Here’s yet another project I’m really excited to share with you—it’s a multipurpose tinted lip balm/blush stick. I’m calling it a strawberry shimmer stick for the colour, and I am just in love with how easy it is to throw this little stick in my travel bag when I’m heading out on vacation. It’s a great colour for lips, and is lightly pigmented enough that you can easily build up to exactly the right amount of pink for your cheeks.
The base of this stick is a great blend of moisturizing oils that absorb quickly. You’ll have a bit of a healthy sheen on your skin, but it won’t be sticky for long. The colour comes form red iron ozide and blue ultramarine (just a hint of blue to cool the colour off and drift it towards purplish instead of orangeish), with a bit of flash copper mica for a hint of glimmer.
I’ve formulated the consistency of this stick for summer weather (well, Canadian summers…), meaning it has a higher melting point than my lip balms and lip sticks. This is so it doesn’t turn to goo and smear all over your face in uncontrollable pinkness whenever the temperature goes over 25°C. If you live somewhere colder (or it is currently winter in Canada), you will want to drop the amount of wax by 1 or 2 grams so you don’t end up with a pink rock. I’m definitely going to have to make another, softer version in the winter.
The magnesium stearate in this recipe is for improved slip (how the stick feels going on) and adhesion (how long it stays on). You can leave it out if you want, but I don’t recommend it.
Strawberry Shimmer Stick
4g | 0.14oz beeswax (USA / Canada)
7g | 0.25oz capuacu butter or unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada)
5g | 0.17oz cocoa butter (USA / Canada)
8g | 0.28oz grapeseed oil
1g | 0.03oz magnesium stearate1/8 tsp red iron oxide (I use these tiny measuring spoons for tiny measurements like this)
Speck blue ultramarine
1/8 tsp flash copper mica
½ tsp sericite mica (USA / Canada)4 drops peppermint essential oil (USA / Canada) (optional)
Melt the beeswax, cupuacu butter (USA / Canada), cocoa butter (USA / Canada), grapeseed oil, and magnesium stearate together in a small saucepan over low heat. We’re not using a water bath here because the melting point of magnesium stearate is high enough that melting it in a water bath is quite difficult.
Use a flexible silicone spatula to blend in the oxides and micas, and stir until the mixture is viscous, like runny honey, so you can pour it (if you pour it too soon the oxides and mica will settle down to the bottom of the tube).
Stir in the essential oil (you can use whatever you like, just not citrus or you might get a sunburn), and decant into lip balm tubes. This recipe will fill 4 tubes.
Don’t have some of the oils or butters called for in this recipe? Read this for information on how to make good substitutions.
oooh this is my fave color so far. I look much better in pinks over reds. Still, I am too busy making minis at the mo, I think I will just stick to my Burts Bees tinted lip balm this summer 🙂
Lucky you! I love the look of a peachy-pink eyeshadow, but I can’t pull it off at all. Sad. Enjoy your minis and send photos, they sound adorable!
I’m super busy, I don’t have time to send pics! If you check in on my blog occasionally I’ll be posting my projects for the show and sale occasionally and I recently made a grandaddy list of everything I’m planning to make. It made pretty much all of my followers laugh, or say that reading it stressed them out. But writing it out made me feel better! I feel pretty focused. Speaking of minis, I would love to make you a small mini scene as a gift. I could make you a bathtub filled with bubbles against a small backdrop that would basically look like like a twee wallpapered and tiled bathroom. It would be small enough to sit on a bookshelf and we could discuss colours. Or I could make you a little vanity table with tiny perfumes, lotion bottles, bath powder, a miniature pouf. I would, love to make you a mini scene. What do you think? I was also wondering if I could buy some seaweed powder, capacu butter, red oxide, blue oxide, and flash oxide from you. I can get my hands on red and blue mica and that other color of mica and every other ingredient but that wouldn’t get the right color would it? I have ordered from saffire blue and New Directions Aromatics twice, but it wasn’t worth it for me. Before I completed my order the woman who processed it wrote me back and told me that I could order $50 dollars worth of stuff and pay the same for shipping. I only orderd $ 7 worth of stuff because that’s all I needed from there and I didn’t have $50 to spend! I can buy everything else I need from Creations from Eden, which is located in Edmonton, and pay no shipping. One of these days we’ll manage to organize a skype date. My sleeping patterns have been way off lately. Medication adjustments have been needed. I’m going to drink some Sleepy Time tea, work on some miniatures, and hope I get some sleep tonight! May shoot you a text tomorrow.
