Sometimes people will swing by the Skin Actives webstore, looking to pick up a lip balm. It’s a thought that makes sense, skin care and the care of your lips are one in the same. And longtime members of the Skin Actives Family may even recall a time when we made our own lip balm! 

But the fact of the matter is that at Skin Actives Scientific, if we can’t do something great, we’d rather not do it at all. Our lip balm was pretty good, but it wasn’t so much better that it overcame the convenience of just walking into a store and buying a lip balm off the shelf. Not to mention that oftentimes when you need a lip balm, you need it right now! Waiting for one, even with our next business day shipping, can be a bit long.

But guess what? Lip balm can still be a great DIY project! And this week, we’re joined by our founder, Dr. Hannah Sivak as she teaches us how to make our own lip balm at home! So we’ll let Hannah take it over from here:

What are the Benefits of Lip Balms?

Lip balms are used to help with painful lips, dried by the dry weather, central heating and the sun.

What’s special about lips? 

With its three to five cellular layers, the skin of the lips is very thin compared to the skin in the rest of the face, which has up to 16 layers. Lip skin does not have sweat glands or hair, so it does not have the usual protective layer of sweat and body oils, which keep the skin smooth and somewhat protected. For these reasons, the lips dry out faster and become chapped more easily. They are more sensitive to sunlight: in people with light skin color, the lip skin contains fewer melanocytes (cells that produce melanin which give skin its color). The blood vessels can be seen through the skin of the lips, which makes them look pink/red, and the UV protection provided by the melanin is not there.

Sunlight, smoke, and hot liquids stress your lips, making them more susceptible to infections. If you protect your lips, what will you gain? Healthier lips, and you can prevent and even reverse to some extent the effects of sun, aging, and tobacco consumption, i.e., lip lines and inflammation.

Ingredients in the Usual Lip Balms

Lip balms are usually solids at room temperature that melt when applied to the lips; they come in small containers or are molded in a lipstick shape. To keep the balm from melting at room temperature, they contain wax as a major ingredient; the wax and oils in the lip balm will help prevent water loss from the lips. Other ingredients are pigments (for color), antioxidants, flavorings, butters, fragrance. Since there is no water, there is no need for preservatives.

A typical ingredient list for a lip balm: Beeswax, coconut oil, sunflower seed oil, peppermint oil, lanolin, rosemary leaf extract (fragrance, antioxidant), soybean oil, canola oil, limonene (fragrance).

Skin Actives used to sell a “classic” lip balm but not anymore; the market is full of inexpensive lip balms, but we still sell special lip treatments you can find on our webstore.

Making a DIY Lip Balm

If you want to make your own lip balm, you can just buy cocoa butter or vaseline or shea butter. They are easy to get and cheap! Melt the one you chose in the microwave or in a pan on the stove (it won’t take long) and pour into a container you can take with you wherever you go. We recommend a small jar that will close tight.

You can also use liquid crystal from Skin Actives as a base. You can even use it “as is”, it’s beautiful, but it’s a liquid, not a “real” lip balm.

A note on the use of Liquid Crystal: Our recommendations on making your own lip balm are a great way to introduce some thrift into your routine. However, with liquid crystal, you will not save money, because liquid crystal is a mix of cholesterol derivatives and one of the most expensive ingredients we use, and it’s used at high concentrations! 

It may not be obvious, but wax and oils are very inexpensive (a tiny fraction, actually) compared with liquid crystal, which keeps going up in price all the time. Some skincare ingredients are very common and fluctuate little, but even the price of orange juice will vary depending on the weather and how good the harvest is, as demonstrated by the movie “Trading Places”. A recent case is vanilla extract: when the consumer is convinced by advertising that they need natural vanilla extract for everything, prices skyrocket, even plain vanilla ice cream. 

Choose Your Flavor:

You can go to your kitchen in search of flavorings, but try to use oil-soluble flavorings, many of which can be found at your local supermarket. If you fell in love with the old Earl Grey Skin Actives lip balm, you can buy a similar flavoring oil at Nature Flavors,  Earl Grey Flavor Oil for Lip Balm. If you take a look through their site, you’ll see a wide range of flavors available. 

Other Additions:

If you want to get ambitious, enhance your DIY lip balm with any of the following Skin Actives products. These blends of active ingredients will make your balm more effective without trying to figure out what combinations will work best.

When adding in a little something extra, follow these steps: When the shea butter is still liquid, add a drop of your addition and/or flavor. Here are some ideas of things you can add, all are available from either Skin Actives or your local grocery store.

Antiox Booster - This will give your lip balm color and great antioxidant power. 

Liquid Crystal - What will it do for you? Prevent water loss, provide some nourishment (cholesterol is a lipid present in cell membranes.)

Flavors and Spices - In your kitchen you will find vanilla extract, plus look at other spices and try them. Careful with the peppers, you may like that they plump your lips but your lips may not appreciate it. Don’t add sugar, the bacteria will like it too.

Healthy Lipids - Rosehip Seed Oil or Vitamin E Oil provide the healthy oils that keep the skin barrier functioning properly. Your skin will thank you!

Stevia powder - It’s available at the supermarket and can be added for some sweet flavoring. 

There is probably no easier DIY than lip balm. If you want to meet some other skincare DIYer’s be sure to find our Skin Actives Facebook Group. Join up and post your results. And always remember to have fun!

Thanks for joining us again this week for another DIY project from Dr. Sivak! We’ll be back next week with our last blogs of the year, we look forward to seeing you then. Have a great weekend, Skin Actives Family!