I have to admit I’m pretty taken with orange wax these days. Its name is a bit deceiving—it isn’t waxy in the slightest. In fact, it feels a lot like water on the skin despite being oil soluble. Orange wax is the wax pressed from orange peels, and it smells utterly divine, like the juiciest of oranges. It’s a deep reddish-orange hue, which lends a warm tint to everything it’s in, and thanks to its incredibly light texture, balms made with it have a wonderful dry touch and finish that can be hard to achieve in oil-based balms. In short, it’s lovely, and I want more of my life, which is how this Orange Wax Cleansing Balm came to be.
In a bid to get more tropical goodness into my life, I combined juicy orange wax with wonderfully fragrant virgin coconut oil for an awesome orange-coconut scent blend. Yum! A complete emulsifying wax brings the cleansing party, allowing the oils in the balm to bind with the oils on our skin and then hitch a ride with water down the sink, taking skin gunk with them.
Castor oil helps amp up the cleansing party, while candelilla wax thickens the balm to a perfectly creamy texture. I chose safflower oil to round the whole thing out, but you could easily use sunflower oil, grapeseed oil, apricot kernel oil, or almond oil instead if you prefer.
Once you’ve got all the ingredients together, this Orange Wax Cleansing Balm couldn’t be easier to make. Simply weigh, melt, stir, and pour. Voila! When it’s done, the balm is unbelievably rich and creamy—I love washing my face with it. Enjoy your delightfully citrusy wake-up call 🙂
Orange Wax Cleansing Balm
15g | 0.53oz complete emulsifying wax (not beeswax!)
7g | 0.25oz castor oil (USA / Canada)
4g | 0.14oz candelilla wax
10g | 0.35oz orange wax
8g | 0.28oz safflower oil
14g | 0.49g virgin coconut 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 all the ingredients into a small heat-resistant glass measuring cup. Place that measuring cup into your water bath and leave it to melt everything through for about twenty minutes.
Once all the oils and waxes have melted through, stir them with a flexible silicone spatula. Pour the mixture into your jar or tin; this recipe makes 58g (2oz) of cleansing balm, so a 60mL/2oz tin is a good choice.
To use, scoop out a pea sized amount of the cleansing balm and work it together with a bit of warm water between your palms before massaging it into your face. Rinse and wipe off any excess cleansing balm with a soft cloth, and follow up with your favourite serum or moisturizer.
Because this balm is 100% oil based it should last for at least a year if kept cool and dry. Because it is being used as a face wash you should take extra care not to incorporate water into it—use dry fingers to scoop out the balm, or even a dry popsicle stick or spoon.
Want to learn more about these ingredients, including information on substitutions and where to buy them? Check out their entries in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia!
Hey! I forgot to say thank you for introducing me to orange wax! I love it so much. I made bath bombs and used orange wax and I toss 1g into my marula hair mask (otherwise my recipe is the same as yours) and my hair gets wicked shinier than usual. I am in love!
I’ll certainly be trying this recipe out too! Because orange wax is way up there on my favourite ingredient list!
How do you fancy the scent of sea buckthorn fruit oil? I snorted up my sea buckthorn soap (5%) and the fruity scent is still there! I wonder if mixing the orange wax and sea buckthorn in soap would work? How would that work?
Ooh, beautiful! I’ll have to try that in some hair stuff, too. My sea buckthorn oil doesn’t really smell fruity… moreso musty/nutty? Eh. I probably wouldn’t choose it as the star scent in much of anything. I haven’t soaped with orange wax yet, but I would treat it like an EO since it doesn’t seem to be lipid based.
What are your thoughts about replacing the candellia with cera bellina? Do you think it will give me a more gelled texture?
Honestly, I’ve really moved away from using waxes in my cleansing balms—I find the rinse-off is far better with non-wax hardeners like stearic acid. Check out this formulation as a better alternative 🙂
You said NOT BEESWAX for the emulsifying wax. I have substituted beeswax for the candelilla wax before, can I in this recipe? What was your reasoning for no beeswax?
Thanks for this, I love the smell of orange and trying new things. I was very into making all my own stuff and then stopped for a while because of life getting busy, now I’m ready to jump back in with this one. Yeah!
Well, because beeswax and e-wax are completely not even close to being the same thing. They both have “wax” in the name and that is where the similarities stop! Candelilla and beeswax are similar in the sense that they are both thickening/hardening waxes, while e-wax is an emulsifier and the thing that makes this a cleansing balm, and not just really, really hard 😛 You cannot use any other kind of wax instead of e-wax, but if you wanted to use beeswax instead of candelilla, you could (albeit with a less smooth, glassy consistency for the final product). You can watch this for more info 🙂
I would rather use an emulsifier whose INCI is disclosed by the seller.
