After returning from a week in Toronto earlier this month my lips were a mess. Toronto is wonderfully humid whilst Calgary is… not… and my lips had been spoilt with all that decadent, skin-loving humidity. The return to Calgary saw my lips pitching a very uncomfortable hissy fit. Thankfully, I’d whipped up a batch of this creamy, occlusive, tinted lip balm before leaving. I’ve been loving softer, thicker lip balms lately—the type that you can really build up if need be. I’ve been trying such a lip balm from La Roche-Posay and figured I should try making one of my own (plus a tint because… 😍), and here we are!
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For thickeners I turned to a blend of cera bellina and stearic acid. Cera bellina is a modified beeswax that creates oil gels, and it really gives a wonderful rich gel backbone to this lip balm. Some added stearic acid adds some creamy occlusiveness that is a huge part of what makes this lip balm great. Do not swap or substitute either ingredient.
The rose part comes from the inclusion of some soft, fragrant rose wax. Despite having “wax” in the name, rose wax feels more like mango butter on the skin—it really doesn’t offer much of anything in the way of thickening. If you’re looking for an alternative, check the big list of suggested substitutions below the recipe.
The bulk of the balm is sweet almond oil, though you could easily use a different light to mid weight liquid oil in its place. Some vitamin E helps delay the onset of rancidity, and a wee touch of lemon essential oil brings a citrussy note. Lemon essential oil is not photosensitizing below 2%, so at 0.25% we are well within the safe range. You could also use litsea cubeba in its place.
For colour I’ve added some liquid carmine dye; it’s carmine that has been pre-distributed in castor oil, making it super easy to incorporate in your projects as you don’t have to worry about colour blooms or spend a lot of time blending in small particles of pigments (check the substitutions list if you only have the powdered stuff). You could use a red lake dye for a similarly true pink-red tint if you’re carmine-shy, or a bid of red iron oxide if you don’t mind the loss of the true red hue. I made two versions; a 1% carmine and a 5% carmine. It’s pretty easy to tell which is which in the photos! The video also has a shot of me swatching each so you can see the colour payoff for the different concentrations. I’ve provided guidelines on making both versions below. For a third tinting alternative you could use a pinkish mica—you won’t get a strong tint on the skin, but you will get some shimmer!
Since this is a lip thing we’ll be making just 20g (~1/3oz). 20g is still a lot of lip product (it’s equivalent to just over four tubes of lip balm) so I’d really encourage you not to scale up the recipe until you’re sure you love it. Since it’s such a small batch is also comes together pretty quickly—melting happens quickly, and it cools down in just four minutes. Once it’s cool you’ve got a bit of stirring to do, and then all that’s left is transferring it to your tubes with a syringe. Voila—Lemon Rose Lip Balm!
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Lemon Rose Lip Balm
Heated phase
3g | 15% cera bellina (USA / Canada)
2g | 10% stearic acid (USA / Canada / UK)
1g | 5% rose wax
12.85g | 64.25% sweet almond oil (USA / Canada)Cool down phase
0.1g | 0.5% Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)
0.05g | 0.25% lemon essential oil
1g | 5% liquid carmine dyePrepare a water bath by bringing about 1cm/0.3″ of water to a bare simmer over low to medium-low heat in a wide, flat-bottomed sauté pan.
Weigh the cera bellina, stearic acid, rose wax, and sweet almond oil into a glass prep cup. Place the cup in your prepared water bath to melt everything through.
Once melted, stir the mixture occasionally as it cools; I left it for two minutes, stirred, left it for another two minutes, and stirred again and that was it for cooling and thickening!
Add the cool down ingredients, and stir to combine. I find a flexible silicone spatula to be fantastic for this job!
At this point you’re ready to transfer the mixture to your containers; I recommend a syringe to transfer it into some squeezy lip gloss tubes (USA / Canada). Check out the video to see this in action! Due to the consistency of this product I don’t recommend a hard screw-up lip balm tube or a wand lip gloss tube. A pot would be ok, but certainly not ideal, especially if you decide to make the 5% carmine version as you’ll end up with a pink finger.
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 20g.
- Do not substitute out the cera bellina or stearic acid
- You can substitute another lightweight oil like safflower oil, grapeseed, or sunflower seed for the sweet almond oil
- If you don’t have rose wax, use 69.24% sweet almond oil and 0.01% rose absolute instead
- If you want to make a less pigmented version, use 68.25% sweet almond oil and 1% liquid carmine dye instead
- If you don’t have the liquid carmine dye, try using 70% the amount of powdered carmine and 30% castor oil in its place, taking care to blend thoroughly
Hi Marie! Looks lovely, as always. I have a question, possibly more appropriate for the intoxicating rose salve, but that’s the only other thing I made with cera bellina of yours. I had no problem at first but the last two batches I made had little crystals scattered through the batch. The crystals melt immediately when I spread the salve.
