Often, actively caring for the skin of the face, we forget that our lips also need no less, and maybe even more, care. After all, the skin of the lips is thinner, and therefore more vulnerable. Therefore, it needs care even more intensive than facial skin care. There are a huge number of lip care products in the cosmetics industry, but they usually contain a lot of synthetic ingredients, parabens and fragrances, which can not help, but harm, for example, dry out the delicate skin of the lips or cause irritation.
Therefore, it is very useful to be able to prepare lip balm yourself, with your own hands. After all, no one but ourselves knows what kind of care our sponges need at the moment. The action of the balm can be aimed at moisturizing or nourishing the skin, removing dead skin particles or protecting it from chapping.
You can make a winter lip balm to protect and nourish your lips, or a scrub balm to exfoliate dead skin and leave your lips smooth. But before you start cooking, you need to study how different possible components affect the skin.
What can you make a balm from?
The main ingredient in homemade lip balm and its base is beeswax. It is famous for having a bactericidal effect on the skin and fighting the formation of fungal diseases. In addition, in the balm, it acts as a preservative. You can find it in free sale from honey merchants. You need to choose wax carefully, it must be clean, without impurities, otherwise the balm will not work.
Essential oils must be present in the balm. They actively care for the lips and give them a healthy look. Oil can be chosen depending on the purpose of the balm. If you need a moisturizing effect, grape seed oil, almond oil or coconut oil will do. For a pronounced nourishing effect of the balm, you can use sesame oil or Shea butter. To protect the skin of the lips from chapping in frost and bad weather, cocoa butter is well suited. In addition, it will give the balm a noticeable aroma of chocolate.
Not only base oils, but also essential oils have a strong effect on our skin. Nature has given us an infinite number of various types of ethers. We just have to choose those that are necessary for our skin. Lemon essential oil will have an antiseptic effect, lavender essential oil will soothe irritated and inflamed skin, and ylang-ylang essential oil is a powerful aphrodisiac.
Also, in many recipes for lip balms, you can see such an ingredient as vitamins A and E. They also nourish the lips, have a healing effect, and, directly, vitamin E also gives a rejuvenating effect, therefore it is suitable for caring for mature lip skin.
Another ingredient that will actively nourish the skin of the lips, as well as gently exfoliate it, is honey. But before cooking, you need to make sure that there is no allergy to it. To do this, just put a drop of honey on the crook of the elbow and follow the reaction of the skin. If the skin turns red, it is better to abandon this component, if the skin did not give a negative reaction, you can safely add honey to the lip balm, it will turn out to be sweet in taste.
How to cook?
The preparation of the balm is very simple. It takes 15-20 minutes to get a natural, fresh lip balm.
You will need a container for balm. It can be a tin from a cream or an old, purchased, balm. If you don’t have such a container at hand, you can purchase a container for it at a soap shop. The container must first be sterilized so that the balm lasts longer.
A wooden stick or a small spoon is suitable for stirring.
Beeswax should make up approximately 30-35% of the total volume of the balm. The base oil should be about 50% by volume. From 5% to 10% should be honey, if it is present in the composition. If the balm is prepared without honey, you need to increase the amount of wax to 40% and the base oil to 55%.
Essential oil and vitamins must be dissolved in the base oil in advance. If solid oil is used as the base oil, it must first be melted over a fire.
At the first stage, beeswax is heated, for this you need to put it in a metal saucepan and, over low heat, while stirring, wait until the wax becomes liquid.
Then you need to remove the bowl from the fire and add the base oil, already mixed with vitamins and esters, to the wax. This will be the second stage. Don’t forget to stir constantly.
At the third, last stage, honey is added. Oils are difficult to mix with honey, you have to work hard.
When the balm is thoroughly mixed and the ingredients are combined into a homogeneous mass, you can drop the flavor and mix.
The balm is ready, it remains to shift it into a jar or pour into a tube of lipstick and leave to harden.
If the balm is too soft, you need to melt it and add a little more beeswax. If the balm, on the contrary, turned out to be too hard, you need to melt it again and add the base oil.
Such a remedy is stored for 3 to 6 months in a cool place.
Little tricks and ideas
Before applying the balm, you can use a lip scrub. Then the balm will penetrate even deeper and act more actively.
In addition to its direct purpose, such a balm will be a good helper in the fight against rough skin on the elbows.
Lip balm, prepared with love, will be a wonderful gift for a friend, mother or sister. For a gift balm, you can buy a beautiful tin box, you can tint the balm itself with food coloring so that it acquires a bright saturated color, you can make a set of three or five small boxes of balm with different flavors or different colors.
And you can make a set of seven boxes – one balm for each day of the week: Monday – moisturize the lips, Tuesday – gentle skin scrubbing with honey balm, Wednesday – moisturizing … And so on. It will turn out to be a very sincere and useful gift, because the product is exclusive, original and, importantly, made from natural ingredients, which is so highly valued these days.
Lip Balm Recipes
“Mountain Balm”:
- 10 grams of beeswax;
- 15 grams of Shea butter;
- Lavender essential oil, essential oil…
