Today we’re making a lovely Lavender Vanilla Vegan Lip Balm that’s brilliant for spring. With a light-but-creamy consistency and a bright, sweet essential oil blend it’s just the thing to shake up your lip balm routine as we move towards warmer days.
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The key ingredient in this lip balm is the stearic acid, which not only functions as a thickener along with the carnauba wax, but also works to counter the super-firm-glassy thickening style of carnauba wax. Stearic acid thickens products in a wonderfully rich, creamy way—something I find is often missing in vegan lip balms. As soon as I started experimenting with stearic acid I knew I’d have to play with it in vegan lip balms, and this is another foray into that territory.
After our thickeners/hardeners I’ve included some slippy coconut oil, some brittle tucuma butter, some glossy castor oil, and some beautifully emollient sweet almond oil. These not-wax things soften the wax/stearic acid blend to a useable consistency so our lip balm isn’t just a rock-hard skiddy brick—definitely a good thing! They also bring a bit of gloss and shine to the balm, which I like.
Our essential oil blend stars calming lavender, rich vanilla-like benzoin (yes, it really does smell like vanilla!), and bright cardamom. I tried a variation on the essential oil blend using litsea cubeba essential oil instead of cardamom, and that worked really nicely as well. Both cardamom are bright, light notes that work beautifully. I prefer the cardamom, but if you are more of a citrus person I think you’ll love the litsea cubeba variation.
The making is nice and simple—melt the heated stuff, stir in the cool down stuff, pour into tubes, et voila. Lip balm! I think this is a great one for spring 🙂
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Lavender Vanilla Vegan Lip Balm
Heated phase
7.5g | 25% stearic acid (USA / Canada / UK)
6.6g | 22% refined coconut oil (USA / Canada)
4.5g | 15% tucuma butter
5.7g | 19% sweet almond oil (USA / Canada)
3g | 10% castor oil (USA / Canada)
2.4g | 8% carnauba waxCool down phase
0.15g | 0.5%Â Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)
0.06g | 0.2% lavender essential oil
0.06g | 0.2% benzoin resinoid
0.03g | 0.1% cardamom essential oilPrepare a water bath by bringing about 3cm/1″ of water to a bare simmer over low to medium-low heat in a small saucepan.
Weigh the heated phase ingredients into a small heat-resistant glass measuring cup. Place the measuring cup in your prepared water bath to melt everything through.
While the heated phase is melting, weigh out the cool down phase into a separate small dish.
After about 20–30 minutes everything should be completely melted through. Remove the water bath from the heat, remove the measuring cup from the water bath, and dry it off with a dish towel. Add the cool down phase and stir with a flexible silicone spatula to incorporate.
Pour the liquid lip balm into tubes or tins and leave to set up before capping & labelling. That’s it!
Shelf Life & Storage
Because this lip balm is 100% oil based, it does not require a broad-spectrum preservative (broad spectrum preservatives ward off microbial growth, and microbes require water to live—no water, no microbes!). Kept reasonably cool and dry, it should last at least a year before any of the oils go rancid. If you notice it starts to smell like old nuts or crayons, that’s a sign that the oils have begun to oxidize; chuck it out and make a fresh batch if that happens.
Substitutions
As always, be aware that making substitutions will change the final product. While these swaps won’t break the recipe, you will get a different final product than I did.
- As I’ve provided this recipe in percentages as well as grams you can easily calculate it to any size using a simple spreadsheet as I’ve explained in this post. As written in grams this recipe will make 30g (approximately six standard tubes).
- To learn more about the ingredients used in this recipe, including why they’re included and what you can substitute them with, please visit the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia. It doesn’t have everything in it yet, but there’s lots of good information there! If I have not given a specific substitution suggestion in this list please look up the ingredient in the encyclopedia before asking.
- Do not substitute the stearic acid.
- You can use virgin or refined coconut oil, or use babassu oil instead.
- You could replace the tucuma butter with cocoa butter; remember that scented cocoa butter will impact the scent of the end product.
- You can substitute another lightweight oil like grapeseed or sunflower seed for the sweet almond oil
- I don’t recommend swapping out the castor oil, but if you have to just use more of whatever other liquid oil you’re already using
- You can use candelilla wax instead of carnauba wax
- You can use a different blend of essential oils
Looking to sub almond oil with avocado oil. Are the properties the same and how do you think this would work? Thanks Marie
Hi Carolyn!
Avocado oil vs Almond oil. In this formula, swapping the almond oil for avocado oil would work as they are both liquids, but their properties are quite different. It would all depend on what you’d like your final product to feel like and how you’d like to it act. Personally, I find avocado oil is too heavy in lip products and would change the final colour of your product to green!
Love the formula – especially the essential oil blend. I had a couple questions. 1) Is it easy to incorporate the benzoin resinoid into the oil phase? Or is it like vanilla oleoresin which forms little bubbles instead of fully dissolving? 2) Does this lip balm become grainy after a while? I’ve had trouble keeping my lip balms stable. They always get grainy after about a month. The only thing that fixed this was using cetyl esters as part of the thickener portion. I have some cera bellina, which I believe would also prevent the fatty acids from crystallizing. What do you think?
Thanks! Peace and Blessings!!
Good afternoon George!
Ok let’s tackle this head on!
1) Yup! Super easy! If you’ve the super liquidy benzoin just add it in and stir. If you’ve got the wickedly thick resin, gently warm it up in a double boiler then add it in. Just stir and you’re golden!
2) Grainy lip balms and how to prevent it. Following this method will prevent those wretched crystals from forming in any butter heavy anhydrous product!
