I’ve been gifting homemade lip balm to friends and family for so long now that people have told me they just hold out for Christmas rather than buy more—and I’m definitely not going to let them down! This year’s holiday lip balm is Sugar Plum themed (it seemed much more lip-compatible than Christmas Tree!). It is softly purple, deliciously fragrant, and it has got staying power that’s suited to colder winter temperatures. I think you’ll like it!
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Over the years I’ve found my lip balm preferences have shifted away from thin and glossy to something a bit thicker and more “grabby”. It’s not so much that I love the feel of a tackier balm, but experience has taught me that balms like this work better when I’m dealing with seriously dry lips. Stickier lip balms stick around to lock in moisture for longer. In this balm our sticky/stick around ingredient is beeswax, and we’re using it at 27%. For reference, my more glossy lip balm recipes use it at about 20%.
Complimenting the beeswax is some super-slick babassu oil, some decadent cocoa butter, and softening almond oil. And then, of course, our star—plum oil. This lightweight oil smells stunningly of marzipan and sour cherries, and this scent comes through in the end product. I’ve complimented that scent with a touch of vanilla-like benzoin and some bright cardamom for an exotic, soft scent blend that’s positively mouthwatering.
For some colour I’ve included a bit of a plummy purple mica; I tried both Black Amethyst from TKB and Eggplant from Windy Point, and both work well. The amethyst one was, I think, ever so slightly more purple in the end product, but it was a pretty subtle difference. If you have a different darkish purple-ish mica that’ll work, too—or you can just leave the mica out. You can also use more! It’s up to you.
The making is very simple—weigh out and melt the heated ingredients, stir in the cool down ingredients, pour the lip balm into tubes, and you’re pretty much done. As I’ve written the recipe out in grams it’ll fill five standard lip balm tubes, so if you’re planning on gifting lip balm to lots of people I’d recommend scaling the recipe up.
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Sugar Plum Lip Balm
Heated phase
6.75g | 27% beeswax (USA / Canada)
6.25g | 25% babassu oil
1.5g | 6% cocoa butter (USA / Canada)
5g | 20% sweet almond oil (USA / Canada)
5g | 20% plum oilCool down phase
0.125g | 0.5% benzoin resinoid
0.0625g | 0.25% cardamom essential oil
0.125g | 0.5% Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)
0.1875g | 0.75% plum-purple micaPrepare 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 the heated phase ingredients into a small heat-resistant glass measuring cup. Place the measuring cup in your prepared water bath to melt everything through.
After about 20–30 minutes everything should be completely melted through. Remove the water bath from the heat, remove the measuring cup from the water bath, and dry it off with a dish towel. Stir with a flexible silicone spatula to incorporate.
Add the cool down ingredients and stir to incorporate.
Pour the lip balm into tubes or tins (this recipe will fill five standard lip balm tubes), and leave it to solidify (20–30 minutes) before capping. Make sure you wipe down the tubes or tins with some paper towel before applying any labels (I love these labels) so they stick—if there’s any oil on your tubes they’ll peel right off. Enjoy your Sugar Plum Lip Balm!
Shelf Life & Storage
Because this lip balm is 100% oil based, it does not require a broad-spectrum preservative (broad spectrum preservatives ward off microbial growth, and microbes require water to live—no water, no microbes!). Kept reasonably cool and dry, it should last at least a year before any of the oils go rancid. If you notice it starts to smell like old nuts or crayons, that’s a sign that the oils have begun to oxidize; chuck it out and make a fresh batch if that happens.
Substitutions
As always, be aware that making substitutions will change the final product. While these swaps won’t break the recipe, you will get a different final product than I did.
- As I’ve provided this recipe in percentages as well as grams you can easily calculate it to any size using a simple spreadsheet as I’ve explained in this post. As written in grams this recipe will make 25g.
- You can use refined refined coconut oil (USA / Canada) instead of babassu oil
- You can use tucuma butter instead of cocoa butter
- You can substitute another lightweight oil like apricot kernel, grapeseed, or sunflower seed instead of sweet almond
- If you don’t have the plum oil (I haven’t found it in Canada yet—I’m sorry!) I think your best alternatives would be apricot kernel oil (USA / Canada) or cherry kernel oil—oils that are also pressed from the kernels of similar stone fruits. You will lose the marzipan/cherry note; if you aren’t a fan of the scent you might prefer that! Otherwise, you can look for a lip-safe flavour oil with a similar scent and incorporate it (I’d start at 0.1–0.2% as it’s a pretty subtle scent). I haven’t found this scent anywhere else in the realm of natural ingredients, sadly.
- You can use a different essential oil blend if you prefer
- The mica is optional; replace it with more liquid oil if you eliminate it. You can also use more if you like; simply remove the additional amount from the liquid oil.
- If you want to create a vegan product I’d recommend adapting this recipe to use plum oil instead of rice bran oil, cardamom essential oil instead of clove & cinnamon, plum mica instead of bronze mica, and refined coconut or babassu oil instead of virgin coconut oil.
Gifting Disclosure
The plum oil was gifted by Essential Wholesale & Labs.
Ohhh they sound lovely! I love how some of the pictures have them looking grey and some have them more of a purple colour. Dang micas!
This reminds me, I have a silvery grey colour mica now and need to try your coal lip balm again! That colour is stuck in my head!
I’ve tried a couple of these deeper plummy/purple micas and I find the shift between grey and purple happens with all of them (all the ones I’ve tried, at least!). I find it to be especially pronounced in the pour patterns in a transparent lip balm tube. It’s lovely, but weird 😛
You mentioned that Because this lip balm is 100% oil based, it does not require a broad-spectrum preservative (broad spectrum preservatives ward off microbial growth, and microbes require water to live—no water, no microbes!). I was wondering how come then lush have some shower moisturizing bars that are to be used on wet skin? does that mean their bars start getting microbial growth over time because of water touching the bars?
