Lip Balm: Peppermint and vanilla recipe for homemade chap stick

A post about how I am now making my own homemade lip balm! I used to put on some kind of chap stick or lip balm every night before bed but managed to break myself of the habit when I realized the commercial (chemical laden) products I was using were actually making my lips more chapped! Since then I keep a product called Mela-Gel on my night stand for really bad chapped lips (winters here in northern MN can be brutal) and it also works incredible on bug bites, burns and pretty much anything you can put it on that needs healing… But I wanted regular chap stick of my own to carry with me.

Chapped Lips: Remedies and Prevention Tips

So, I got to looking online for a chap stick recipe and stumbled upon this one from Wellness Mama. (*waves at Wellness Mama* I love you!) I changed the recipe a tad though, using a little more coconut oil as opposed to shea butter because I liked the consistency a little better. So here’s my recipe:

1 tablespoon beeswax (what I use)
1 tablespoon shea butter (what I use)
2 tablespoons coconut oil (what I use)
1 teaspoon vanilla (what I use)
15 drops peppermint oil (what I use)

Melt beeswax, shea butter and coconut oil in a double boiler or in a small glass bowl over a pot of boiling water (honestly you could pop it into the microwave too but lets pretend we/I didn’t do that…) stirring constantly until melted and then remove your pan from the heat (but keep your bowl over the hot water so it stays melty) Add the vanilla and peppermint and then pour into what you’ll be keeping it in (click here to check out the tubes that I use). You can reuse old chap stick containers and even your Eos containers too! Those little funnels I’m using in the picture have been incredibly handy, you can check them out here.

My choice of peppermint oil is probably pretty obvious, it is a common ingredient in chap sticks and lip balms. It is cooling and it smells nice. But I also wanted to change it up a little bit and create a warmer and sweeter smell and taste so I went ahead and added the vanilla to it too. I love the combination! As opposed to just hard core peppermint the smell and taste of this lip balm is more reminiscent of a peppermint cookie. I am definitely going to have to remember this recipe come Christmas time for gifts! Next time I’m going to try using lemon grass oil in place of the peppermint – thinking it might even taste a little like lemon meringue pie 😉 One note here you have to BE CAREFUL when adding your vanilla to the hot oil because it will explode if the oil is too hot lol you want to add it after the oil has cooled quite a bit but is still pour-able. Remember what they say about mixing oil and water? Its the same when trying to mix vanilla and oil here too, they don’t mix unless the oil is cool enough and then you can fully disperse the vanilla throughout before pouring. (Looking for even more lip balm recipes, check out these ideas at MorningChorse.com!)

One thing you need to take note of with this recipe is that, like most other chap sticks and lip balms, it will melt. So, I do not keep one of these in my car! I do keep one in my purse, one on my night stand and one at my day job though. I also gave my husband one that he keeps in his lunch box.