I could only suspect that this may be Emulsifying wax NF, but …. it should be clearly stated on the package.
the Orange wax seems weird to me. alpha Chemicals produces orange peel wax (Citrus Aurantium Dulcis (Orange) Peel Wax) and it is certainly NOT liquid. its description is:
—
Orange peel wax is a soft orange vegetable wax obtained from the rind of the orange fruit. Composition and consistency are similar to lanolin. Orange peel wax consists of a complex mixture of special esters, free fatty acids, hydrocarbons, free phytosterols and free alcohols. Minor components in this wax are well known for their anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and sunscreen properties.
—
I’d love to get my hands on the orange wax from a reputable supplier, as I do not trust Amazon for selling cosmetics ingredients, sadly.
I used some orange wax from The Sage in the US, which was indeed more solid in form, orange and had a divine scent. I miss it :/ .
this cleansing balm may be suited for a dry skin perhaps? my personal experience with any waxes in cleansing balms is that they make the product draggy and leave residues on the skin, I may try candelilla s it has a high melting point and I am curious how it performs. Coconut oil is a definitely NO for my oily skin, I’d break out in hives!
the orange scent is to die for 🙂 I admit that!!
I get my Orange Wax from NDA.Com, the USA site. It is not solid, looks solid after you take the cap off but there is a clear plug inside the container. Once the plug is taken off, the first thing you smell are oranges. If you can pore a small amount into a glass container, and see that it is a vivid orange liquid. I love my orange wax, I used it right out of the container and polished my wood furniture with it. I suggest doing this is a well ventilated room, I came down with a headache after about 30 minutes.
I hope this helps you in your search for Orange Wax.
sadly it doesn’t. I live in Europe 🙂
Dr Adorable ships to Europe and the postage is ok. I also bought some very nice rose wax from them. The company has a facebook page and a webshop as well. I buy cosmetics ingredients on amazon for ease of access if the company also has a web presence, like Mystic Moments or Naissence in the UK.
I still prefer a reputable cosmetics ingredients retailer to any amazon or eBay shop 🙂
Plus shipping from the US means extra taxes for me anyway and travelling while pregnant wih no car to the single customs office we have in the city, which is quite far away. I’d rather buy it from the EU and have it shipped via courier….
The herbarie in the us sells it by the way.
Hi Simona,
Marie has a list of retailers based in Europe (UK, France, Austria, Spain & Sweden). Look under “Where to buy ingredients”.
Not sure if any sell orange wax. I did check the New Directions UK website and they do not seem to sell Orange Wax.
Hope this helps.
Claudia
Hi Simona,
I buy a lot of my ingredients from Mystic Moments. With free shipping, to my nearest post office. The only thing is they do not come quickly.
I tend to agree, but I’ve worked in e-commerce before, and we also sold through Amazon as well as having our own site. We provided Amazon with a feed of our inventory, our products showed up on their website, but orders came to us and were shipped out of our warehouses. A reputable company that sells through Amazon is simply more accessible; it does nothing to discredit them as a company. One should still choose reputable suppliers within Amazon, though.
For orange wax, this is the one I used. You can clearly see that it is liquid, and NDA is a very reputable supplier. I’m surprised the one you found is solid, perhaps it’s from a different variety of orange, or a different processing method? The sunscreen properties mentioned in the one you found is suspect as orange wax is the opposite of that—photosensitizing.
I’d say this is suited to regular skin with slight variations towards oily or dry. There is not enough wax in here to make it draggy as long as you’re including water, which you should be 🙂
Hi Simona,
Is this perhaps what you ordered from the Sage? https://www.thesage.com/catalog/products/Orange-Butter.html
This is certainly more solid but this is a hydrogenated oil and not a true oil or wax.
Juanita
Dear Juanita,
I bought that years ago. Back then I did not care much for INCI names so I cannot confirm they had the same product:(((
I have ordered some from Dr. Adorable, as suggested above, and I quite like it!
Did not use it yet…. time is not the same with a newborn at home 🙂
I too bought the one from Dr. Adorable that was linked to the orange wax ingredient. It’s definitely not liquid and not as dark as the New Directions Aromatics one. And it’s a lot more expensive. I’m kinda bummed. I just made it using the recipe above an it looks to be a bit more solid in consistency. I wish I would’ve known NDA had it! Darn! It’s a very nice wax and smells delicious. Orange peel isn’t photosensitizing so that worries me as far as the suppliers credibility (dr. Adorable).
