This creamy orange cleansing balm was born of a recipe request from Sonja. “What I am looking for is a recipe for a BALM that removes facial makeup (not eyes). Hope you can help. LOVE your website – a fab discovery for me. Thank you.”
A blend of oils is thickened with glossy candelilla wax, and that’s pretty much it. So, all that was left to figure out some ratios, rummage through my ingredient cabinets, and get to work.
The oil blend includes moisturizing virgin coconut oil, soothing unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada), rich cocoa butter (USA / Canada), antioxidant rich mango butter (USA / Canada), and silky smooth grapeseed seed oil. Juicy orange wax adds an amazing citrus scent, and candelilla wax makes everything solid and glossy.
Once you’ve got the ingredients, this is an incredibly easy balm to pull together. Simply measure, melt, stir, and pour. Voila!
It leaves skin soft and clean, as well as feeling wonderfully moisturized. Give it a try 🙂
Coconut Citrus Cleansing Balm
10g | 0.35oz virgin coconut oil
7g | 0.25oz unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada)
5g | 0.17oz cocoa butter (USA / Canada)
5g | 0.17oz mango butter (USA / Canada)
8g | 0.28oz candelilla wax
7g | 0.25 grapeseed oil
5g | 0.17oz safflower oil
3g | 0.1 orange wax15 drops pink grapefruit essential oil
5g | 0.17oz soy lecithin
1g | 0.03oz Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)Weight the oils and waxes out into a small glass measuring cup and melt together over a double boiler.
Once melted, remove the oils from the heat and stir in the grapefruit essential oil, soy lecithin, and Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada).
Pour the mixture into a 3oz/90mL jar and let it set up.
To use, wet your face and massage a small amount of the balm (about half a teaspoon) into your skin. Follow up with a warm washcloth to wipe your skin clean.
Because of the orange wax and grapefruit essential oil in this balm, when left on this balm will be photosensitizing (cause you to burn much more easily). So, while you can apply this balm as a straight body butter, I don’t recommend it. If you’re going to, don’t do it right before going out into the sun.
It is criminal how much you can pay for a face balm. For $50 I could buy enough raw supplies to make 20 jars of facial balm and change them each month for my skin needs and probably make a host of other products too. Once you go homemade cosmetics, you can really never go back.
Sounds like a great face balm though, I’ll give it a try when I’m ready for a new batch. I make a similar balm but infuse the coconut oil with espresso, which is a nice pick me up smell in the morning but Grapefruit would be great for summer.
I’m definitely with you on the homemade boat! It’s awesome over here 🙂 I love the idea of your coffee infused cleanser—I have a jar of coffee infused oil in my stash and it’s amazing.
Oh wow! I’ve been hearing amazing things about similar products for a while now, and have wanted to DIY them myself. Unfortunately even a one off purchase to find out what they are supposed to look and feel like isn’t really possible on my budget. So I’m thrilled you’ve posted this, and will be trying it asap!
Enjoy! I look forward to hearing what you think of it 🙂
So excited to try this but I am missing 3 ingredients- I don’t have any candelilla wax, camellia seed oil or orange wax. I was going to substitute jojoba oil and 5-fold orange for the orange wax and try beeswax in place of the candelilla wax but do you have recommendations on what I could use instead of camellia seed oil? Thanks
Grapeseed oil is a great alternative 🙂
good morning,
I have had manageable hair..fine and thick..until this year. For the last 6 months I have tried the no poo, acv, marshmallow root, and many other ideas..even spraying olive oil and leaving it on for two days. Nothing has helped the static in my hair..if you plugged my head in I am sure it would run a small appliance. As soon as I brush it, even just run my fingers through it it will fly straight up and stick to my face…drives me crazy.
I finally had to use a commercial cream rinse..which I was trying to avoid. As soon as I stopped using commercial shampoo and cream rinses it took only about 6 months to notice a difference in my eyesight.
So..to make a long story short ( alittle late for that)..do you have a recipe for a cream rinse / shampoo / conditioner that will help the problem. ( I do not have a dry climate or surroundings)
thanks a bunch
corrie
Hi Corrie! I have some hair mists that should help—try this and this 🙂
Thanks so SO much for all your wonderful formulas!!!! So awesome!! Anyhow, here is my question… instead of the waxes, could one just leave them out and have a not as “balmy” product and more of a liquid-ish product? I am thinking, similar to Burt’s Bees orange face cleansing “lotion”. I think this recipe will fit the bill, it’s just hardened a bit more with the waxes in there, but I have never used them. Or could one use a bit of beeswax instead? Or would that harden it TOO much? I have only made lotions, sunscreens, etc with the butters and sheas, not used waxes much…
Thanks in advance….. 🙂 Keep up the fabulous work!!!
