I had great Halloween costumes as a kid. My mom was a fantastic seamstress who made us (my brother and I) new costumes every other year. As kids we went as rabbits and dinosaurs, and then graduated up to princesses, ninjas, fairy princesses, storm troopers, and (one especially cold year) Queen Amidala on Hoth.
Then I learned to sew on my own and slowly began stepping out as characters like Elizabeth Bennett (3x so far), Rose (4x so far), a peacock, Padmé Amidala, a hypothermic Titanic sailor, Belle, an eclipse (that was mistaken for a burn victim), and anything else that catches my fancy and/or matches a costume I’ve already made.
Sadly, I’ve been far too old to trick-or-treating for quite some time now, and since the clubs are hardly my scene (my petticoats would be utterly destroyed!), I prefer house parties with close friends. These fantastic little tubes of chocolate lip balm make for great party favours.
My recent discovery of dark cocoa butter inspired me to make these for Halloween, but they’re fantastic all year round. They’re both a trick (don’t eat them!) and a treat (they smell divine). They’re also super easy to whip up, and at $0.27/tube, they scarcely cost more than a miniature candy bar.
The quality of the ingredients is super important here, so make sure you get some deliciously fragrant cocoa butter and coconut oil to get the full, rich, chocolatey punch! The resulting lip balm is a dark, chocolately colour, but goes on pretty much transparent, so there’s no need to worry about looking like you’ve just raided the candy stash whenever you apply it.
Chocolate Lip Balm
10g | 0.35oz dark cocoa butter
6g | 0.21oz super fragrant white cocoa butter
4g | 0.14oz super fragrant extra virgin coconut oil
4g | 0.14oz beeswax
2 drops cocoa absolute (optional)Weigh the beeswax, coconut oil, and cocoa butters out into a heat resistant glass measuring cup. Place the measuring cup in a pot of barely simmering water to melt the oils.
Stir in the cocoa absolute (if using) with a flexible silicone spatula. Pour the liquid lip balm into five or six lip balm tubes and let cool. I like to use these labels to label my projects.
If you don’t have dark cocoa butter, feel free to just use the white stuff. You can probably fake it by using 10–13g of the white stuff and bringing the total up to 16g with some high quality unsweetened chocolate, but I haven’t tried this myself.
oh my god, Marie! I have NEVER heard of dark cocoa butter! Now I am completely obsessed with adding this to my arsenal. Do you know if Saffire Blue has a U.S. store?
It looks like they have two US distribution centres 🙂 I’d get in touch to see what that means for you, but I’m guessing it’s good.
I was so excited I ordered the dark cocoa butter right away. Made the lip balm and it’s WONDERFUL! It’s beautiful and smells GREAT! Thanks for sharing. BTW I live in the US…ordered from website in Canada and had no problems with delivery etc!
Yay! I’m always so thrilled to hear about somebody actually making one of my recipes 😀 And I’m so thrilled you were able to get the dark cocoa butter from Canada easily. What were shipping costs like?
I had to laugh…I just checked my invoice and I purchased the day following your post! Shipping was rather steep 20.16 CDN 19.26 USD. I ordered the 500g size. Two quick questions: How do you store your Cocoa Butter AND do you have any recipes for using it in a whipped body butter?
Sadly, that’s not actually that bad for shipping by Canadian standards 🙁 I just checked to see what it would be to get it to me in Canada, and for just 500g of the dark cocoa butter it was about $16 to get to me. In my experience with them, the shipping is much more affordable when you order more. The base shipping cost seems to be ~$16, and then it goes up incrementally after that, depending on what else you order. Postage/shipping in Canada is always way more than it is in the USA, sadly. Less people + way more distance = more money on postage, I guess. Damn, eh?
I store my cocoa butter in the bag in comes in (sealed, pressing out most of the excess air as I seal it) in a dark, cool cupboard in my basement, along with the rest of my ingredients. I’ve never had anything spoil on me (knock on wood!), so that seems to be working well 🙂
As for whipped cocoa body butters, you have to try my Whipped Cocoa Coco body butter, it’s divine!
I have also never heard of dark cocoa butter. I will have to search for a supplier in Europe who sells it. This looks very original!