Doesn’t it smell amazing?! Mmmmm.
I asked New Directions Aromatics and they also told me orange wax has the potential to be photosensitizing, and this is in the description: “Because Orange wax is a by-product of the cold-pressed oil, it will likely have some of the oil’s photo-sensitizing properties. Hence, it is best to use Orange wax in products such as night creams, so to avoid exposure to sunlight after application.” Tisserand does say sweet orange is not photosensitizing, though bitter orange is, so perhaps this is where the confusion begins?
I love orange wax. Keep the recipes coming!
If this is anything like your Cold Snap Cleansing Balm (amazing stuff), then I already consider it a favorite and look forward to having two to choose from every day. You know, depending on my mood.
It is! I am so loving this stuff right now as I’m all out of Cold Snap—this stuff smells so juicy!
Made it. It’s cooling down and almost ready for the Christmas box which holds all the goodies everyone is getting this year.
It smells yummy. I used my honeysuckle infused or macerated coconut oil in this. It’ll sound really cool on the labels of my giftees. “Orange wax…candelilla… honeysuckle infused coconut oil…” I’m impressed!
Great recipe Marie! Soon I’m going to receive your book and I’ll be silent for awhile during my mad scientist days. Oh I can’t wait!!!
Oooh, how lovely! I’ve just started pulling things out of my Christmas box to wrap them and quickly discovered I need more wrapping paper I love the sounds of honeysuckle infused coconut oil, how decadent! 😀 One week ’till Make it Up starts shipping out!
Thanks for another lovely recipe. I felt like making something but wasn’t sure what to cook up. Now I have got somethin 🙂 .
Happy making! 🙂
I love the scent of orange anything, but normally you always dissuade readers from using any citrus products on the skin because of photo-sensitivity. Does using orange wax somehow make it different? Thank you!
Hey Kathy! Orange wax is still photosensitizing, but since you are washing it off here, it’s ok—just like citrus EOs in soap 🙂
Ah gotcha, that totally makes sense. Yay!
After coming across your website recently I’ve spent (ahem) quite a lot of money buying ingredients for all the amazing looking things I want to try! This was first on my list – I love citrus, to a ridiculous level.
This is the first homemade cosmetic product I have ever made, and I already love it. I made it today, and washed my face with it a little while ago…it smells amazing. I was slightly concerned with the orange colour my face turned, but it rinsed off well! It feels so smooth and fresh, and I can still smell oranges. This is amazing!! Thank you Marie, I can’t wait to try some more products!
Hey Lisa! Welcome 😀 I’m so thrilled I’ve contributed to you jumping down the DIY rabbit hole 😉 And I’m super stoked your first DIY experience has been a good one! You really can’t beat the smell of orange wax for that juicy, delicious scent. Yum! If you love citrus scents I’d recommend picking up some litsea cubeba and lemon myrtle essential oils so you can have some citrussy body products that won’t give you sunburns 🙂 Happy DIYing! 😀
Hi Marie,
Thank you for that, does that mean lemon myrtle and litsea cubeba could be safely used in body lotions or other leave-on products? Would you think this would be ok? Thanks!
Yup! I very often use litsea cubeba instead 🙂
I love this Orange cleansing balm .It gives such a nice feel on the face Nice and clean and wonderful orange smell I love all your recpies
My balm turned out quite solid and hard I have to dig in with my nails. Any way i could make it a bit softter by perhaps decreasing the Candilla wax or the Ewax ,I used BTMS 50
I’m glad you’re loving it 🙂 Less candelilla wax will make it softer.
Hi Marie – I have castor flakes…can I use those in place of castor oil and if so, how much would I use? THANK YOU
Hey Michelle! Castor flakes are very different from castor oil as they are made from hydrogenated castor oil, and as such you cannot use one for another in any recipes.
Hello Marie, I would like to have your advice. What am I doing wrong? Every time I try to make a bigger recipe (I only tried to double balm recipes that contains emulsifier), I get … a candle! A very hard one!! I have an excellent balance. I had to redo the recipe twice to get enough for me and my daughters. Thank you for your time.
Hey Geneviève! How very odd. Hmm. This may be silly to ask, but are you doubling all the ingredients? Sometimes people ask me about doubling the recipe and then don’t double some things (on purpose) for some reason or another, so I thought I would ask 🙂 Also, is your orange wax liquid? Mine has the consistency of water. Otherwise, if it is still too hard, I would use less candelilla wax, but I have no idea why you’d have to. Weird :/
Ohhh that’s it! I don’t know why, but my orange wax has more or less the consistency of a 35% heavy cream. The other “candle” recipe I made is the black soap balm, which also contains orange wax. In small quantities, the hard and waxy feel is less ovious. Do you know how I have to adjust the quantity and/or the ingredients? And yes, I have doubled all the ingredients. And since I “cook” for my daughters / sister / niece and my mother, I have to triple or more all my recipes.