PS The Egyptian Magic balm heals amazingly well….. my daughter cut herself on a small nail this weekend, and the balm under a bandage had “the edges sealed right back together!”(her words – she’s 6) over night. Magical honey…. 🙂
You can definitely leave the wax out, but be prepared for a very runny final product 🙂 I wouldn’t use beeswax, I’ve found it doesn’t wash off well.
Hi Mary! Thank you so much for all these beautiful recipes. I’ve made a creamy clay cleansing balm and I love it! I would like to try this recipe as well. Could I use stearic acid instead of waxes?
Thank you
You should be able to, though I’d hold off on the essential oils until you know you won’t want to re-melt it to adjust the texture 🙂
OK, so I just read the FAQ section again, a bit more closely and I think I have my answer there! Sorry! I read it before but I guess my brain wasn’t fully engaged! or I didn’t have my question fully clarified in my mind! No need for a reply from you… save your time for more creations!
Truly, thanks ever ever so much and keep it coming!!!!
🙂
No worries!
Hi Marie,
Lovely recipe! Is it possible to swap both waxes for beeswax? And if so, how much?
Thanks for sharing!
Definitely not 🙂 Check out this FAQ post for more detail.
Definitely not? As in you can’t swap the wax for beeswax? Because that article says you can but the texture will be different.
I also looked up stuff online and people have said that you need to double the amount of beeswax when substituting it for candelilla wax. I did this and it turned out almost like lip balm :/ I added 2 tbsp of the oil blend I made and 1 tsp of honey and it was nice and creamy but still left a waxy coating on my skin.
Does candelilla wax wash off easier than beeswax? Is this why it shouldn’t be substituted for candelilla wax in this recipe?
In this case it’s a two-fold “not recommended”. For the orange wax, because it’s a completely different consistency and they do totally different things. For the beeswax, it’s two things—beeswax is stickier, and harder to wash off, AND you’d need to use more of it, so you’d end up with a larger amount of a harder-to-wash-off ingredient in your balm. My experience in putting beeswax in things designed to be washed off is icky, sticky skin :/
This is great! Even with subbing capuacu for mango and sea buckthorn for orange wax.
Wonderful! Enjoy 🙂
Sounds and looks delish! I am not familiar with orange wax. Is it an oil or a wax?
It is kind of both… oil consistency, wax name. Sort of like jojoba.
Thank you sooooo very much Marie. I cannot say enough on how I appreciate you working on this and sharing your recipe. I must say I only used the balm initially to take my makeup off but the smell is so addictive I now use it to tame flyaways and apply it to dry ends in my hair. I can’t wait to make it (and save a fortune too 🙂 ). There is only one prob, I have searched high and low here in Australia but I cannot find orange wax to buy. Any suggestions on this front Marie – where to purchase or perhaps an alternative? Again, many, many thanks Marie. Keep up the great work. We all love and appreciate what you do. Keep Well. Regards, Sonja
Thanks, Sonja! I wrote about some wax sub suggestions here 🙂
Thanks Marie. I finally found the orange wax through a reputable supplier on Etsy who posts to Australia. It arrived yesterday and now I can’t wait for the weekend to make my first batch.
Highest Regards,
Sonja
Fantastic! Enjoy that juicy orangey goodness 🙂
Could you paste the link to where you bought the orange wax and the jar + lid? I really like both. Is it from Saffire Blue? Thanks!
Both are from NDA 🙂
Is is the blue glass or the plastic blue one?
I used glass, but remember you can use anything you like 😛
And as compared to Stark, it is SOY FREE!! Yay!
🙂
Hey there Marie!
I love your blog! So very helpful. I enjoy trying all the things you put up & they’re all just lovely! I don’t know how you find the time to do all that, but I’m grateful to learn thru you! 🙂 I have a question about your “Brightlighter.” I made it & it is wonderful, but I was wondering if I made it right? Mine seems to be a “pinky-er” color, which your recipe kinda sounded like it should be, but the pics on your blog look more like a “concealer” color. Is that just the way it comes across the computer with a photo? or should it actually be more of a “fleshy” color?