XX
Ruth
Ruth—Sorry it’s taken so long for me to get back to you! I’m now following you on Twitter, though 🙂 Your to-do list is very impressive, no wonder you are so busy 😛 I would be so flattered if you made me a miniature scene! Maybe something I could photograph my soaps and projects in? Like a little set.. for giant soaps? Ha 😛 And you can definitely get some ingredients off of me in August 😛 I have plenty of seaweed powder, but I don’t have a lot of the micas/oxides (they don’t come in very big containers), so it’ll just be a bit of those. You don’t have to buy them off me, though 😛
It’s Stampede here (I’m sure you know that) and I have a friend visiting from out of town, so between those two things and all the accompanying outings and whatsits, I’m stupid busy these days. My summer is just full of visitors, get-togethers, and all those fun things that winter is too cold for 😛 But, yes, skype date soon!
Would you be willing to give me a link to your page?
Any substitute for the capuacu? And I’m wondering what the magnesium does. I currently don’t have either on hand. The color looks great!
You could use coconut oil instead of capuacu, though that will make the final result much more shiny on your cheeks. Shea butter is also an option, though it will be more greasy. Magnesium stearate is for improved slip (the texture of the make-up on the skin, basically), and it’s really useful in eye shadows, face powders, blush, and lipstick. It’s also pretty cheap ($2.57/100g), which is nice. Thanks for reading and have fun!
I love multi-duty products! I never got onto the liquid blush train since it always seemed to be so pore-clogging, but I do love the dewey look of them. I might wait to make this until you come up with a winterized version since I don’t think I’ll be ordering from NDA anytime soon. It’s far too hot lately to risk a coconut-oil laden product… my jar is completely liquid right now, haha. Not that I’m complaining about the heat when winter is such a fresh and painful memory 😛
I think you could be pretty safe by swapping the capuacu for coconut; it has a lower melting point, so it should be ok for winter (but still solid in the summer 😉 ). I’m so jealous yours is liquid, we can barely maintain a 20° average right now. Sigh.
Hi, I love the look of this shimmer stick. I am unsure of the Colours needed for this. Are there 3 components to the colour. Red & blu oxide and flash copper mica? I don’t like it to be shimmery. Would I just use red & blue oxide? Many thanks, Nadja
Hi Nadja! The copper mica really doesn’t lend much (if any) noticeable shimmer at the amount called for, which is kind of funny—you can sort of see it in the stick, but not on the skin—it just catches the light a wee bit, but not at all in a sparkly/glitter way. That said, if you want to leave it out I would blend together some oxides to create a bit of a copper colour, as the copper tone of the mica is part of the colour blend and really rounds it out nicely. Have fun!
Ok, I understand. I still don’t understand the below Colours? ND Australia hasn’t got them?
I
1/8 tsp red oxide – they carry this.
Speck blue oxide1/8 tsp flash copper – is this 1/8 tsp blue oxide with flash copper?
½ tsp sericite mica – ?
Would you terribly mind checking out ND Australia’s website for me and advise which colours to get from them? I don’t think any of your other suppliers ship to Australia. Many many thanks : http://www.newdirections.com.au/content.php?p=home-home-campaigns
Whoops, that was my blog ignoring me hitting the “enter” key 😛 It’s four different things; red oxide, blue oxide, flash copper mica, and sericite mica. I saw a blue oxide and a copper mica on NDA Aus, so you should be fine there. I don’t see any sericite mica there, but you could probably leave it out. Have fun!
For the blue mica, which kind do you use? On New Directions, it looks like they have Royal Blue IBPK and Titan Blue. Thanks!
I don’t use a blue mica for this recipe, I use a tiny bit of blue oxide (the main difference being that oxides aren’t sparkly). It’s this one 🙂
Thanks! I meant to say oxide, but I said mica instead…Oops 😀
😉
Oops, forgot to add something. Could I substitute sweet almond, olive, coconut, or jojoba oils for the grapeseed oil? I have all those oils, but not grapeseed.
Sweet almond or jojoa would probably be the best choice as they absorb fairly quickly. You can read more about carrier oil substitutions here 🙂
Sorry for a third comment, but on New Directions I found Fire-Red and Reddish brown micas (I’m using New Directions USA). Thanks for being so great about responding to comments :).
