Several months ago I ordered some rose wax from Saffire Blue, and apart from enthusiastically sniffing the wee baggie it came in, I haven’t done anything with it until now. This lovely rose and spearmint lip balm was well worth the wait, though.
Want to buy this lip balm instead of make it?
Rose wax is a byproduct of the process of producing rose absolute. An absolute is made when the plant is too delicate for the steam distillation process, which is why we primarily have absolutes from delicate flowers like the rose. Rose wax is relatively pricey, but cheaper than most things that are derived from the rose, and a little goes quite a long way. It’s also a wonderful antioxidant and emollient, and is wonderful for dry, irritated skin.
A hit of bright spearmint and some mellow, vanilla-like benzoin round out the scent blend, softening the floral notes of the rose. I’ve also added a touch of red from some liquid carmine dye, but you can use some red iron oxides instead, or leave out the colour entirely if you like.
The rest of the lip balm is smooth and moisturizing, just as I like my lip balms. I enjoy the slight cocoa-y note from the raw cocoa butter (USA / Canada), but if you aren’t a fan of the rose/cocoa combination, you might want to consider using deodorized cocoa butter (USA / Canada) instead.
The final lip balm is faintly pink, lightly glossy, and lightly floral. I’m loving it as an homage to a favourite flower, and as a softer alternative to punchy peppermint lip balm.
Rose Spearmint Lip Balm
8g | 0.28oz beeswax (USA / Canada)
9g | 0.31oz virgin coconut oil
1g | 0.03oz rose wax
6g | 0.21 cocoa butter (USA / Canada)
16g | 0.56oz sweet almond oil (USA / Canada)
1g | 0.03oz Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)20 drops spearmint essential oil
2 blobs benzoin essential oil
4–6 drops liquid carmine dye or 1/32 tsp red iron oxide or 1/32 tsp carmine (optional) (I use these tiny measuring spoons for tiny measurements like this)Combine the beeswax, coconut oil, rose wax, cocoa butter (USA / Canada), sweet almond oil (USA / Canada), and Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada) in a heat resistant glass measuring cup, and melt in a double boiler.
Once everything has melted, remove the measuring cup from the heat and stir in the essential oils and carmine (if using) with a flexible silicone spatula.
Pour into lip balm tubes quickly and let it set up before labelling (I use these cute labels) and using. Enjoy!
If you don’t have rose wax, use 10g (0.35oz) of coconut oil and add a few drops of rose essential oil or rose absolute to the lip balm along with the spearmint essential oil.
Fills eight 4.5g (0.16oz) lip balm tubes.
Don’t have the carrier oils called for in the recipe? Read this for a guide on how to choose appropriate alternatives.
Hello Marie, your have been wonderful. I am looking forward to making this lip balm with my teenage daughter. Can you please share where you get your vitamin E oil and is it considered food grade?
Thank you for your help.
Hi Tammy! Thanks so much for reading & DIYing with me 🙂 I get my vitamin E from New Directions Aromatics (link above in the big box), and it’s not considered food grade, but that is fine for my purposes. You can get food grade stuff in little capsules at most pharmacies, though—it’ll be in with the vitamins & supplements 🙂
Hello Marie!
Rose got my attention! Rose wax is a new for me.
Will try to Google the supplier. I love citrus and Rose fragrances.
Also, would you pls explain the differences between Peppermint and Spearmint oils. I would like the sweetness and scent of mint, but don’t like cooling sensation it gives me (for some reason it burns my lips 🙁 ) Maybe I could use something else instead?
I am in love with your new Rose balms! Would have to put colorant and benzoin on my list too. Already got lip balm tubes!
Hi Iryna! I hope you find yourself some rose wax 🙂
I find spearmint to be much softer and sweeter than peppermint. It also doesn’t have the tingly, cooling sensation that peppermint does as it contains a much, much lower concentration of menthol (the component that gives that cooling sensation). If you haven’t tried spearmint yet, I would definitely recommend giving it a try as an alternative to peppermint.
Thank you so much, Marie! I do like Spearmint in the chewing gums and toothpastes, but I still wasn’t quite sure. Now you gave me a very comprehensive answer! I cannot buy all the EO in the world, but would like to have a few I like and will use over and over again. Spearmint EO goes on my list!
Heading over to read your DIY for beginners post
Thank you!
Happy to help 😀
Hi again!
I am finding many recipes for lip balms, lotions etc seem to use coconut oil in them (in varying amounts)… I am a bit sensitive to the coconut oil, so wondering if you know what I can substitute it with in lip balms and lotions?
Thanks, Jaz
Hi Jaz! I’ve written an article on carrier oil substitutions, but long story short—babassu oil is the best swap for coconut oil I’ve found 🙂
This really sounds lovely! I am loving your site! Your knowledge has been so helpful as I am expanding into making my own makeup products this year. I’ve been making salves and balms for years but your ratio posts have been crucial to their improvements. Thanks!
Thanks so much, DeLacey!
Quick question, is this the Rose Bulgaria or Tuberose Rose from Saffireblue?
Thanks!
