Is lip balm a sustainable, ethical, safe, environmentally friendly or green product?

is lip balm safe

Whatever the weather, many people use lip balm several times a day, every day. We have lip products to protect us from the wind, cold and sun. Many of us don’t just have one lip balm on the go, we have several dotted around our homes, offices, cars and bags. But are these little tubes and pots we seem addicted to sustainable, ethical, safe, environmentally friendly or green?

Many lip balms contain an alarming array of ingredients that are best kept well away from our lips. Up to 60% of what is applied to the skin, ends up inside our body.

Ingredients from one lip balm manufacturer includes a petroleum derived base, artificial flavours, sweeteners, fragrances and colourings along with butyl paraben.

Eek! Time to let that addiction go dear people and love our body’s with natural products instead. I can feel my liver churning at the very thought of all those chemicals.cocoa butter

The good news is that it is easy and rather fun to make your very own homemade natural, eco friendly lip balm. Doesn’t that feel good and just give you the tiniest of smug self sufficient brownie points!

Little Miss Green and I frequently use this recipe to make home made gifts for friends and family. With a pretty, personal label, it makes a lovely pressie for anyone.

Using sandalwood, myrrh and honey means it’s not too girly, so is cool enough for all you lovely guys out there too.

Healing Lip Balm recipe
Taken from Do It Yourself Pure Plant Skin Care by Carolyn Stubbin. ISBN 0646383183

Ingredients

15gm beeswax
5gm cocoa butter
5gm honey
75ml jojoba oil
3 drops sandalwood (sustainably derived please!) and 2 drops myrrh essential oil.

sandalwoodMethod

1) Put an inch of water in a saucepan, bring to the boil and put on a very gentle simmer
2) In a small bowl, place the beeswax and cocoa butter. Put the bowl over the saucepan and gently melt the wax and butter.
3) Keep the mixture over the heat and add the honey and jojoba oil. Stir gently to help mix the ingredients
4) Once everything has melted, remove from the heat and keep stirring gently to ensure even dispersal of the ingredients. Make sure the honey does not sink to the bottom!
5) When the mixture begins to cool, stir in the essential oils
6) Pour into small jars, label and date. Remember to ooh and aah and feel generally very proud of your achievement.

If you are vegan, here is a recipe for you. I’ve not tried it, so can’t speak from personal experience.

Vegan Lime and mandarin zesty lip balm recipe
Also taken from Do It Yourself Pure Plant Skin Care by Carolyn Stubbin. ISBN 0646383183

Ingredients

10gm Candelilla Wax
5gm cocoa butter
80ml sweet almond oil
5ml vegetable glycerin
10 drops lime essential oil
10 drops mandarin essential oil

Method

1) Put an inch of water in a saucepan, bring to the boil and put on a very gentle simmer
2) In a small bowl, place the candelilla wax and cocoa butter. Put the bowl over the saucepan and gently melt the wax and butter.
3) Keep the mixture over the heat and add the almond oil and glycerin. Stir gently to help mix the ingredients
4) Once everything has melted, remove from the heat and keep stirring gently to ensure even dispersal of the ingredients.
5) When the mixture begins to cool, stir in the essential oil
6) Pour into small jars, label and date.

home made lip balmFret not if you don’t have time or the ingredients to make your own luscious lip balm. Mother Nature always takes good care of her children and the chances are you have something deliciously soothing in your kitchen or bathroom cupboard.

A dab of warmed cocoa butter, a smear of almond oil or a drizzle of olive oil will all start the healing process by providing a barrier against those pesky elements.

Now turn that central heating down a notch, drink plenty of water and go and kiss some gorgeous person in your life. You look sensational – Mwah!

15 Comments

  1. Melissa McCann on March 31, 2008 at 1:13 pm

    Mrs. Green,
    These recipes sound delish! I’ll have to give them a whirl next winter. Thanks for another awesome article.



  2. Mrs Green on March 31, 2008 at 2:42 pm

    Hi Melissa,
    I have to say that the first one, with honey and myrrh is sensational. It is by far the best you’ll ever use. We used manuka honey the first time we used it and it was lovely. I’m not sure if the properties of manuka are killed off by heating though, so wasn’t sure if I’d wasted valuable honey!

    One of my friends uses this as a nappy balm for her baby and claims it is the only thing that clears it up 😀

    Let me know if you like it, when you get around to making it.

    Mrs G x



  3. Carle on May 4, 2008 at 12:49 pm

    Very cool Blog!

    I want to add you to my blogroll!