PS: I received “Make it Up” yesterday, let me tell you that you have something to be proud of.
Merci Marie
Ah, yup, that’d do it! You may need to use less orange wax and more of another liquid oil in the recipe to help thin it out, but no carrier oil has the same thin consistency as orange wax does, so it won’t be quite the same, but it should work 🙂 And thank you so much for purchasing my book! 😀
Hi Marie,
I just made this Orange cleansing balm. There’s no where to buy orange wax, so I substituted it with hazelnut oil and sweet orange EO. I used 10 drops of the EO. Do you think it’s too much or it’s ot enough?
Love all your recipes.
If you like the way it smells, it’s enough 🙂 If it’s too weak or too strong, adjust as needed! Thanks for DIYing with me 🙂
Hi Marie, got your book and LOVE it! I’m busy marking all the pages and assembling ingredients for everything I’d like to create. From your website, I recently made the Orange Cleansing Balm and it is absolutely wonderful. My skin feels so soft and smooth (I apply your Luxury Face Oil afterwards – which is also amazing!). Question: do you have a shower gel, soap, shampoo, or body lotion recipe that also uses the Orange wax? I just can’t get enough of that fresh citrus scent. It reminds be a bit of my favorite Bath and Body Works scent “mandarin ginger”. Thank you so much for all the time you put into your research and recipes!
I’m so glad! Yay! Thank you so much for buying it 😀 You’ll find all the orange wax recipes I have linked here; sadly I don’t think there are as many as you’d like! Because orange wax can be photosensitizing you won’t find it in any leave-on products, which is kind of a bummer, but definitely good for our skin in the long run! Happy making 😀
Thank you! So excited to give those a try. 🙂
Anyone know where I can get some Orange Wax from in Australia, finding hard to find some, as ordering for USA will not allow shipping
Have you checked all the Aussie suppliers here? That’s about all I can suggest.
Hi Marie,
Greetings from Indonesia. I love your youtube videos and I want to try out your cleansing balm recipe. I just wondering, can I use hemp seed oil instead of castor oil?
Many thanks
Hey! You can, but the green will definitely impact the colour, and hemp oil isn’t a drawing oil like castor oil is, so the balm will be less effective (which you may life if you have drier skin).
Hi Marie,
I have just finished a couple attempts at an emulsifying cleansing balm using e-wax nf using your recipes as a guide! I have read through the ingredients on some high-end cleansing balms, and come across another DIY recipe, and they both include Polysorbate 20 to make the rinse-off more clean and quick. Any experience with this, and do you have any good advice for including this ingredient. Also, do you think I could use only Polysorbate 20 instead of the e-wax? Thanks! -Pia
I’d probably choose Polysorbate 80 instead of 20 since it is better suited to solubilizing carrier oils, but you definitely can include some! Just use it in the place of some of the liquid oil in the recipe 🙂 You would have to completely re-develop the recipe if you want to eliminate the e-wax, though, as it is a core part of the consistency of the final product. You might want to look at a cleansing oil instead!
Hi Marie!
I love this cleansing balm ingredient. I would like to ask can this cleansing balm use as like normal balm too? I saw some other brand they got like multi-use balm, which can use for cleansing, hair wax, moisturize body, insect repellent & even can use as a foundation (balm mix with loose powder).
You can certainly try it, though keep in mind that any product that professes to meet so many vastly different needs is unlikely to do any of them particularly well. For instance, I cannot imaging wanting to use any sort of effective insect repellent as foundation!
Thank you so much for your advised
Good evening Kimberly!
I love the smell of this product! Happy making!
I made this today.
It’s wonderful !
I previously made the one from your book. It’s very similar but uses different oils. I’d love the idea of a balm so another version was right up my street.
I didn’t have the orange wax so I used hazelnut oil. Which was handy as I have alot of it!
I also halved the wax for a softer texture.
This one has worked out perfect for me. It lathers up and makes my skin feel really clean without feeling oily or dry and it washed off easily too.
Thank you for another successful recipe.
Just whipped up my third (double) batch of this…I’m in LOVE and have been sharing it with anyone who can pry a jar out of my hands. Thank you, Marie, for this amazing recipe!! Also whipped up a recipe of the Orange Aby balm, so I’m going to be in citrus Heaven as I float off to dreamland.
Hooray! I am so thrilled that you are loving it 😀