The cocoa butter (USA / Canada) from New Directions Aromatics is easily the most fragrant cocoa butter (USA / Canada) I’ve ever worked with, and it is just divine. Its delicious, chocolately scent is strong enough to come out in concentrations as low as 15%, and I am just in love. That’s where this delicious naked lip balm comes in—it’s perfect if you’re fragrance sensitive, but between the warm, honey fragrance of the beeswax, the summery perfume of virgin coconut oil, and the delicious cocoa scent, this lip balm smells subtly (yet distinctly) delicious.
The use of coconut oil, which melts at 24°C (75°F), means this lip balm glides on smoothly and beautifully, even in chillier temperatures, while the almond oil conditions your lips. If you live somewhere quite hot, you might consider swapping the coconut oil for another soft oil than melts at a higher temperature (like unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada), which melts at 37°C [100°F]), but I’d really recommend trying it with coconut oil first because it smells amazing.
This lip balm has become a fast favourite with me for its delicious scent and simplicity, and I think you’ll love it as well.
Naked Lip Balm
10g | 0.35oz raw, honey-scented beeswax (USA / Canada)
12g | 0.42oz virgin coconut oil (make sure it smells like coconut!)
7g | 0.25oz raw cocoa butter (USA / Canada) (the more fragrant, the better)
20g | 0.71oz sweet almond oil (USA / Canada)
0.25g | 0.0088oz Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)Weigh the beeswax, coconut oil, cocoa butter (USA / Canada), sweet almond oil (USA / Canada), and Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada) out into a heat resistant glass measuring cup. Place the measuring cup in a pot of barely simmering water to melt the oils.
Stir everything together using a flexible silicone spatula. Pour the melted lip balm into ten or eleven lip balm tubes and let cool. I like to use these labels to label my projects.
Don’t have the carrier oils called for in the recipe? Read this for a guide on how to choose appropriate alternatives. In this recipe I’d really only recommend swapping out the sweet almond oil (USA / Canada) as the other three are integral to the delicious scent!
What a lovely recipe!
Thanks, Natalia—be sure to let me know if you try it 🙂
I have just ordered lip balm tubes from Amazon and I can’t wait to try this recipe! Thank you very much Marie for sharing all of your diy recipes with us! I love your website and will definitely purchase your book when it is published.
Thank you!
Hi!
Can you tell me what the shelf life is for this? I would love to make it for gifting, but want to be able to tell friends how long this will be okay to use. Also, I’m fairly new to making homemade cosmetics, can you suggest where to get the ingredients for this? Thanks so much!!!
As long as you don’t add water, it should last a long time. When you mix oils and butters you don’t need a preservative 😀
Very true—thanks, Silvia!
When you’re dealing with 100% oils all you really have to worry about is rancidity, and that usually takes a while to happen. Have you ever had a bottle of cooking oil go rancid on you? If so, you’ll know what to look for. If not, you’ll have an idea of how hard it is for oil to go rancid 😉
Could you suggest something in place of the almond oil? I have nut allergies and can use the coconut but not the almond oil. Thanks : )
I use sunflower oil , not almond oil. Maybe this might be an option for you.
Thanks Cindy, that should work great
A great option, thanks Cindy!
Any medium-absorbency-speed carrier oil will work—check my list here 😉
Where would I be able to find the tubes?
If you scroll down to “You may also like, just below this is where they state they purchase their products. You probably can use your search engine to find places.
Yup! Thanks, Mary 😉
I buy mine from New Directions Aromatics.
I didn’t realize you had posted where to get your ingredients. And thanks so much, Silvia, for your response.
🙂
are these measurements in metric ? what would be the non metric list of ingrediants?
Yes, Sharon, these measurements are metric. You can use an online converter to change these measurements into whatever non-metric units you like 🙂 Just make sure you’re using weight ounces, not fluid ounces.
I just tried this recipe and its so dreeaamy on the lips.. i just noticed one issue so far and its probably from execution on my part. How to avoid it from cracking when it cools? I noticed i little bit of cracks at the top after it cooled. Thanks
In case anyone wanted to know I purchased 5ml tubes and got 9 completed tubes with this recipe 🙂
Thanks and loving the blog.