It’s the Rose Bulgaria 🙂
I made your Argan oil lip balm and am enjoying using it now. This one sounds just as nice so recipe is copied, pasted and printed. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks so much, Virginia! Enjoy 🙂
So This has inspired me for Valentines Day
Chocolate Rose lip Balm
Those little Chocolate Candy looking body bars you posted ages ago
Rose Bath Bombs
and something using Rose Hydrosol
Beautiful! I have some neat Valentine’s-ish recipes planned for early next year as well 🙂
Thank you for all the time and effort for coming up with these creations. Ive wanted to switch to homemade non toxic no chemical products and tried to make two recipes months ago from other site/blog and it didn’t turn out. I gave up a year and 4 months ago but kept reading blogs and thankfully found your blog. You have inspired me to try again to make chemical free products for me, my toddler, and husband. I have been striving to save 10 to 20 dollars a month with what little I can and have finally enough to buy some supplies to make two or three of your creations. I’m sooo excited. Thanks for sharing and you/your posts seem so friend like. Thanks for the inspiration.
Thanks so much for your kind words and your support, Sally, it means the world to me 🙂 Good luck with your adventure into the natural, I know you’ll love it 🙂 Have you checked out my DIY for beginners post? It’s a great place to kick things off 🙂
I swear you’re psychic! Last night I made my first ever tinted lip balm.. used red oxide and rose eo, and the thought of adding a minty eo briefly crossed my mind.
btw, i strongly recommend trying meadow foam seed oil in lip balm!
Great minds think alike, eh? 😉
I recently got some so I’ll be sure to give it a go!
Marie, do you think it is important to include a liquid oil in a lip balm? I’ve been contemplating making one out of solid butters and reducing the amount of wax. Is it in the recipes just for the slip/glide quality? What do you think?
Hi Emily! In my experience the amount of liquid oil (generally around 40%) is necessitated by the amount of wax (generally around 20%). In my experience you generally don’t want much less wax than that as the wax is what gives the lip balm staying power, and you end up needing quite a lot of liquid oil to produce a final product that is soft and smooth enough to use. From my experiments I think your best bet for avoiding liquid oils would be coconut oil, which is practically a liquid oil with its very glossy feel and low melting point. I have tried to make lip butters with low wax contents and found them to be totally lacking in terms of actually sticking around and doing something (sad, sigh), so I would encourage you not to drop too much wax from the formula 🙂
interesting. I know beeswax is very good for skin care but somehow I just can’t shake this idea of a pure fat/oil lip product. Right now i’m melting up an imprecise recipe that is probably 80 percent beef tallow and the rest is a mix of almond oil, cupuacu butter, shea butter, and cocoa butter. we’ll see how this goes! if it’s a mistake then i’ll survive. it’s a very small batch.
I look forward to hearing what you think of your experiments 🙂 If nothing else it sounds like a lovely body butter!
It is very healing, I think it improved my lips immediately. Tallow is doing wonderful things for me lately. The balm felt tacky and didnt glide but i think I can fix that with some tweaks. Next time I’ll remember to add an essential oil to mask the beef scent…. ha.
Mmmmm beef balm 😉 Glad it’s working for you!
This lip balm is amazing! I made up a batch along with the sun kissed bronze and cranberry balms to hand out while visiting family. Girls from 12 to 79 raved about them. Thanks for making me the “cool” auntie!
Susan
Thanks so much, Susan! I’m so thrilled they were a hit 😀 Thanks for DIYing with me 🙂
Hello Marie,
I love your creations! I measure my oils in drops, so how much is a ‘blob’ exactly?
Hi Michelle! I, too, measure my EOs in drops, but when you work with benzoin you’ll know why I say “blob” 😛 It’s a very thick, viscous oil that generally will not drop out without a very hot water bath. So, I’ve started measuring benzoin in “blobs” because people were baffled at how I managed to get drops from something so thick and gooey 😛
Hello!
May I know whether if I can use shea butter instead of cocoa butter? If so, do I use the exact amount listed?
Thank you:)
Caroline
Hi Caroline—shea butter is not a good swap for cocoa butter, and here’s and entire article on why 🙂
i made this a couple of days ago. I have used it and gifted seveal friends with a tube. It is unanimous we all love it. thanks for the great recipe. Stacy
Fantastic! This is one of my favourite recipes as well, I recently made another batch so I could have lots on hand 🙂
I’ve allways liked bulgarian rose most, I just didn’t know it ealier. Funny? I’ve made this several times with ‘not the best’ rose wax (sold as rosa damascena flower wax, what I have access to) and diluted vanilla CO2 (difficult to dissolve, wouldn’t buy it again) and spearmint and it still works like a charm. One of the loveliest lip balms ever.
When I found your lip stick formulas before your book, I got 100 grams of carmine…you guessed it right – I still have lots of left. It was cheap. 😀 I’m re-thinking my essential oil choices (gotta use old stuff to get more new stuff, ha) currently and even though I have my solid favorites, your work is helping a lot. I have eo’s like ylang ylang, cedar and a thing like “bay berry and leaf eo” (propably p. racemosa, but even after several e-mails I don’t really know or have MSDS so can’t obviously use that). I don’t even like them too much for myself. So I have lots of reasons to get more creative! It’s actually kind of fun. Thanks so much. <3