Yeah, I wonder about those, too. They may have a high (or low) pH to deter microbial growth. They may be relying on the bar being dry 99% of the time, so there’s never enough water for anything to grow. I wouldn’t choose to make such a thing in such a way.
Hi marie if I only have fully scented cocoa butter should I use tucuma instead? I find generally the cocoa butter tends to dominate over anything else (although I don’t have plum oil so won’t have that subtle almond scent ). For sure next order I’m getting deodorized cocoa! Thanks for great recipes
It’s up to you 🙂 I only have full cocoa scented cocoa butter as well and I liked the added cocoa note with the rest of the scent blend… but I am also a cocoa fiend! Happy making!
Hi Marie. I made this recipe today. I had a hard time measuring out the Mica. What do you use to measure the mica out with? Mine turned out grey. I used the Purple plum mica from Windy Point Soap Company. Thank you. It smells divine. I am absolutely hooked on that Plum Oil!
Hey Estelle! It sounds like my scale is probably a bit more accurate than yours. That said, the amount of mica in a project like this definitely isn’t a make-or-break thing!
I have found that these dark plummy micas can appear more grey with a purple hint than purple with a grey hint in certain lights, and especially in smaller products, where there’s less of an expanse of colour. I thought mine looked really grey, too, and then I put them next to the sugar plum conditioning body butter and saw that they were pretty much the same colour lol, and I think the body butter is purple. It’s weird, and I can’t explain it, but I don’t think you did anything wrong… it’s just weird LOL.
I’m so glad you are loving the plum oil! I want to put it in ALL THE THINGS! ❤️
Do you formulate products for clients yet?
I’m open to discussing it—send me an email if you’d like to learn more 🙂
If I leave out the mica and the cardamom essential oil, Do I need to add more of another ingredient?
Yes—I’d recommend replacing both with more liquid oil. Which liquid oil is up to you, I’d stick to one that’s already in the recipe though 🙂
Hello Marie;
I made the lip balm for gifts and for myself and am pleased with the end product, quite moisturizing. The cardamon and benzoin along with the cocoa butter have a gentle taste which adds to the overall effect of the lip balm. Thank you as always for your generous gift in sharing your recipes and efforts with us.
I am so thrilled, Liz! Thank you so much for sharing your results and for DIYing with me 😀
I got some plum oil for my birthday and rushed to try this recipe! I omitted the essential oils and mica for my first go and subbed refined coconut oil for the babassu. The formula is divine, perfect for slapping on before going outside. I definitely prefer waxier balms :] Sadly, I cannot detect the plum oil in my finished balm (I could easily smell it while it was melting) but I think I may have gotten the balm too hot. It all melted in 15 minutes, as opposed to your 20-30 minutes! Can’t wait to try it again, I’ll take any excuse to use plum oil again, the smell is just heavenly!
I need to redact the statement that I cannot detect the plum oil – I can now! I think I have some congestion that was deceiving me
Woohoo! And I’m so glad to see in your later comment that the scent of the plum oil did end up coming through for you in the end 🙂 Thanks so much for DIYing with me and happy making!
Any chance this formula will make it into your shop? I’ve given up on diy (too many failed recipes over the years) but I’m really digging this subtle purple!
I doubt it; I would need to import a new just-for-selling bottle of plum oil from the USA, and lip balms really aren’t a big seller for me. I would 100% lose money :/
Oh Marie this is divine! It is my new favorite. My go-to was the intensely moisturizing shea butter, but I’m now hooked on this one! I made it for my co-workers as well and they loved it.
I am so thrilled! Thanks so much for sharing your awesome experience and DIYing with me 🙂
Hi Marie
My Babassu oil has separated, does this mean it’s bad? Or can this happen because it’s been a hot summer? It looks weird with white jelly lookin clumps but doesn’t smell terrible.
I don’t think it’s 2 years old, (good place to lecture myself for not writing a date on it) and has been on a dark shelf, but we don’t have air conditioning.
It just sounds like it has partially melted on you, in much the same way coconut oil can 🙂 The melting point is only a bit higher than normal room temperature, so if you’ve had a hot summer (lucky you!) it completely makes sense that it would melt. I’d bet it’s fine as it’s a fairly saturated fat and tends to be quite stable.
While researching benzoin resinoid everything I see says not to take internally. Is there any concern about using this in a lip product that may get ingested?
Hey! Pretty much all of the ingredients we work with shouldn’t be “taken internally”, i.e. intentionally ingested in meaningful quantities as food/medicine (even the oils we use are usually cosmetic grade, so they aren’t supposed to be eaten). Thankfully, there’s a difference between “don’t eat” and “don’t put anywhere near your mouth”. Look for “not approved/not safe for lip use” for things that can’t go in lip products 🙂
hi Marie, I want to make a lip balm for my children and wonder about natural flavours. is there such a thing ?
I’ve seen lip balm flavour oils, but these are synthetic. Can you recommend a natural lipbalm flavour? Or can you use professional cooking extracts/flavours? Or do these not mix with oils? Thanks in advance
Hi Kristina! “Flavours” in lip balms are really usually just scents—even the “flavour oils” are products scented in a way to fool us into thinking we’re tasting something, sometimes with an added sweetener. I don’t recommend using cooking extracts; they aren’t designed to be left on the skin. I like to use ingredients like unrefined cocoa butter, virgin coconut oil, and peppermint essential oil for added scent/flavour-ish interest 🙂 Here’s an example. Happy making!