Thanks, Dean! And a big thank you for reading & DIYing with me 🙂
I got 8 out of this recipe, and I skipped the vitamin E. Well I would have gotten 8, but I ran out at 5 tubes and had to dump the rest in a tin (thank goodness for impulse buys at New Directions, always useful). I only needed 4 for Christmas presents. Marie your recipes are really saving my butt this season!
Fantastic! I bet these will be a hit with your friends & family 🙂 I’m so thrilled to be part of your Christmas gifts!
How to convert your measurements from grams – I have ml and oz and tsp and tbsp….please help
Hey Mona! So, asking me to provide this recipe in fluid measurements (which is what ml, oz, tsp, and tbsp are) is like me asking you how many gallons or liters you are instead of lbs or kg… they don’t really translate. There are, of course, ways to find out, but you’d have to do it ingredient by ingredient. For a rough estimate, you can pretend 1g=1mL, but I can’t make any promises about the end result.
I really can’t recommend a scale enough 🙂 They’re about $10, and SO useful. I use my scales for baking, DIY, and soaping (you simply cannot soap without a scale). They also make clean up way easier (no spoons to clean) and help ensure consistent results.
Have fun!
I came upon your lovely site last week, ordered my supplies online from Saffire Blue and I am gearing up to make my first batch! Do you grate your beeswax? I bought the natural stuff and its quite firm and chunky. Thanks for the lovely recipes and the inspiration to DIY!!!
Thanks for reading, Jes 😀 I tend to shave bits off my beeswax with a sturdy chopping knife I don’t care about too much (mine was free as part of a grocery store promo thing). The smaller the bits, the faster they melt & the easier they are to measure. It’s a bit of a pain, but I’d much rather have beautiful all-natural honey scented beeswax than the weird bleached stuff that comes in pellets 😛
Enjoy your lip balm & thanks for DIYing with me!
Hello!
I just made this balm and it’s great! I don’t think my beeswax and cocoa butter are quite as fragrant as yours so it smells kind of blah. And this filled 11 of the 0.15 oz tubes I have.
I saw your carrier oil substitution list and was wondering if you’ve ever tried olive squalene? It’s so moisturizing and just amazing! I’m wondering if I could substitute it for some of the sweet almond oil? Thank you for this awesome recipe!
Exciting! The cocoa butter I’ve got from NDA is far and away the most fragrant cocoa butter I’ve ever come across, so I’m not surprised yours is less so if you got it elsewhere. For beeswax, I’d definitely recommend picking up a chunk at a local farmer’s market.
One of my suppliers (Saffire Blue) JUST started carrying squalene in the last month or so, and it’s definitely sitting in my cart, waiting for a few more reasons to place another order with them 🙂 I’ve heard oodles of good things about it, so I can’t wait to try it. If it’s liquid at room temperature, you can definitely swap out the sweet almond oil for it.
Thanks for DIYing with me!
It is liquid at room temperature! I’m going to try and swap it on my next batch 🙂 thank you again!
Fantastic! Let me know how it goes 🙂
I tried this today. Love it! I made two different batches: one using paprika infused coconut oil which added the natural colour I was looking for and the other batch I made using cinnamon infused coconut oil. Have yet to try it as it is still drying but it smells heavenly! The next batch I will try will be with beetroot infused coconut oil to get a deeper red colour. Thanks Marie for all your great recipes. Keep them coming!
OOoh, these variations sound just divine 🙂 Do be sure to strain the beetroot out of the oil, lol—I tried to make a lipstick with beetroot powder once and it was awful 😛 Thanks so much for reading!
Hi Marie! Because of your great farmer’s market suggestion (and without really any trouble) I found a Beekeeper! Hurrah! He is selling me a pound chunk for five bucks. !!!! The question is: if it’s got bee-leftovers (so to speak) in the wax, do I need to worry about that? He said it’s brownish-raising their brood and so forth in it. Am it supposed to be cleaned or will it be fine as is? Thanks very much. =)
Oooh, fantastic! How exciting 😀 And to get it raw as well? Extra exciting! I’d probably wait to see the wax to determine if you want to clean it—if it’s a solid block of beeswax that’s just a bit golden brownish, it should be fine.
