Using this recipe, you can make a smooth, moisturizing lip balm with just five natural ingredients. To tint your homemade lip balm, choose from either mica or organic beet root powder. Your lips will be truly kissable with subtle color!
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Lip balm is amazing on its own, but when you add a little bit of color, it’s even more fun to wear!
I make lip balm all the time, but just recently started tinting it. Adding subtle color to my already amazing recipe gives my lips a subtle sheen that I love!
For this tutorial, I put a little twist on my standard tallow lip balm recipe. If you want to see how I usually make my tallow lip balm or beeswax lip balm, click the highlighted links for the original recipes.
Two Colorant Choices for Lip Balm Tinting
One option for tinting your lip balm is to add mica powder to the lip balm base. Mica is commonly added to cosmetics and skincare products. I use mica to color my handmade goat milk soaps, so I have a lot of shades on hand to choose from. For the pink lip balm you see in the picture at the top of this post, I used Rose Pearl mica from Brambleberry.com.
If you’re not a fan of mica, a natural coloring option is organic beet root powder. The lip balm I tinted this way turned out a pretty, mauve shade which you can see in the above picture on the righthand side.
Materials for Making Tinted Tallow Lip Balm
Pyrex glass 2 cup liquid measuring cup with spout
Double-boiler pot or microwave
Lip balm tubes or tins with lids
You can melt your lip balm ingredients using a double-boiler or microwave. I pour my lip balm mixture right into the tubes from the Pyrex cup, using the spout. Labels are optional, but add a nice finishing touch.
Ingredients for Making Tinted Tallow Lip Balm
- (Makes ten 5.5ml tubes of lip balm)
- 36 grams tallow
- 8 grams beeswax
- 4 grams olive oil
- 2 grams flavor oil
- 1 tsp colorant (mica or organic beet root powder)
You can purchase tallow to use for this recipe, or render your own from suet. For information on how to render tallow on your stovetop, click here.
The addition of olive oil to my regular tallow recipe gives extra glide to this lovely lip balm. Alternatively, you could use another oil that is liquid at room temperature such as jojoba or avocado oil.
I used the Vanilla Mint Flavor Oil from Brambleberry.com in this post and it is heavenly! Make sure that whatever oils you add are lip safe.
I made one batch with mica and one batch with beet root powder to have options!
Directions for Making Tinted Tallow Lip Balm
- 1. Using a kitchen scale, weigh out pelleted beeswax into the Pyrex measuring cup.
- 2. Melt the beeswax using a double boiler (preferred method) or microwave. The beeswax has a higher melting point, so it needs to be melted first, on its own. Do not overheat or boil!
- 3. Add the tallow to the melted beeswax and stir with a rubber spatula. If necessary, heat gently to melt the tallow. It doesn’t take much heat to melt tallow, hot beeswax often does the trick, eliminating the need to heat again.
- 4. Remove from heat and add olive oil and flavor oil. If you don’t want flavored lip balm, omit this ingredient.
- 5. With a measuring spoon, add 1 teaspoon of your desired colorant and stir with the rubber spatula to thoroughly combine.
- 6. While the mixture is still hot, carefully pour into lip balm tubes or tins.
- 7. Allow lip balm to cool, undisturbed for 30 minutes.
- 8. Attach lids and labels to the lip balm.
- 9. Pucker up, your lip balm is ready to use!
Mother, farmer, author, and teacher by trade… She loves tending to things and watching them grow!