This sweet, smooth vanilla latte swirl lip balm is downright delightful. It’s like a trip to a local café in a vibrant new city. New York, perhaps, or London. The smell of rich coffee mingles with sweet vanilla and mouth watering cocoa. A touch of optional shimmery swirl makes for a positively enviable tube of lip balmy goodness.
I decided to try something new with this lip balm and give a swirl a go. It was certainly simple enough—just divide the batch in half, stir a copper or bronze mica into one half, and then alternate pouring the two halves into the tubes, taking care to ensure the mixture is still liquid enough that the parts will mingle and swirl instead of layer.
The coffee scent for this recipe comes from coffee essential oil, but you can definitely use a coffee infused liquid carrier oil instead of sweet almond oil (USA / Canada) like I did in my Mocha Lip Balm.
A bit of benzoin brings sweet vanilla-like notes to the party, and a delightful hint of cocoa from cocoa butter (USA / Canada) intensifies and rounds out the coffee scent.
The final lip balm is smooth, swirly, and loaded with vanilla-coffee-cocoa goodness that’ll leave your lips happy, soft, and perhaps a bit perkier.
Vanilla Latte Swirl Lip Balm
8g |0.28oz beeswax (USA / Canada)
12g |0.42oz virgin coconut oil
10g | 0.35oz cocoa butter (USA / Canada)
20g | 0.7oz sweet almond oil (USA / Canada)3 blobs benzoin essential oil
5 drops coffee essential oil1 smidgen copper or bronze mica
Measure out the beeswax, coconut oil, cocoa butter (USA / Canada), and sweet almond oil (USA / Canada) into a small heat resistant glass measuring cup. Place that measuring cup in a small saucepan with about 3cm/1″ of barely simmering water in it, and melt in that double boiler (this will take about five to ten minutes). Set out 10 lip balm tubes in a row while everything melts.
Once the mixture has melted, remove it from the heat and blend in the essential oils with a flexible silicone spatula. Then divide the oil mixture in half, and stir the mica into one half. You may have to gently re-heat the halves to keep them liquid.
Pour the melted mixtures into the lip balm tubes, alternating between the colours a couple times to get a bit of swirling going on.
Let cool and harden, cap, label (I use these labels), and enjoy!
Don’t have some of the oils called for in this recipe? Read this for information on making substitutions!
Where do you get your lip balm labels? I got some from Staples and they keep falling off!
Thanks 🙂
Amazon! Also, make sure your tubes are totally clean of oils or no label will ever stick 🙂
Where do you get all your containers? i.e., your lip balm tubes and lotion/hand soap dispensers, etc.
Thanks!
Check the links in the big box above the comments—pretty much everything comes from those stores 🙂
Hi!
I love your website and all your recipes very much! I have tried a few already and can’t wait to recreate more! I’m impressed by all the ideas you have!
Just a little hint: if you’re talking about the Italian word “latte” (milk) you don’t need the ´above the e 😉
I’m dreaming about the smell of this lipbalm…gotta get some coffee infused oil going, cause in Europe I can’t find coffee essential oil.
I also love your transparent lipbalm tubes. Here, you only get all white ones or other colors…still with white caps.
Thanks again for all your efforts, you are great and insanely talented!
Thanks, J! I shall be sure to correct my error in the future—oops! Must be the Quebecois influence making me want to put accents on everything, haha.
I made the bee propolis tincture using rubbing alcohol 10g of propolis and 20g of rubbing alcohol. The mixture is sticky in its liquid form, do I need to add more alcohol?
Any help would be great.
Thanks
If you’re finding it to be too sticky, go ahead and add more alcohol 🙂
Also, you can always comment on the relevant blog post, no matter how old. I’ll see it!
This is on my list of lip balms to make and to hide from my niece when she visits. She’s 4 and she thinks all lip balms are hers. My cream sicle ones are gone. LOL
How funny! I remember loving lip balm as a kid, too, but I ended up with far lower quality stuff than your homemade beauties 😉 Lip Smackers, how your blue sparkles and artificial scents appealed to me… ha!