Update on the beeswax: The Beekeeper said today that it is the honey comb. There is wax in it but do I cut it up?? I did find out how to clean wax but would be glad for any thoughts, suggestions you might have. Thanks!
Oooh, exciting! Honeycomb is rather delicious as well, if you like that sort of thing. I have a friend who eats it, wax and all, lol. Here’s a good looking guide on how to render it down. Let me know how it goes, I’ve never had the chance to try it myself!
Thanks very much for the very helpful link. =) ! It’s better than what I’d found..easy to follow and i’m excited to get started! Eat the honeycomb? hmm…lol..welllll….when it’s clean i will give it a try. =) Will let you know how it goes, and appreciate the help. The Beekeeper said his bees start their business in spring, and I can actually get better wax/combs then. I don’t mind the other to practice on though. Have a great day! =)
No worries 🙂 It’s it’s nice, fresh honeycomb you can eat it just as is. You don’t want to render it down and then try to eat it or you’ll just have a block of wax, which is great for DIY, not so great for snacks 😛 Honeycomb still has bits of honey in it, and then the wax is so thin that it’s sort of like honey gum—if you’re big on honey you’ll probably enjoy it. I have a girlfriend who looooves eating straight honeycomb, haha.
Won’t the comb have bits and pieces of things (leg? something else? gross, i know, but that’s what i’ve read) in it? =P I love honey, but hesitate because of that. I haven’t actually been delivered my comb/wax yet, so haven’t seen for myself. Thanks! =)
Mine was pleasantly leg free, lol, but my experience with honeycomb is pretty limited… keep me posted!
I will! lol. =)
How can this make four tubes? It sounds like it would make ten. Isn’t each tube around 5 grams, give or take, depending on oil weight?
Good catch, Emily! Looks like I had a brainfart when I typed this one up 🙂 I fixed it.
are any of these able to be used in tins? I’d like to reuse containers and they seem easier to clean out…
You definitely can—I just found I tired of tins for lip balm as I got to thinking about how icky it was to be rubbing my fingers on my lips all the time.
I would like to make a lip balm with emu oil in it. I was thinking I would use this recipe and substitute some emu oil for some of the other oil. I’m just not sure which oil to substitute. What do you think?
Check out this article for a guideline on making carrier oil substitutions 🙂
Hi Marie! I love your site!! My husband and I made lip balm, shampoo, soap and hand lotion from your site as Christmas gifts. It was so much fun! I am making lip balm for a friends wedding tog I’ve away as the wedding favors. Do you think i could use this naked recipe and add lemon essential oil to it? Is this a good basic lip balm recipe that I could then add essential oils to?
Thanks so much!!!
Hi Jamie! You definitely can dress up this recipe 🙂 Don’t use any of the citrus EOs, though—here’s why. I’d also recommend choosing EOs that blend nicely with the scents of cocoa and coconut, or using refined versions of those oils 🙂
Just made my 3rd batch of lip balms. The honey scented beeswax you recommended is amazing. Also this time I used roasted cocoa butter wafers from mountain rose herbs. It smells delicious and carried into the end product. I got 11 tubes as you wrote it so I have some for gifts!
Ooooh that sounds utterly divine! Thanks so much for sharing and for DIYing with me—happy making 🙂
I just made this tonight. I AM IN LOVE! It was so easy. My first DIY chapstick and I love it. I added peppermint and it’s delightful–I love how smooth it is on my lips. Soap is next!
Fantastic! I’m so glad you love it 🙂
Your blog is lovely! I was wondering if I could do this recipe with shea butter instead of cocoa butter. I purchased a large amount of shea butter and would like to try making some lip balm.
Thank you! 🙂
Hi Fiorella! Please read this for your answer 🙂
Thank you, Marie! You rock!
😀
Hello again!
If I wanted to increase the amount of beeswax, which oil would I need to sub out? I need a warmer weather option to send to a friend in Texas. Or would simply doing the shea option work? It’s running in the low 100’s F lately down south…
KM
I’d just increase the beeswax and leave everything else as is 🙂 Just go slowly, a little extra goes a long way!
