Lip Makeup Recipes

Make your own lipstick, lip stain, and tinted lip balms in your favourite colours without a trip to the cosmetics counter.

What do we want in makeup?

Adhesion? Slip? Opacity? A quick overview on the traits we want in our makeup and why.

DIY Cosmetic Ingredients You'll Need

The ingredients list for homemade cosmetics is a bit different than for most other homemade body products—here’s my overview and shopping list.

Help, I made a mess!

My best tips for cleaning up your DIY messes 🙂

Sheer Satin Cheek & Lip Tint

This punchy red liquid cheek and lip tint has become a fast favourite of mine. On first glance it’s a thin, vibrant red liquid. It’s less red than you expect on application, and the slip is divine; lightweight and satiny, with a finish that is unexpectedly rich...

Creamy Stick Lip Tints

When it comes to makeup I actually wear on a regular basis I find I tend towards subtle, easy-to-apply stuff (read: stuff that goes on easily and lightly enough that it disguises my amateurish makeup application skills). These lip tints were born of my initial...

Basic Moldable Lipstick Base

When I got my awesome little TKB Trading Lipstick Mold one of the first things I wanted to investigate was the compatibility of the lipstick recipes in my book with the mold. The compatibility was resoundingly… not. Efforts to use the lipstick bases from my book...

Making Lipstick in a Lipstick Mold!

I'm often asked about making stick lipsticks, and turning the lipsticks from Make it Up into stick lipsticks, so I was super excited when TKB Trading got in touch and asked if I wanted to try their new (inexpensive!) lipstick mould. I've definitely looked at lipstick...

Fireworks Lip Gloss

I sometimes wonder if I'll ever outgrow glitter. I don't particularly want to, but I also didn't want to realize the special effects in some of my favourite childhood movies are painfully bad. Sometimes these things just happen. One of my strongest glitter memories is...

Rose Gold Lip Gloss

Ok, so I may be a touch late to the party on this one, but isn't rose gold the prettiest?! In the past I've shied away from pink. Not for me, I thought—too... pink 😜 This stance has softened over the last few years and I now find that rose gold has nestled into a...

Tinted Coal Lip Balm

I thought I'd mix things up a bit with this seasonal lip balm and bring my Lumps of Coal holiday theme to the realm of lip balms. And I love it. It definitely seemed a bit odd when I jotted down the idea a few weeks ago, with aims of avoiding creating something dark...

Winter Wonderland Lip Gloss

This soft, sparkly Winter Wonderland lip gloss has a lovely champagne hue in the tube, but goes on sheer with a hit of shimmer and a hint of sparkle. It's also a bit thicker than some of my previous lip glosses, as per some reader requests, meaning it sticks around...

Pumpkin Shimmer Lip Gloss

It's still two days until it's "technically" autumn, but Calgary clearly missed that memo—our trees have been turning since late August. Along with coarsely knit knee socks, my scarf collection, and this awesome jacket that I bought on sale in May and haven't had a...

Black Plum Lipstick

A recent (and rare) trip to the mall informed me that berry toned lips are in (as are some pretty poppin' eyes, if Sephora is to be trusted). I'd been thinking it was high time to blend up some new lipstick shades for a while, and said mall visit proved to be just the...

Red Velvet Lip Balm

Red Velvet cake is one of those things people can get quite particular about, and with its striking red colour and bright white frosting, it’s hard to blame them. This red velvet lip balm is inspired by this decadent dessert. This indulgent, glossy lip balm uses a...

Royal Hibiscus Lip Tint

This pretty, ruddy russet-toned lip tint glides on with a pop of mint and a hint of golden shimmer. Everything comes together quickly and easily, leaving you with a fistful of little gifts for friends and family in no time. The colour comes from an infusion of...

Ruby Lip Tint

This pretty ruby lip tint gets its ruby colour pop from an infusion of alkanet root—Batschia canescens. Native to the Mediterranean, it produces bright blue flowers and dark red roots that have been used as a dye for hundreds of years. Alkanet powder itself is pretty...

Coral Lip Stain

I'm really excited to finally have a not-deep-pink option for those of you who aren't suited to pure carmine and my Snow White Lip Stain. This coral hued lip stain delivers a potent punch of orange-tinted red that sticks around for hours, and makes a good cheek stain...

Sun Kissed Lip Balm

This fun bronze-tinted shimmery sun kissed lip balm is perfect for summer. With a fantastic cocoa peppermint scent, great glide, and some shimmer and shine, I'm loving having this in my purse this summer. A base of beeswax, cocoa butter, coconut oil, and sweet almond...

Beetroot Lip Gloss

Beetroot lip stain seemed like a really great idea. Foolproof, even. I mean, if it can make your poo red long after it’s been digested, surely it can perform the simple trick of reddening your lips, right? Wrong. It had absolutely no interest in reddening anything as...

Silver Shimmer Lip Balm

As much as I generally detest winter, I will concede that it can be very pretty. My favourite winter sight is that of trees coated in sparkling ice crystals—it's as if the entire world has been coated in diamond dust. That's what this silver shimmer lip balm makes me...

Snow White Lip Gloss

I thought I'd mark Valentine's Day with this popping pink lip gloss. It gets its bright colour from carmine (just like my lip stain), and though it's almost shockingly pink in the tube, it goes on with just a slight pinkish tint and a bit of shine. A wee hint of...

Rosehip Lip Gloss

I was rather sad when my rosehip lip stain totally failed to do much of anything. It had so much promise! The name sounded so nice! The powder was so, so very pink! And I now had a bag of rosehip powder that I now had no other use for… at least the last problem could...

Peppermint Sugar Lip Scrub Stick

In the winter my lips get unbearably dry. Arrrgh. It's infuriating. Calgary is practically a desert for most of the year, but in the winter I swear we tip into negative humidity. Things don't mold here because it's like living in a dehydrator. Good for line drying...

Gingerbread Lip Balm

I will happily confess that I have a bit of a thing for gingerbread. It’s delicious, and it smells fantastic. It is also a beautiful, deep colour that seems to be to hearken to days gone by, where rye bread, dark liquor, and unrefined foods abounded. A bit overly...

Cranberry Lip Balm

Every year around this time The Body Shop releases their seasonal line of cranberry inspired body products. I say "inspired" because they don't seem to have much in common with the little red berry other than the colour. I used to love the lip gloss, but once I...

Fall Leaves Lipstick

I am beginning to sympathize with the people who name things like paint and lipstick for a living. There are infinitely more colours than I can adequately and creatively name without straying into bizarre nail polish brand territory (you will know I'm there when I...

Red Velvet Lipstick

When I first published my Red Rose Lipstick, I had a few requests for something that wasn't quite as strong. This is what I came up with. It's fairly simple, following the same principle, and can be made with a couple different secondary clays. It's a lighter, more...

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