Thanks, Anna! You could probably also try looking for pure, unsweetened chocolate. I’m not sure what the differences would be (if any), but it would be worth a try (and you’ll just have some delicious chocolate on hand if it doesn’t work out).
Ummmm, YES PLEASE (in response to your email question) My birthday is in a few weeks, after all! hehe. This looks incredible!
😉
Curious. Why does the coconut oil say “not for ingestion”? (Let’s face it, if you’re putting it on your lips, you may as well be (and probably WILL be) eating it.)
The oils I use for my assorted body products are cosmetic grade, not food grade. They are generally less money than the food grade versions, and often by a wide margin. I think the reason it’s called out so strongly on the coconut oil is because it smells so damn good! It’s seriously tempting. You can use food grade ingredients if you like, but, I’m not all that fussed about it. I haven’t noticed any ill effects from accidentally consuming 1 tsp of non-food-grade lip balm every 3 months or so 😛 It’s probably no worse than the pillow lint I likely eat in my sleep, lol!
such a great idea! sadly, in my country there isn’t dark cocoa butter, but seems a wonderful ingredient for a lip blam 🙂
Bummer 🙁 I think you could try dark unsweetened chocolate if you want, otherwise white cocoa butter will work just as well.
I am really interested in all of your blogs! I am so intrigued by soap making but it seems like a lot of steps to mess up. I am obsessed with shampoo bars and am eagerly wanting to try the gingerbread recipe but I am still unsure.
Thanks, Lydia 🙂 Soap making really isn’t that hard—if you can bake cookies, you can make soap! Just follow the recipe, and be prepared. Measure out all your ingredients before getting started, and familiarize yourself with all the steps of the process. If you’ve never made soap before I wouldn’t start with the gingerbread as the molasses makes it a bit tricky. I’d start with my all purpose bars, they’re super awesome and trace nice & fast 🙂
Thanks! I will do that! 🙂 I want to do soaps for my aunts and was thinking about doing melt and pours. My husband thinks it’s cheating, if I get quality ones like the black African soap from Saffire Blue, wouldn’t it be almost as good?
I’ve got to say… I’m with your husband on this one. Melt and pour soaps are like cakes from a box. You really have no control. Sure, you can add some chocolate chips and make your own frosting, but if you wanted to use honey instead of sugar, or make sure the flour was locally sourced, you’re out of luck. Most M&P bases are made from the cheapest ingredients, amped up with chemicals & highly processed ingredients to boost lather and moisture, and then marked up so they can turn a profit. Also, black soap isn’t a melt and pour soap, it’s just soap—and a rather dry, lumpy, crumbly soap at that. It doesn’t lend itself to melting (or holding together in bars).
But really, truly, making soap isn’t hard or scary! I’ve written about using lye here, and basic soap making instructions here. And, when you make it yourself, you have total control. You get to learn how different oils effect the final product, and play with different ratios. You can also be certain there’s nothing like sodium lauryl sulfate or palm oil in there. Plus, it really is super fun 😀
Hi Marie,
I just received my dark cocoa butter from Saffire Blue last night and I could NOT be more excited. I will be making this recipe this weekend!
One question: Have you used the dark cocoa butter in other products? I have enough to make body butters and balms and as usual I want your opinion/advice before beginning?
Exciting! Isn’t it beautiful? *Swoon*
I have successfully used the dark cocoa butter anywhere I’d use the white stuff, though I’ll usually cut it with the white version to prevent dark streaks (especially at higher concentrations). I imagine it’ll be great in soaps and lipsticks… stay tuned 🙂 I’ll definitely be publishing more recipes using it!
I wonder if adding some cocoa powder would work?
Sadly, no—in my experience cocoa powder doesn’t dissolve well in oils, giving you a gritty, icky tube of lip balm. I’ve used cocoa powder in my Hot Chocolate soap, where it gives a nice bit of grit that is great for exfoliating, but would feel terrible on your lips 🙁
I tried lip balm with cocoa powder once. As you mentioned correctly, it didn’t dissolve and I could feel the grinds of cocoa powder each time I applied on my lip. So to fix that, I re-melted it, and added some more beeswax. To my surprise, the texture came out really good (I wish I could attach a picture here to show the texture), and I cant see/feel the powders anymore during application. But, the only problem is, it is quite dry now. I have to glide it couple of times on my lips to get the product out.
