Lip Balm Season

If your lips also crack in winter like mine, this is for you

First of all, I apologize for being very slow to update this. There were some viruses in the family jumping from one to the other, Christmas preparations, more viruses and so on. To the point where we were wondering when was the last time we were all healthy at the same time. Still wondering.

our Christmas dinner table

I hope everyone had a lovely, Merry Christmas. We caught a little break from all the various sicknesses during Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so we were lucky. And as a Christmas win, my meal, my table, my home left my parents speechless. I impressed my mother with my roast beef on Christmas Eve. That meant a lot to me.

The week before was filled with baking cookies and decorating and cleaning.

And now we have made it through the darkest time of the year. The days are officially getting longer from here.

Lip Balm Season

It’s around this time of the year, when the weather gets colder and drier, that the lips start cracking from the cold and wind outside. Because we go skiing and skating outside often, I always had a lip balm handy.

And like with the sunscreen lotion in the summer, looking at all those ingredients, made me ask myself: do we really need all that?

It’s not the price, lip balms are cheap, but the ingredients on those lists sound like Star Trek replicator made ones to me. So a very quick search later and one or two shopping trips later, I gathered the ingredients to make our own lip balm in the kitchen. It all took about 10 minutes.

Another reason for me to make it myself was that I could use grass fed beef tallow, which is really not a common ingredient in cosmetics in shops. I have checked. And I really like the way it feels on skin.

The tallow balm recipe below results in a lip balm which isn’t sticky and leaves a nice matte finish, which will stay on your lips for hours, even while you’re happily enjoying time outside.

Tallow Lip Balm

• 10g tallow

• 5g shea butter (I have the non-refined shea butter and it has a stronger smell, but it works wonders in the lips)

• 15g mango butter

• 10g beeswax

• 15 drops essential oil

Mango Lip Balm

• 10g mango butter

• 10g coconut oil

• 10g beeswax

• 5g jojoba oil

• 15 drops mango oil

I use a small scale for these, but they work well enough with teaspoons, as long as you keep the proportions right.

Melt the butters/oils together in a small container placed in a larger pan with hot water. Stir well until they are combined, then add the essential oils. Pour into your containers and place in the fridge for a few hours if using lip balm containers.

You can reuse old lip balm containers which have been washed and dried thoroughly. Or you can use 5g beeswax instead of 10 to make it softer and pour it in little containers.

You can also add a little raw honey in the melting phase, about 3g for the quantities above. In this case, you need to keep whisking the mix while it cools, otherwise the honey will settle at the bottom.

As a note, essential oil is optional, I personally prefer it without, but if you are going to gift it to someone else, the first thing they will do is smell it. So you can add a little essential oil, like lavender, vanilla, peppermint.

This recipe will make about 4 15ml containers.

Personally, I favor the tallow version. I found that tallow works very well for my skin. But this is a personal choice and it might or might not work the same for you.

I also found that with this lip balm, I do not need to apply psychotically all day long. Once in the evening is enough. Sometimes once every couple of days.

You can store the extra ones in the fridge or gift them to friends or family.