  4. Mrs Green on May 5, 2008 at 12:04 pm

    Hello Carle, it’s lovely to see another new face here. I feel very privileged when people take a moment in their day to stop and connect.

    Thank you for your comments; and please, go ahead and add me to your blogroll if you wish. I’d be delighted.

    I hope you are having lots of fun with your home edding experience over there 🙂

    Mrs Green x



  5. Karen on August 29, 2008 at 1:17 pm

    Would you be able to suggest where I can buy the ingredients for this homemade lip balm? I’d like to give it a try. Do most “whole foods” type stores carry these ingredients? Or could they even be found at big retail stores? Thank you for sharing the recipe.



  6. Mrs Green on August 29, 2008 at 1:56 pm

    Hi Karen, good to see you. I’ve been admiring the bread on your blog – the one thing I have never mastered is the art of making bread by hand 🙁

    In answer to your question; I’ve made the first recipe. Beeswax and cocoa butter I bought from Neals Yard (http://www.nealsyardremedies.com/) and jojoba oil I bought from essentially oils (http://www.essentiallyoils.com/) I like the latter because they do not have a minimum order, but I don’t know how competitive their postage charges are for international orders.
    I use Tisserand for my essential oils (http://www.tisserand.com/) and honey, I just use whatever I have in my cupboard.

    Have fun!



  7. Karen on August 31, 2008 at 3:38 pm

    Thank you so much! I’m going to see what I can find at our local coop store, but I’m so glad to have some mail order sources online in case the local stores don’t carry these things. I really would like to give this a try.

    With regard to homemade bread, I have a really great pizza dough recipe on my blog that is very easy to work with. If you ever want to give bread-making a try, that would be a great project.

    Thank you again for your help!



  8. Mrs Green on September 1, 2008 at 1:07 pm

    Hi Karen,
    You are very welcome. I hope you manage to find all you are looking for and enjoy the recipe.

    I will definitely try out your recipe – this week maybe as I am having a zero waste week, so that means no shop bought pizza bases in plastic wrapping!



  9. […] those days are over and in true self sufficient style, I now make my own. My recipes for these have been one of the most popular pages on Little Green […]



  10. Laurie Grassi on February 23, 2009 at 10:35 pm

    I write a blog on everything green and eco friendly for your home and family in Canada, and I recently posted an item about a new lip balm sold here called Softlips Pure Natural Lip Balm that’s made entirely of food-grade ingredients, and it’s just fabulous.

    It contains things like aloe vera, beeswax, vitamin E, and shea butter oil, almond, jojoba and grape seed oils and no crappy chemicals. You can check out my blog post here: http://www.styleathome.com/blogs/naturalchic/2009/02/19/the-perfect-lip-balm

    The lip balm is made by a company you also have in the UK, Mentholatum, but I’m afraid it seems they don’t offer this lip balm there yet. Maybe sometime soon? Cheers!



  11. Mrs Green on February 24, 2009 at 11:00 am

    Hi Laurie,
    welcome to the site and thank you for sharing about the article your wrote on lip balm. It’s great to hear that the company might soon offer this option in the UK – the comments on your post indicate that it’s a lovely product.

    Good luck with your Natural Chic blog; it looks great and covers a subject that we feel passionately about too.
    I see you covered John Masters today – I’m a great fan of his products myself 🙂



  12. Laurie Grassi on February 24, 2009 at 4:47 pm

    Glad you liked my blog and the John Masters item! The body wash I covered really is wonderful; you must try it if you have it in the UK.

    I’ll definitely be keeping up with your blog; it’s fun to read what like-minded people are up to in other parts of the world!

    Cheers,

    Laurie



  13. nazima on April 26, 2011 at 8:10 am

    Wow Rae just seen this and it is fab. I have just run out of lip balm so will make some this coming weekend. thanks for the recipe x



  14. Small Footprints on May 28, 2011 at 6:20 pm

    Wow … you are a woman of many talents! Both lip balms look fabulous! After reading Jennifer’s post (Not So Easy To Be Green) and recipes, and now yours … I’m ready to give this a try! 🙂 Fabulous idea to give as gifts … I’m always looking for something different to give my family … they’d love this! Thanks, Mrs. Green!



  15. Mrs Green on June 3, 2011 at 2:31 pm

    @nazima: No problem hon; hope you have fun. I’m going to have a go at making deodorant this week 🙂

    @Small Footprints: Jennifers recipe was awesome; I hope you manage to make something nice I’m sure you will!

    @Laurie Grassi: I’ll check that product out thanks laurie!