Ha, yes, there are SO many micas & oxides! I could spend oodles on ’em all, haha. If you want an even larger selection, check out Saffire Blue. They have LOADS!
The Fire Red mica looks like it would be a good swap if you don’t have or like flash copper. Just keep in mind that it will effect the colour of the final product a wee bit 🙂 And for the reddish brown one, if it’s this one, that’s an oxide, not a mica, and they’re very different (oxides aren’t sparkly), so don’t order that one if you like sparkle or you’ll be rather disappointed 🙁
Thanks for reading & commenting! Have fun 🙂
Thanks for the help! I’d rather not bother with the color adjustments if I got the reddish brown oxide, so can I leave the red oxide out? I’m ordering from New Directions for all my other things and to pay $20 for shipping for one thing from Saffire blue doesn’t seem practical.
Ha, so, I was a bit confused because I bought my red oxide from NDA, and now I see they’ve just renamed their red oxide to the red (reddish brown), likely because somebody complained it wasn’t bright red. Just go with the reddish brown, it’s exactly the one I have, but with a different name 😛 No adjustments should be needed!
Perfect! Thanks for helping!
🙂
Wow, this colour is just so adorable, looks better than the MAC Im having, cant wait to try it. Could u please tell me where to get those ingredients? tks so much ^^ . I have quiet dry lips with some of cracks, can I use this recipe? still on my journey finding suitable lip balm and lipstick, such a long way.
Hi Alice! I link to my suppliers on every single page, just scroll up to the big box above the comments with the links in it 🙂
For dry lips this will be good, but I’d also recommend a straight lip balm for times when you don’t want a tinted balm 🙂
oh my, how could I not see that big box before! thank Marie ^^. I just ordered red oxide ‘n Australian red clay, I think I will try different color to see what’s the best. Can I ask which one will make the color last longer? And how long does your lipstick last, does it fade much after u eat or drink?
😛
Both colourants will last for about the same amount of time. If you’re a relatively careful diner it’ll stay on fairly well, but if you’re going to town with napkins, it won’t stand a chance.
I love the multi-tasking of this item! I’m really into my blush and lipstain at the moment, but red doesn’t suit me. How would I make this a nice pinky/rouge (fuschia?) instead? I have an Ultramarine pink oxide powder – could that come in handy as a substitute for something here?
Thanks, Amber! As long as you use an equivalent amount of oxides you can feel free to blend a new shade for yourself 🙂 I’d probably start by replacing half the red with the ultramarine pink as it’s (or at least mine) is quite lavender-y.
Ooh I love this colour for both lips and cheeks! But I thought ultramarines aren’t lip safe?
I finally found the source I was looking for—ultramarine blue isn’t approved by the FDA for use on lips, but it is approved in the EU.
Thank you! That is so interesting! I wonder why that is, considering the EU is usually more strict when it comes to regulating cosmetics, etc. This changes everything!
That’s what I was thinking as well—if they’re ahead of the curve on organics and the like, I’m inclined to trust them with this one.
Another question Marie, made this lip balm just like your recipe (minus the blue but added a pinch more red) and replaced the grapeseed oil for jojoba oil, but I think it’s to greasy to wear as a blush can you give me an idea on how to make it a little less greasier for the skin.
Wendy
Hey Wendy! Since grapeseed oil is a faster absorbing oil than jojoba it makes sense that your change would result in a slower to absorb final product. You can try adding a bit more wax to stiffen it up, or adding more pigment so you can apply less of it for the same colour effect 🙂
Hi Marie,
I am new to your blog–LOVE it! I am excited to try your recipes esp. the Strawberry Shimmer Stick. Do you think this color will be suitable for my med. beige/light olive complexion? Pinkish colors look great on me–is this on the pink side or more red-pink. Thank you!
Hey Carolyn! You can tweak the colour yourself to make it pinker; more titanium dioxide will make it less ruddy red. The red oxide does have very strong brown undertones, though, so if you want a bright pink you’ll have to work with some carmine (or D&C Red No 7 if you’re ok with that) since that’s a proper pure red. Happy making!
Thank you for your help, Marie! I am excited to come up with the color that will suit my complexion. I love the idea of a multiuse product. Kudos to you!
Have fun and do sign up for the pre-order notification list for my book 😀 It’ll be loaded with cosmetics recipes for all kinds of different complexions!
Hi,
This is lovely
would this pass as an organic recipe?
I’m not particularly fussed by “organic”, but it is worth noting that about half of the ingredients in this formula are inorganic.