Do you recommend I start at 1g extra? 2?
I’d be using this recipe, but at half the amount, so a total 25g batch.
KM
I’d start with 1g 🙂
I am completely new to this, I am only just reading up on making my own lip balm and I am finding your site very helpful and interesting, thanks so much. But once I order the ingredients, how do I even go about measuring out these in grams? I see you said to use a scale, but what do you put the items in, glass beakers (but those seem for liquid, not weight). I’m sorry to sound so clueless, but I am!
Hi Robin! Welcome to DIYing 🙂 I use a scale, and measure things out into 250mL/500mL glass Pyrex measuring cups for the most part (little glass bowls are also great for smaller amounts). Use the “tare” button to re-set the scale to Og so you don’t include the weight of your container (or ingredients you’ve already weighed into the container) in the weight of your ingredients/so you don’t have to do a bunch of irksome math.
The brilliant thing about a scale is that everything is weight—liquid, solid, whatever.
For further beginner reading you should check out this article and the FAQ 🙂
Have fun & good luck!
I just made this recipe tonight (well, a half recipe, I only had 5 tubes on hand) and I love it. I go through lip balm like crazy (Calgary weather & force of habit combined) and I prefer having a lip balm with no taste or a very mild taste at the most. This definitely fits the bill. Love your site, thanks for all the great recipes and other tips.
Enjoy! I’m always happy to help a fellow Calgarian out with her lip balm fix 😉
I recently discovered your blog and have been reading through it eagerly (and confusing my husband with all the “weird stuff” arriving on our doorstep and steeping in jars) and I was wondering: is it possible to add just glycerin and some emulsifying wax to an oil and wax lip balm like this without water or a preservative? I’ve seen recipes elsewhere that call for it, and I’m not sure how they get it to keep from separating without an emulsifier since it’s water soluble. Maybe it’s a small enough amount that just whisking will do the trick? Could you swap out some of the beeswax for a bit of emulsifying wax and have that work?
(Also I have to say, finding another young person with the first name Marie is very rare indeed 😉 )
Hey Marie (you’re right, how rare to find another!)!
So… a few things. I have found that you don’t need an emulsifier to incorporate glycerin; just beating will do it. BUT the oils have to be at room temperature, and you can’t beat my lip balms when they’re room temperature. They are super solid.
Yes, you should use a broad spectrum preservative… but I probably wouldn’t for personal use. There’s no actual water in it and it is unlikely to come into contact with more water.
E-waxes are nothing like beeswax, so it’s never a good idea to use one for the other in any case.
Happy DIYing!
Thank you for replying! I guess I’ll save the glycerin for something more amenable to whisking :).
🙂
Hey Marie! I was looking at your carrier oil substitution guide, and I was wondering if I could swap jojoba oil for sweet almond oil. Would the jojoba oil’s texture be too light? If so, is there anything else I can use? Thanks!
Hey Mylan! In lip balm that’ll be a great swap; you won’t really notice the difference in absorption speed here, though you likely would in something like a massage oil where the oil comprised the majority of the recipe 🙂
Hi Marie,
Could you add a tiny bit of red iron oxide or carmine (or something else) to this to tint it a little? I know you have other recipes for tinted lip balms but I already have all the other ingredients for this one (and love it!!)
For sure! I’d probably start with ~1/32–1/16 tsp of either—I’m partial to carmine 😉
Hi Marie!
This is the first DIY recipe of yours I have tried and it was easy and INSTANT success! You are right about the delicious scent – I have unrefined cocoa butter from the health food store and it is incredible! I halved the recipe and poured it into two little tubs – one for me and one for my mum! Will definitely make it again! Thank you so much!
P.S. I have your book and am going to try easier things on your blog before delving into the recipes in the book, slowly and surely. 🙂
YAY! I’m so thrilled 😀 I always want to do a little happy dance when I hear I’ve helped somebody kick DIY butt 😉 Enjoy, and thank you for buying my book!
Hi Marie
Thanks for posting this recipe. I made a batch last month and realized today that white spots are appearing in the lip balms. Do you know what caused this to happen?