Is this something that cera bellina does sometimes or is it more likely that it’s specific to the other ingredients? And if it’s the cera, what should I pay attention to so as to avoid crunchy lip balm, which frankly sounds much more problematic than hand salve with rough bits that dissolve fast
Again, thanks for all you do. Love you attention to detail.
Hmmm, I’m really not sure. When I search for “cera bellina crystallization” it returns many variations on this sentence from a variety of suppliers: “Besides the consistency regulating properties of beeswax, Cera Bellina has the remarkable capability of inhibiting crystallization in the oil phase and therefore enhancing stability by preventing the formation of granules.” I suppose out of everything else in the rose salve I’d suspect the mango butter, though I haven’t had issues with it ever going grainy, and from what you’ve said it isn’t graininess anyways. In any event—I’ve made many lip things with cera bellina and never had issues with crystallization, so I suppose I’d mostly advise ensuring nothing is being overheated, and perhaps try cooling it on the faster side while stirring (that helps with graniness, so who knows?). Hope that helps and happy making!
Hello all,
Cera bellina wasn’t available on Amazon, so I purchased it from Bramble Berry’s website. It’s $5.00 for 2 ounces; you can enter a quantity for additional ounces.
Just thought I would share 😉
Wonderful, thanks!
I made this as per recipe and I like the concept. It was fine yesterday but today it is too hard and thick and won’t squeeze out of my lip gloss squeeze tube from TKB Trading. It’s warm here so weather not a factor. I think I’ll have to adjust the ingredients ratios. I made two tubes and both are not squeezing out. In fact I had to be careful to not squeeze the orafice reducer out (that would be quite a mess lol) Sharing in case anyone else has the same issue. 🙂
How odd! I suspect it’s probably cooler here simply because it usually is, ha. Mine is definitely on the stiffer side, but does come out of the tube without popping the orifice reducer out. How does the balm feel in the tube—can you knead it around fairly easily?
Hi Marie! No it’s not too pliable in the tube. If I set it in the sun for a bit it’s fine again haha. Maybe my ingredients brands slightly different composition or?? Oh well, the fun of DIY! My only sort of not works as made product from you and I’m sure it’s not you or your recipe! 🙂 ♀️
If the sun fixes it then I suppose it’s cooler where you are! Perhaps it’ll be a good lip balm for keeping in the car haha 😛 I will definitely keep this in mind for DIYing similar things in the winter!
I was wondering where you purchased the syringe and what size it is?
It was a special buy from Lee Valley; I believe it holds about 75g 🙂
What is the little scale you’re using?
It’s a Jennings 200g 0.01g from Lotion Crafter 🙂
If I wanted to make stock liquid carmine dye from my powdered carmine dye, would I use the same proportions in your substitution guide? For example 70 g carmine and 30 g castor oil? I’m guessing not but thought I’d ask…
Hello Sherri!
With 1oz of carmine from TKB at $42.65 you’re not going to want to do that type of experimenting unless you have Batman’s bank account. Marie says to use 70% of the amount of the liquid for your powdered carmine. In the formula it calls for 1g of liquid carmine, so that would be .7g of powdered carmine and .3g of castor oil. You could definitely try making your own stock, but I wouldn’t start with a 100g (3.5oz) batch!
Is there a way to add some soy lecithin in here? I enjoy the softness of this balm but my lips are sooooo dry and they love lecithin!
Yeah, good call! You’ll likely have to do some tweaking, but I’d probably be reducing the almond oil and stearic acid to make room for it, removing more oil than stearic acid. Liquid lecithin and my lips love each other, too 😀 Happy making!
Is it possible to use another TKB trading lip liquid for this recipe in the case I wanted to make other colors? Or will it throw off the formula
Yup, that should work! Happy making 🙂
Hey Marie! I made this but I swapped the rose & lemon for tangerine and lime and it smells AMAZING! I also don’t currently have any carmine (or any colourant ) so I just subbed in more almond oil!
I also just wanna say thank you so much for making this kinda thing SO accessible!
YAY! I’m so thrilled you are enjoying it 🙂 Thanks for DIYing with me, and happy making!