This is awesome! I ventured out into the random and put in a little peppermint eo & even grabbed dark chocolate to throw into the mix. Yeah, there are no measurements for either cause I missed the “habits to get into” post before diving into lip balms. 🙂 However, it smells, and dare I say tastes, delicious.
It did start to look dry/hard, like it was going to chunk off and not glide smoothly over my non-winter loving lips, probably because I ventured outside the norm and dropped chocolate in (grin), but by the time it makes one pass over it warms up to my skin and provides the perfect amount of protection and hydration. It even seems to last longer on my lips than the store bought lip balms. So excited to pass them out… but only to the worthy chocolate lovers. I’ve somehow grown attached to my science experiments and found myself prescreening adoptive parents 😉 That’s normal right? Right??
Ooooh, lovely 🙂 And delicious! And yes, I totally know what you mean about “adoptive parents”. Will this person truly appreciate it? Will they use it? And (most importantly!) will I get the container back?!? Ha!
Haha! I’ve dubbed myself the “indian giver” in terms of asking for jars back. It’s sad. I’ve kind of trained my friends at this point. I hope to stock up soon so I don’t have to plan my next experiment around if I have a container for it or not.
I think lip balm containers are just about the only thing I don’t ask to get back. If it’s glass, though, you better believe I want that back! My container collection is getting a bit out of hand by now, though, lol. I’ve started buying certain things in packs of 10 (or 100 in the case of lip balm tubes) and it’s getting a bit ridiculous 😛
Hi! I love your blog and I made these LIKE RIGHT AWAY! I am obsessed with your blog and I LOVE dark cocoa butter. SMELLS like heaven!
So is it possible to use candle wax in lip balm?
To get the fragrance?
REALLY WIERD JUST WONDERING
Hi Ayse! Thanks so much for reading, and enjoy your new lip balm 🙂 As for candle wax, I’d stay away from that for cosmetic purposes. If it’s a pure beeswax candle it should be fine, but there’s no guarantee the colour or scent used in candles is safe to use around your mouth. Additionally, if you don’t know what type of wax it is, you don’t know if it’s petroleum based, what the melting point is, or much of anything else. I’d stick with waxes and scents that are approved for cosmetic use 🙂 There’s loads of scents to choose from in the world of essential oils!
Intrigued with this recipe, and as I’ve been devoutly following your blog, no big surprise that I have all the ingredients 😉 except one, cocoa absolute…what would you think mixing it up with pure Coffee essential oil would be like?
It would be DIVINE! Coffee EO has been sitting in my cart for ages & I can’t wait to make all kinds of mocha scented concoctions 🙂
Well Miss Marie – Since you made soap making so much fun for me, I decided to make some lip balms, too. I just finished making this recipe, sans the dark cocoa butter (didn’t have any, yet didn’t want that to stop me!). I gave some nice, 100% cacao for baking a try, as you noted. Used about 12g of white cocoa butter and 4g of the cacao. It smells delicious, still glides on smooth and transparent… the only thing I noticed that you get with the baking cacao is a bit of grit (think fine espresso grounds). Luckily, the heavier grit settled on the bottom of my pyrex cup and (mostly) stayed there instead of ending up in the tubes. I think an order of dark cocoa butter is in my near future 😉 Thank you for the terrific recipes!
Hi Deb! I’m so thrilled I’ve got you into lip balm as well 🙂 Thanks for the heads up on the baking cocoa, that’s good to know. Enjoy your lip balm and thanks for DIYing with me!
would this work with baking chocolate or chocolate chips?
Costco sells a nice chocolate chip with
ingredient list: chocolate liquor, sugar, soy lecithin, & vanilla
The bag also shows 51%cocoa. Im assmuing the rest is the butter and sugar.
Deb tried it with pure 100% cocoa and said this:
The stuff you have doesn’t sound pure enough, though. I don’t think it’ll work too well, but if you do try it, start small and report back!
I never post comments but just had to say how much I am enjoying your blog. I am trying to learn to make high quality lip balms and your blog is really helping ame. Thank you for sharing your knowledge of recipes, techniques and ingredients. Best of luck with all you are doing and please keep the posts coming. 🙂
Thanks so much for reading and supporting me, Do! Your support means the world 🙂