It sounds like it might be going grainy—I’ve got an FAQ on that 🙂
Hi Marie–I love this recipe. I often add peppermint essential oil to it, but my husband likes a little tingle to his lip balm. Could I add menthol crystals to it without doing any harm? How about camphor? Thanks in anticipation.
Hey JoAnne! A good peppermint EO should add more than enough tingle (check with your supplier to see the menthol percentage of your peppermint EO; mine is about 60% and 20 drops of that gives great tingle). 20 drops of peppermint is about 0.6g, so if we say 60% of that is menthol, that’s 0.36g of menthol; you can try adding that amount. I do recommend going the peppermint route and perhaps supplementing with an addition 0.1g or 0.2g of menthol to get a more rounded scent, though—plain menthol is pretty dull 😛 I would probably avoid camphor; even though white camphor essential oil is quite low in camphor, camphor itself is pretty dang poisonous, so repeated applications around the mouth seems like a thing to avoid.
While a lot of people do really like tingle (myself included), it can be irritating, further exacerbating dry lips, so that’s another thing to keep in mind 🙂
I did get all of your re-submissions; you’re right, there are no old posts, and nothing went wrong. I think you just over-estimate the amount of correspondence one person can handle (well, me at least!) along with creating new content. I was also dealing with a death in the family (detailed in my newsletter—happened October 21), which further delayed things. I typically make time to reply to 20–30 comments a day across various platforms and at this time of year that’s enough to keep it to a dull roar 🙂
Hi Marie–So sorry to hear about the death in your family. I don’t always read the newsletters, but check in directly to the website on Mondays and Thursdays instead. Please accept my belated condolences.
Thanks though for your detailed answer to my question. I had no idea about the camphor. As it happened, I checked out the ingredients list on Carmex, my husband’s favorite lip balm. It contains menthol as the lasted listed and presumably least ingredient, so I just added a few menthol crystals and several shakes of Now Peppermint until I got something that felt good to my husband. The result is crazy intense, but he–Carmex addict that he is–loves it. I also added some avocado and castor oils (and a bit of extra beeswax to make up for the greater amount of oil) because I wanted a richer balm for winter. Hopefully that should keep the menthol from becoming too drying. I tried it myself and found it rather rich without being greasy, but too tingly for me personally.
Hoping the holiday season and new year bring you better things.
Take care,
JoAnne
Thanks! I’m glad your husband is enjoying his new bespoke balm!
Is this lip balm moisturising?
Yes 🙂
Hello Marie, I made these lipbalm recently and loved them! I am still a newbie in DIY projects, I am wondering if it is ok to add some honey to this naked lip balm?
Welcome! Honey is water soluble, so adding it to an anhydrous product like this won’t work very well—it’ll bead up on you without an emulsifier, and you’re also going to need a lip-safe preservative.
Thanks for your advice! My next project will be the body butter you sent me for beginners!
Happy making! 😀
Hi Marie,
Can I omit beewax?
No—it is completely integral to the structure, function, and performance of the recipe.
I just realized that most of the links are of amazon.com not amazon.ca. Any particular reason for that?
For every Canadian reader I have, I’ve got 8–10 American readers. Us Canadians are just very outnumbered, no other reason!
Hey Marie! There are so many lip balm recipes on here and I don’t know which one to start with first. Do you have any favourites, or any that are more moisturising than the others?
This one is definitely one of my favourites! I still make it and use it often. I also love this Sticky Coconut Lip Balm for when my lips are crazy dry 🙂 Happy making!
Hi Marie,
I’m thinking of making this lipbalm in a lipstick mold an then fill a lipstick tube with it. But since I never used a lipstick mold and a lipstick tube before (I only used the lipbalm tubes in your picture) I don’t know if I have to adjust your recipe to make it suitable for a mold and lipstick tube or if I can leave your recipe as is. I am not trying to make a real lipstick. Just a lipbalm in a lipstick tube. Would you have any advice for me?
Thank you!
My general advice would be that it takes a pretty particular formulation to unmould well; I’d recommend looking at the moldable lipstick base I developed 🙂