Mine is ever-so-slightly pink 🙂 Also, never be afraid to post a comment on an older (and more relevant) post—they all end up in the same dump of comments for me to answer and it’s far more likely my answer will help someone else if it’s associated with the recipe it’s about 🙂
Just a suggestion. I always use cleansing balm or cleansing oils on a dry face. If you wet it first, the oils can’t penetrate because no emulsifier is present. So massage it into a dry face, steam by placing a hot face cloth over your face a few times and then removw with your face cloth.
If water rinseable is important. One could simply add an emulsifier like alkyl benzoate.
The balm looks delish. I will have to try it.
I’ve found the soy lecithin helps with the emulsifying, but you could definitely add a few grams of emulsifying wax to increase the effect. Thanks, Sarah!
How would you incorporate emulsifying wax into the recipe or any of your balms?
Just melt some in with the oil phase since it’s oil soluble.
Thank you Marie! I made this right away. I’ve long been curious about the Stark balm, but couldn’t rationalize buying it at that price. This is great! I love it! I took your advice on subbing for the orange wax and it worked great.
I did find that it got grainy after a few days as many of my Shea Butter concoctions do. I use it and love it anyway, but I was wondering if you have any tips for avoiding the graininess? I tried cooling it in the fridge. I’ve tried both ways in the past and seem to have the same result. Thank you!!
Shea Butter and Mango Butter are a little temperamental to work with, they don’t like high temperatures. I would avoid heating in a microwave and heat on a double boiler until it is mostly melted. The ambient heat and a bit of stirring will get it the rest of the way and help with the grainy feeling.
In my experience this doesn’t really help—I make pretty much everything in a water bath and still end up with grainy lip balms on occasion. I have some links on graininess in the FAQ, but there doesn’t seem to be too much of a consensus on how to prevent it :/
I’ve got some links on graininess in the FAQ 🙂
🙂
I’m finding it hard to find a uk supplier that sells orange wax, can i substitute orange wax for lemon wax? And if so, would the grapefruit essential oil compliment it?
If lemon wax is a relatively thin liquid that smells like lemon, then yes. And I’ve never found a citrus EO that didn’t go with another citrus EO 🙂
Oh, i thought the orange wax was similar product to bees wax but with s lemon aroma. What type of product is it? Or where do you get it from? so i can look it up.
Regards,
Tonje
It’s from New Directions Aromatics—link in the big box above the comments 🙂
That looks lovely. I have been intending to make a cleansing balm for a friend for ages, and thought camellia oil would be a good one to try. Will have to give it a try. Love your blog!
Thanks, Fiona! Enjoy 🙂
What can you substitute for the soy lecithin?
Love your blog 🙂
Thank you!
Here you can just leave it out as I know of no real subs… you could try adding an equal number of grams of emulsifying wax to the formula, but I haven’t tried that so I can really only speculate on how that would work :/ It likely won’t hurt, though!
Hi Marie! How do you come up with these recipes? Is it from years of experience and knowing which ingredients to put together? Do you use any inspiration such as Lush products or Body shop products? That’s what I do 🙂 I go into those places, look at ingredients, check out reviews online then try to dupe them, minus questionable ingredients of course…
You’re so good! Wish I had that talent!
Hi Annie! It’s a variety of things. Sometimes I’m solving a problem. Sometimes I take inspiration from/dupe a commercially available product. Sometimes I’m experimenting. Sometimes I want to feature a new ingredient. It’s a lot of things! But yes, having 4+ years of experience with everything certainly helps 🙂
Thanks Marie!
NDA finally got orange wax back in stock! I’m going to try this recipe but add some self emulsifying wax… Can’t wait!!
Woohoo! Enjoy 🙂
So I made this awesomeness and have been using it every night for the past 5 nights. First off, I now look forward to each bedtime because I simply cannot wait to use this balm!
First night I wet my face and added a bit of water to the pea-sized balm I used. I didn’t like that method. It just felt filmy on my face, my skin didn’t absorb it much and it felt harder to rinse off/get off.
Instead, I just take a bit of balm and massage it into my dry face (feels soooo good), wait a minute or two then wipe my face off with a nice hot face cloth. I’m in love!!! I then use my regular toner followed by my oil serum.
I followed your recipe and subbed some oils and added soy butter and self emulsifying wax. I also added lemon EO cause i want the balm to hopefully get rid of some blemishes.
Virgin coconut oil 10g
Soy butter 7g
Shea butter 7g
Cocoa butter 5g
Mango seed butter 5g
Candelilla wax 8g
Camellia seed oil 7g
Sweet almond oil 5g
Self emulsifying wax 3g
Orange Peel Wax 3g
Vitamin E 2g
Soy lecithin 5g
Rosemary antioxidant 1g
Pink Grapefruit EO 15 drops
Lemon Sicily EO 7 drops
THANK YOU so much, Marie!!!
