Early Retirement Extreme Forums

6 hours in the sun, don't want unnecessary ingredients in my lip balm--whaadayathink of potential solutions?

My take: melting one part beeswax and coconut oil, that way the consistency is more of a paste at room temperature. Otherwise, a tiny bit of coconut oil will do. (Too bad I just ran out of coconut oil).

Other (too complicated IMO) recipes:

http://www.brit.co/homemade-lip-balm-recipes/

Cat oil.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=idJklVyn5PE

Use Glycerine.

I wouldn't bother with more natural remedies if you're already using coconut oil and beeswax. That's the best you're going to get, IMO.

Jojoba oil works well and is non comeogenic.

Like a lot of these sorts of products, making your own is unlikely to save you money, and it's difficult to replicate industrial standards of quality and life expectancy.

Plain lip balm:
1 tsp. beeswax
2 tsp. oil (coconut/sunflower/combo)
2 drops flavoring
1 capsule Vitamin E (preservative)

The recipe I like:
2 tsp. beeswax
7 tsp. sweet almond oil (can substitute if necessary)
1 tsp. honey
5 drops flavoring (I like vanilla, ginger also works)
2 capsules Vitamin E (preservative)


You can reuse food-safe containers to hold the balm. I've used water bottle caps, tic tac containers, and drinking straws. Don't add the balm to any plastic container until it cools a bit.

I think I would just use the same sun screen that I was using for any other exposed skin. I can't remember the last time I was in the sun for 6 hours. Maybe when I was working in the fields in the summers during my high school years. Back then I didn't use anything.

Speaking of suncream I posted this a while back:

...you need to be careful of what you buy. Physical suncream (containing zinc oxide or titanium dioxide) is usually superior to chemical suncream as they are broad spectrum, whereas most chemical creams are not. Chemical creams (which absorb rather than block the Suns rays) can also be harsh on the skin. Remember that factor 30 is about as high as you can realistically go (factor 50 provides a very marginal increase in protection) Factors beyond that are marketing inventions.

I found another recipe when I was poking around Little House Living today. I've never used shea butter, so I might try it.

Vanilla Homemade Lip Balm
2 T. Beeswax
2 T. Shea Butter
2 T. Coconut Oil
essential oil (optional, I used Vanilla)

No recipe here. I'd rather stash away the $25 it takes for me to earn enough money at a 4% SWR rate to be able to lip balm every year. Just not worth the time to ME. YMMV.

1. Check to make sure you have testicles.
2. Ignore chapped lips.

Doesn't this fall under the industrial revolution paradigm.---That "buying soap" is so much cheaper than making it yourself? #diytoaster

@jacob -- Yes, but you ingest lip balm just like you do food, and most store-bought lip balm contains some nasty stuff. Many also contain gluten, so I have to avoid them.

let lemon pledge form into a thin crust and it'll last basically until you take a hot shower and scrub w/ steel wool.

jennypenny wrote:@jacob -- Yes, but you ingest lip balm just like you do food, and most store-bought lip balm contains some nasty stuff. Many also contain gluten, so I have to avoid them.

100% agree. After being involved in biodiesel a number of years, I learned wayyyy too much about the rendering business and how oils get recycled into cosmetics with very little regulation. Prion based pathogens are not easily destroyed in the conventional rendering process.

I've also seen some pretty shady stuff even among virgin seed oil press facilities where seed oils not approved for human consumption are mixed in with cooking oil. This happens when you search for vendors selling the cheapest biodiesel feedstock.

I use Shea butter but the thought goes through my mind that an unscrupulous oil mill could be bumping up their yield with waste animal fats...you know like cat oil from road kill. I'm always particularly suspect of fats that are solid/translucent at room temperature.

I actually don't use Chapstick. I don't know what's in that Sh.t. And it isn't FDA regulated because you don't EAT it.

Edit - Pick your poison. Prions from the natural animal fats from a downer animal, or cancer from mineral oil (petroleum based but supposedly refined to carcinogen free standards). Seriously if I eat enough avocados I don't need to slather myself with questionable oils.