Don’t forget to share your stash at #humblebeeandme on Instagram!
Hey! Love your blogs and videos! But is stearin acid safe for use on the lips? I used it at a 30% ratio in my lip balm and they kind of burn. I’ve done some research on this but cannot seem to find an answer.
I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t be. Cocoa butter is about 34% stearic acid & shea butter is 20–50%, so 30% stearic acid in this is roughly the same as applying straight cocoa or shea butter 🙂 I would examine other elements of the formulation for irritation.
I’m assuming you are asking about steariC acid though, not steariN acid as you have typed. I’ve never worked with steariN acid.
Please do a makeup removal balm
If you look through Marie’s recipes. She has a number of cleansing balms…that’s all a makeup removing balm is.
I just made your dry shampoo spray, and I think I’ll me making lip balm next! Which one is your favourite so far?
Hmmm, so many choices! I love this one for every day, this one for suuuuuper dry lips, and this one for something special 🙂 Happy making!
Hello – what is the steric acid for? isn’t this an emulsifier ? no water in this mix. just wondering the reason for the use is? properties?
Hey! Have you read the blog post? This is covered in the second paragraph 🙂
opps thank you, giving it a go with steric acid a new one for me. lovely looking inspired product thank you.
Hi Nicola!
Great that it’s sorted! Have you thought about posting pictures on #humblebeeandme on Instagram?
Can I substitute beeswax for the carnauba wax? Curious how it works with stearin acid. Also would mango butter work as a substitute for the butter?
Vicky, no need for stearic acid then. Marie has very nice lip balm recipes with beeswax. I would make one on them instead of changing the ke element of this balm.
I agree with Ann—I’d make one of my many formulas that use beeswax rather than try to reverse engineer this formula to accommodate it 🙂 I’d recommend looking up the encyclopedia posts on cocoa and mango butters to learn how they’re different and why I don’t really recommend that swap 🙂
This might be a bit of a strange question because lip balms have so much oil- but do you know if there’s anything I could try and add to my lip balms to make them less glossy? Sometimes I want my lips to just look a bit more matte and normal but I still want to smear lip balm all over them! 🙂
You could try the inclusion of something like cornstarch, but my all-time-fave non-glossy lip balm is this one 🙂
Please please help with this question/problem. I made this recipe to spec, let them dry for 24 hours and when I twisted them to push the balm up, the sides stuck to the walls of the tube and only the middle rose up. I was horrified as these were supposed to be gifts!
I did nothing unusual, the temp in The house is about 70 (I live in New England, US) so why could this have happened? I usually do not use stearic acid or carnival wax so these ingredients were new to me.
Any ideas, help or suggestions ASSP would be very much appreciated!
Thank you
Tanja
Strange indeed! I’d try putting one in the fridge and seeing if that helps; if so, the balm is too soft (your scale could possibly be off?). Otherwise, see about trying a different tube—I’ve had some lip balm tubes that just… stunk :/
I really want to make this vegan lip balm, but the only brittle butter I have is cocoa butter, which is especially delicious smelling. I feel this would over power the floral scent. Can I substitute anything else, like combinations of cetyl or cetearyl alcohol or more stearic acid? Or is there another recipe I can modify? Thanks.
You’d have to do your own experiments for a swap that substantial 🙂 You might also like this formula. Happy making!
So I substituted some cetearyl alcohol for the Tucuma butter. After a little experimentation 13% cetearyl alcohol with the rest being made up by my liquid oil gave a great creamy consistency. The only thing that was weird was that the balm went on great and felt moisturizing, but after a little while my lips felt drier (but didn’t look drier). It almost felt like what it feels like when you bite into a not quite ripe persimmon. If that makes any sense. Is this because of the substitution?
How interesting! I’m not sure why you’re getting what sounds like an astringent feel. Both tucuma butter and cetearyl alcohol don’t have the same creamy/rich feel as stearic acid, so that could definitely be contributing, but I’m not sure I’d describe that sensation difference the same way you have 🙂 Happy making!
I made this on May 20th and has been thoroughly enjoying it! I just love the creamy texture of this. It feels divine! I also noticed how it doesn’t have that dent that beeswax lip balms have when they cool down, which is pretty cool too
I’m so thrilled you’re enjoying it! Thanks for DIYing with me, and happy making 🙂
Hi would this recipe be regarded as 100% natural. Is stearic acid natural
Please give this a read 🙂 Also, please look up the ingredients in the Humblebee & Me DIY Encyclopedia (https://www.humblebeeandme.com/diy-encyclopedia/) to learn more!
Hi would this be ok to put in jars instead of tubes. I will be using cocoa butter instead of Tucuma butter and candelila wax instead of carnuba.
Thanks
I recommend making a small batch and seeing if you think it will work in jars instead of tubes, especially since you are making changes 🙂
Hi. I want to make this baml, but I only have lavender ess oil, can I leave the other 2 oils out or do I need to add their value to sometimes else in the recipe?
Yup! Please read this FAQ 🙂
I’ve made this, love its creaminess and smells so good! I’m goin go to make this more fot Christmas present to my friends. Thank you.
I’m so glad you are enjoying this! Thanks for DIYing with me, and happy making 🙂
Probably really late, but is it possible to use fractionated coconut oil instead to replace the refined coconut oil or virgin coconut oil in any recipe?
Should I heat the lip balm base to 156 to ensure the stearin acid melts to avoid any granules or is that not necessary?
I tried this recipe and I love the result. Thank you so much for sharing the recipe and making the process sound so simple.