!) and produced an absolute searing, ferocious heat when sparingly applied that lasted hours until eventually i washed the area afflicted. I think i will re-melt the balm and double (if not triple) the quantities of everything else). I defintitely weighed out 4 g of the EO, so I can only imagine it varies in ‘hotness’. What do you think?
Hey Michele! It 100% makes sense that the strength of the essential oil could vary. I know peppermint EO, for instance, can really vary in menthol content, which effects how “tingly” it is, so I can definitely see different batches of chilli seed oil could have varying amounts of capsaicin. Where did you get yours? Does your source supply a breakdown of the constituents of the EO?
Hi Marie: I want to make this recipe for my family. How many drops of Essential Oil equals 1 gram? Thanks! can’t wait to try this recipe.
Hey Collee! There’s no way to accurately make that conversion as it will vary by the oil, the dropper, ambient temperature, and many other factors. For a recipe like this, which contains loads of essential oils, you MUST work in weight when measuring them! Trying to make this recipe counting out the EOs by drops would be like trying to make a cake recipe by measuring out the flour by “handfuls” or “pinches”. Trying to estimate the “drops” could result in an end product that is very irritating to the skin. Scales are really inexpensive on Amazon, and if you want to make your own stuff and get good, reliable results you should definitely buy one 🙂
I’m trying to figure out the final volume yield of this recipe that is measured in weights. How many 15mL jars does this fill? The recipe must yield less than 125mL total since we can make it in that size jar. (Also, your final recommendation on mason jar size is off somehow: 125mL is 4oz, not 8oz). Thanks for any clarification you can give!
I’m also curious about how to size up you tiger oil pocket roller. I want to make 9 of them, so it would be better for me to measure in grams instead of drops. Should I just use the EO combo here and cut it with 50% alcohol?
There’s really no easy way to do this; you would have to take the specific gravity of each individual ingredient into account, which would quickly turn into some sort of high school chemistry homework. I believe the 5 jars you see filled is the entire yield of the recipe, and I’m fairly certain those were 30mL jars, but it has been a few years.
For the roller I suppose you could swap “gram” for “drop” and go from there, though that would make close to 20 than 9. And, again, with specific gravity in mind, that will not be 100% accurate, though the difference may not matter all that much. I would use a scale accurate to 0.01g, weigh out the drops called for in the recipe, and scale from there. Also, PLEASE make one first and decide you like it before making 9!
Thanks for the heads up on the jar typo!
Many thanks for your quick reply! That is a tricky conversion problem for sure. I went with the “try and see” method instead! I can report back that I doubled this recipe and got exactly ten 15mL (.5oz) jars! These are some of my perfect gifts for holidays, and you have never steered me wrong, so I tend to jump headfirst into any of your recipes! 🙂 Pocket rollers here I come…
In my enthusiasm about this spicy balm though, I added a bit of chili oil to your Sticky coconut lip balm. That was not an entirely successful experiment. It’s a bit too spicy I think. Gotta figure out how to rework those balms now….oh well.
Thanks for your incredible work, and congrats on your book’s upcoming release!
Well, it sounds like my estimation/guesstimation was correct, so yay!
I do find that chili oil is more prickly/itchy than hot/warming, so I can see how that might work on the lips. Given the sticky consistency of that balm I think you may have a hard time re-purposing it without introducing a lot of other ingredients, so you may want to toss ’em rather than trying to save them… I learned that lesson early on with a lotion recipe I tried to “save”. The scent blend I’d added was WAY too strong and I didn’t really like it, so I made 3x more lotion and mixed it all together… and I still HATED the way it smelled but now I had a colossal amount of it and didn’t want to throw it away because that was lots of ingredients. I can still conjure of the scent of that wretch-worthy lotion in my memory, nearly 6 years later! Ugh! 😛
Happy continued making!
Love all your recipes. As a fellow Canuck it’s nice to be able to purchase the ingredients from a common source. Love New Directions. I made this recipe last week and really love it. I ended up leaving it in the 4 oz glass container. I’ve decided that I’d like to melt it down and divide it into smaller tins. Can I do this without damaging the eos?
Hey Carol! I really would not recommend melting this down again once it’s done; with such a high percentage of EOs, we want as little heat as possible involved in the recipe, so once it’s done, just let it be 🙂
Hi. In your chili tiger balm you mention not to use glass or plastic jars. What are the jars you used as it looks like glass? Thanks
Derr, I must’ve had a major brain fart there. You WANT to use glass, DON’T use metal or plastic. I probably meant to type metal haha.
If your like me, you have put together a pretty good collection of basics but because there are so many essential oils you just can’t own them all, so you have your spicy, floral, etc. groups covered and end up doing a lot of substitutions with what you have. This recipe really taps into the therapeutic side of the essential oils vs. just the smell. I did some research to help people with identifying appropriate substitutions. This of course is not an exhaustive list but hits a lot of commonly used oils.
Oils with analgesic properties: bergamot, eucalyptus, ginger, lavender, lemongrass, marjoram, oregano, peppermint, Roman chamomile, rosemary, wintergreen.
Oils with strong anti-inflammatory properties: basil, bergamot, frankincense, myrrh, Roman chamomile, rosemary, wintergreen.
Oils that increase circulation: cypress, thyme, peppermint, clary sage, wintergreen, rosemary, cinnamon, helichrysum, basil.
Clove may also be used for sore muscles.
I hope fellow DYI fans find this helpful.
Thanks so much, Mandy!
HI!!,
first off id like to say that this blog and youtube channel have been my life line for everything diy, that being said i dont have any solid butters right now, but i do have all th EO’s would it be possible to replace the butter with avocado or olive oil and add cornstarch to combat that greasyness. can i do an exact replacement? any suggestions or words of encouragement are appreciated. be blessed. C
I”m afraid a swap like that is fully in the realm of re-developing the formulation—I can’t hypothesize much about how that might turn out. It sounds like it could work? Good luck and happy making!
Hi! I’ve got New Directions chili *carrier* oil, not EO. They only seem to have the carrier oil now: https://www.newdirectionsaromatics.ca/products/carrier-oils/chili-seed-carrier-oil.html. Any idea on different strengths of these things? Do I just need to experiment? THANKS!
Hmm. I’d probably start with the assumption that it’s the same strength; the description says it’s steam distilled and sounds a lot like the essential oil product I had, so it may be more of a re-classification than a totally new product. Good luck and happy making!