- What is the Formula of Natural Lip Balm?
- What Oils are Best for Making Lip Balm?
- What Type of Coconut Oil is Used in Lip Balm?
- What Ingredients Should Not Be in Lip Balm?
- What is the Best Homemade Lip Balm?
- How to Make DIY Lip Gloss with Coconut Oil?
Coconut oil has tons of benefits for our body, but not just for food creation. One of them is to moisturize dry areas on your skin. With this benefit, there are a number of beauty products that use coconut oil as their ingredients, including lip balm. We can find a lot of coconut oil in lip balm products in the market.
Lip balm that contains coconut oil is a great solution for you who have dry and chapped lips. Coconut oil content in lip balm can nourish and keep your lips soft very quick! And apart from that, there are more benefits of coconut oil in lip balm that you have to know.
But, before we dive into the explanation of how coconut oil could be very beneficial for keeping lips soft, do you know the formula of natural lip balm? Does natural lip balm only contain a natural oil? Well, if you are curious, let’s read the following explanation to know the answer!
What is The Formula of Natural Lip Balm?
To make a natural lip balm, you need to prepare these main ingredients. Which are beeswax, cocoa butter, and natural oil. The ratio is 1:1:4, counted by weight. Or you can use 15-20% of beeswax, 25-30% of butter, and 45-50% of natural oil.
Beeswax
Beeswax takes the role as a natural emulsifier that could help to moisturize your lips. This ingredient ‘seals’ your lips and creates a barrier that prevents the dryness caused by cold weather or environments.
It also protects your lip skin from the harmful UV rays. Moreover, beeswax has anti-inflammatory properties that could soothe your irritated skin on the lips area.
Cocoa Butter
Cocoa butter is rich in vitamin E. As we all know, this nutrient is good for our skin. It could stimulate the formation of young skin cells. So, this ingredient is very important for overcoming your dry and chapped lips.
Beeswax and cocoa butter are the ingredients that make lip balm thick and creamy. If you want to make a thicker lip balm, you can use more beeswax and cocoa butter. On the other hand, natural oils are used as a mixing fluid. If you want your lip balm to be glossier and have a light texture, you can put more natural oil in it.
Plant-based or Vegetable Oil
Plant-based oil is useful for ultra-nourishing and hydrating your lips because it has some fatty acids and is rich in antioxidants and vitamins. Some plant-bsed oils that are popular for lip balm ingredients are jojoba oil, olive oil, castor oil, rosehip oil, and coconut oil.
What Oils are Best for Making Lip Balm?
Coconut oil is one of the best ingredients to make lip balm. The oil protects your lip skin from bacteria and damaging substances by creating a barrier. This oil has beneficial fatty acids that nourishes skin.
Coconut oil has anti-inflammatory properties that could soothe the infected area on your lips, such as swelling, redness, warmth, and even wound. The fatty acid in coconut oil could heal wounds and fade scars. This component could also prevent bacterial infections. So, you can apply it on an open wound, including scars on chapped lips.
The lauric acid in coconut oil has nourishing substances that can be absorbed very quickly. So, you can moisturize healthy lips for instance.
Furthermore, coconut oil is the safest type of oil you can use on skin, especially for those of you who have sensitive skin. It does not have a strong scent that could irritate your skin.
What Type of Coconut Oil is Used in Lip Balm?
Refined coconut oil (RBD coconut oil or coconut oil 76 degree), virgin coconut oil, and hydrogenated coconut oil (coconut oil 92 degree) can be used to make lip balm.
Some lip balms use virgin coconut oil (VCO) due to its relatively higher phytonutrient content. Unlike refined coconut oil, VCO has not been chemically refined or exposed to heat treatment. Therefore, VCO still has its phytonutrients intact, which can be beneficial for skin health.
However, without the RBD process, VCO still retains its coconut aroma. Hence, if lip balm manufacturers want to create lip balm without coconut aroma or use another aroma instead, then refined coconut oil would be the oil of choice. While it might have less phytonutrients than VCO, RBD coconut oil still retains its beneficial fatty acid content. Most notably, lauric acid.
To make lip balms, coconut oil 76 degree needs to be mixed with other substances to solidify the end product. The substance must be ‘harder,’ such as beeswax or cocoa butter.
Lastly, hydrogenated coconut oil or coconut oil 92 degree can also be used as lip balm ingredient. It is more solid than coconut oil 76 degree. Hydrogenation process increase saturated fat content from RBD coconut oil, from roughly 90% to 100%. Therefore, it could use less help from other substances to solidify lip balm’s final form.
Read More: Coconut oil 76 degree vs 92 degree
What Ingredients Should Not be in Lip Balm?
Paraben
Paraben is a useful preservative for cosmetics products. It prevents the growth of bacteria and mold. Most used parabens are methylparaben, propylparaben, isobutylparaben, and butylparaben. Paraben has been used for more than 50 years.