Very cool! Thanks so much for sharing, Annie!
Thank you for this recipe.
I just wonder about the texture and how practical is it to use. Is it soft and some kind of creamy or hard so you need to rub it a few time from the container to collect some product?
Enjoy your day!
David
It’s somewhat hard but it gets creamy when it’s rubbed onto the face. i really REALLY love this balm!
😀
I’ve found I can scoop up a small amount of it fairly easily, and it melts quite readily on contact with the skin.
Hi Marie!
Just want to report that I’ve been using this religiously for over a month and a half now and my face has never looked better :). Love love love this so much!!!
That’s so fantastic! I’ll definitely be developing some similar recipes in the future, I’ve been enjoying this as well 🙂
I’ve searched your website and cannot figure out what kind of soy lecithin I need for this recipe. I’ve noticed no one else is having this problem so the answer is probably staring me in the face. What I am finding on Amazon is for baking. It seems to come in powders and liquids. Thank you in advance
Hi Carrie! I used the liquid stuff, and from my reading that’s the easiest stuff to use—the granules are apparently very difficult to dissolve and work with 🙂
Hi Marie, I’m confused about the soy lecithin. I have a friend who would like to try this but won’t as she has a problem with soy. I see one person wrote in to say this recipe was soy free (?????) You can see my confusion. Does soy lecithin contain soy ? Puzzled. What role does it play as I notice you say it really doesn’t have a substitute. Thanks
Yes, soy lecithin contains soy—it’s made from soy! I think the original had a bunch of soybean oil in it as well, so perhaps that is what the person was looking at? They obviously missed the “soy lecithin” line haha. In any event, you can use sunflower lecithin instead 🙂 Lecithin is an emulsifier (helps make this a cleansing balm, not just body butter) and helps hydrate the skin.
I do not have candelilla wax, can I sub stearic acid or cetyl alcohol (both are thickening agents)If so, what percentage should I use?
Yes, but I haven’t tried it so I’m not really sure on amounts or how it would impact the final product. I would likely pick stearic acid out of the two as it is stronger, so closer to wax. Perhaps try that at 1.5x the amount of wax called for? Report back if you do!
Hi Marie! My last comment for today – last week I made this balm, and this is just as great as any in my collection of cleansers (which includes eve lom, niod sanskrit saponins, Aurelia miracle and Tata Harper regenerating cleanser.
(Yeah I know I splashed out… but that was BEFORE I found your site. I will never again spend money on ready made skincare 🙂 )
A few questions.
1. Could you recommend another thickener to candellila wax (I would prefer to avoid wax completely, maybe replace with more cocoa?) This wax feels too heavy and hard to wash off.
2. Any experience with soap nuts? Deciem guys use it in sanskri saponins, and I wonder if it is diy-able
3. Hyaluronic acid based recipes are easy (I mixed one yesterday based on point of interest recipe). IT would be great to have your magic applied to this fantastic ingredient!
Thank you!
You’ve been crazy busy! I definitely appreciate your favorable comparison of my stuff to those super posh brands 😀 For a thickener, look at stearic acid or cetyl alcohol. I’m afraid I haven’t worked with either soap nuts of hyaluronic acid; soap nuts simply because I’ve never bought them and am more than busy enough with my current (terrifyingly large) ingredients cupboard, and hyaluronic acid because I’ve yet to find it in Canada. If you have a source, please share it!
Well, thanks to your blog I now own a ridiculous collection of ingredients and more are coming next week 🙂
I got Hyaluronic Acid of various weights here in Germany at Dragonspice. Point of Interest referred to Lotion Crafter in the US. Thing is ALL serums with this ingredients are ridiculously high priced. Yet, it feels lovely, oil-free, but hydrates very well. Too bad you can’t really mix in any eos because of pure water base.
I’ve had my eye on Lotion Crafter for ages… the cost of cross-border shipping is appalling, though :/ It pretty much doubles the cost of what I want to order, and that’s just the fees Lotion Crafter charges; if the Canadian government charges and duty, it’ll be even more 🙁 So… I wait haha.
Hi, first timer here. Is there any way to make this balm in a way where it stays solid in the jar at room temp? Thanks.
Hey Melanie! This very definitely stays solid at room temperature unless you live on the sun 🙂