Nice again 🙂 May I ask what brand gram scale you are using there?
Hi Ann! It’s this scale 🙂
Hi Marie,
I love your blog, and you creative beautiful products. I apologize if I’ve mi the answer to this question. I’m severely allergic to nuts, so I can’t use almond oil. I was considering substituting grape seed or safflower oil. What are your thoughts?
Thank you,
Heather
I found your oil substitution article. Thank you!
Heather
😉
Read this 🙂
Hi Marie
I have recently started following your blog, and tried few recipes at home, not turning out very great though, i guess i am not working with correct measurements. However I recently bought a batch of oils from local market, as its quite difficult to find oils/containers etc online in India. I am currently facing 2 key challenges to move ahead with my preparations:
– The rose lip balm i made last week turned out pretty thick, is there a way i can make it softer (like the ones you get in Body Shop), also is it fine to add red oxide into it for color?
– I recently bought a batch of essential oils, however these are synthetic essential oils (peach, mango, strawberry etc.) and also mention “only for industrial use” on the packs, is it fine to use them in lip balms?
Thanks 🙂
Hi Hitesh! To make softer lip balms, simply use less wax. Check out this article for some guidance. You can definitely add oxides as desired, just use less than you think you will need as it’s easy to accidentally make lipstick.
I’m afraid I really have no idea what you’ve purchased, but “industrial” use makes me think of floor cleaner, no lip balm. Personally, I wouldn’t put anything labelled “only for industrial use” anywhere near my mouth.
Hi Marie,
Can I substitute the benzoin EO with vanilla EO?
love your blog btw… can’t wait to start DIY-ing
Hi Gaurika! You’ll find your answer here 🙂
When I clicked on “here”, it took me back to the same lip balm on this page. Can you give me another reference about substituting vanilla oil for benzoin oil? Thanks.
Here you go (the FAQ is great reading!).
Have you ever tried infusing vanilla beans in oil, then using that for lip balm? Seemed like it might be tasty, but I haven’t tried it myself…
I haven’t tried it. I do know that vanilla isn’t oil soluble, which is why vanilla extract is alcohol based and the EO is water soluble, so I’m not sure how well it would work compared to using one of those mediums, but I have seen recipes for it, so it’s probably worth a try 🙂
I am in love with your blog! I am also a dedicated DIY-selfer. All of your fabulous recipes inspire me to make so many new products. I noticed that you have many recipes that incorporate coffee essential oil. I have coffee extract. Will that work? I have recently replenished several of my ingredients and I can’t bring myself to spend more money. Haha! I am just wondering if the extract won’t disperse properly. Any feedback would be helpful. Thank you!
Hey Maeve! Can you give me a link to the coffee extract (the shop where you bought it)? It’s hard to say without knowing what it actually is—”extract” isn’t very helpful 🙂
Hi I have a general EO / lip balm question.
I’ve found that when I add EOs to lip balms (but not body balms, etc) the scent fades away REALLY fast, which makes me sad when I use a blend I’m really proud of (peppermint, benzoin, bergamot) and the next day it just smells like cocoa butter. I’m not complaining about the cocoa scent, on the contrary, I love it! However, I don’t like when my carefully calculated blends disappear so quickly. Can you help?
Huh, that’s odd. Are those EOs usually longer-lived in other projects? Could it be that you’re adding them when the oils are too hot, so you’re damaging the EOs with heat? Orrrr it could be that the heat is making the scent stronger, and once it cools down you’re getting the room temperature version, which is much more muted without the heat of the still-hot oils. Some ideas, at least 😛
I’m thinking it might be a heat issue… Just realized the projects where scents have lasted longer are lotions where the EOs are added at the end when it’s all cooled. Will see how it works when I let the o ok ls cool for longer!
Here’s hoping—that would be an easy fix 🙂
Hello. I want to try this recipe but I can’t seem to find benzoin essential oil in my place. Can you recommend an alternative to it? Thank you very much!
I’d choose a vanilla flavour oil as an alternative for this formula 🙂