However, recent studies detected paraben compounds in female breast tumor. Parabens are rapidly metabolized and may lead to elevated estrogen levels. High estrogen levels is linked to an increased risk of breast cancer.
Mineral Oil (including Petroleum Jelly)
You may have seen this ingredient or even used this ingredient in lip products. This ingredient may be written as: mineral oil, paraffinum liquidum, petrolatum, paraffin, petrolatum jelly, ozokerite, ceresin, hydrogenated polyisobutene, polyisobutilene, synthetic wax, cera microcristallina, methylsinalol, isododecane, or other variations.
Actually, petroleum jelly is great at locking moisture into your lips. Petroleum jelly also has been used topically on human skin for years. So why is this ingredient not recommended?
When properly refined, petroleum jelly or petrolatum is safe. However, petrolatum is often not fully refined in multiple countries. Hence, it can be contaminated by toxic chemical polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Long term exposure may induce cataracts, kidney and liver damage, jaundice, as well as cancer. Consider the fact that this substance is placed on lips, which could be easily ingested over time into the body.
Moreover, petroleum jelly and mineral oil in general comes from fossil fuels. It was first discovered on an oil rig. Imagine applying the byproduct of oil, which could fuel cars and airplanes, on your lips. If this thought makes you uneasy, pick or create lip balm made of coconut oil!
BHA and BHT
The next ones are Butylated Hydroxyanisole (BHA) and Butylated Hydroxytoluene (BHT). These two substances could stimulate some health concerns. Such as respiratory irritation, endocrine disruption, organ-system toxicity, and even cancer.
Phenol, Menthol, and Alcohol
Alcohol, phenol, and menthol give a cooling effect that might be enjoyable but can irritate the skin. Using these types of ingredients long term could cause irritation and dry lips. Continuous use of these substances will strip skin’s protective outer layer, leaving your lip skin vulnerable.
PEG-8
PEG-8 is a colorless liquid which has softening, lubricating, and moisturizing properties for skin care products. So why is this substance dangerous? PEG-8 is actually considered safe for topical use. However, there is a possibility that it may be contaminated with 1,4-dioxane.
According to CDC USA, prolonged exposure to 1,4-dioxane can cause lethal liver and kidney toxicity. Therefore, it is advised to reduce using products that contain PEG-8.
What is The Best Homemade Lip Balm?
You can make the best lip balm ever in your house with the ingredients you have. The ingredients you need are coconut oil and beeswax.
How do you make lip balm with 2 ingredients above? The process of making this homemade coconut chapstick is very simple.
First, you need to melt the beeswax and the coconut oil inside a small bowl in a pot of boiling water. Coconut oil comes in different forms, which are the liquid one and the solid one. To make homemade coconut oil lip balm, we suggest you use the solid one to avoid melting quickly.
The basic ratio of the beeswax and the coconut oil is 1:2. However, if you want to make a firmer and thicker lip balm, you can use a 1:1 ratio.
As you mix the beeswax and the coconut oil, you have to keep stirring it until the mixture completely melted together. You can also personalize the lip balm according to your desire. For example, you can add some essential oils and honey into the lip balm mixture.
Once it is perfectly mixed, pour the mixture into a lip balm container or other small jar. The next step is to let the mixture harden in the container and jar at room temperature. And voila! Your homemade lip balm is ready to use!
How to Make DIY Lip Gloss with Coconut Oil?
Besides as a lip balm ingredient, we could also use coconut oil to make a lip gloss. Instead of buying a lip gloss, you can make this easy coconut oil lip gloss recipe. Not only beneficial for your skin, coconut oil gives a natural shiny look on your lips. Just like other chemical lip gloss.
To make this DIY lip gloss, you need to prepare the main ingredients. These three main ingredients are coconut oil, sugar, and red coloring paste. You can replace the coloring paste with a drink mix that has a red color and flavor like Koolaid.
First step is to pour one teaspoon of coconut oil into a small microwave safe bowl and heat it for 10-15 seconds. Stir it and set aside.
Secondly, mix a few drops of food coloring, one teaspoon of sugar, and a few drops of water in another bowl. Mix it until it turns into a paste.
You can adjust the color as you desire. If you want to make a natural red color, you can add 1-2 drops of food coloring. However, if you want your lip gloss to have a brighter red color, you can put more drops in it.
Next, you can mix the coconut oil and the paste until it blends perfectly. Lastly, pour the lip gloss into a lip gloss container and set aside for a while.
And actually, you can also make a homemade lip scrub with these ingredients. All you have to do is mix one tablespoon of sugar and a few drops of coconut oil.
Wow, there are so many benefits of this natural oil. It’s amazing to know how an oil extracted from dry coconut could be so useful for beauty care.
Now that you guys have learned how to use coconut oil in lip balm, lip gloss, and lip scrub, it is time to say goodbye to dry and chapped lips!