3 ingredients. Plain gorgeous. Wondrously efficient. And simple to make.
This lip balm is rich, thick and sticky, it stays on your lips forever, trapping in the moisture, offering your lips protection & intense healing. It is my must-have winter-time lip protector and I am happy to share this simple "Blend It Yourself" project with you!
Besides being ridiculously easy to make, this lip balm works magic for chapped lips. My daughter's lips have gotten cracked and chapped and this lip balm helped her lips recover fully in just a day.
Wanna know how is that possible with just 3 natural skincare ingredients? Let's dive in!
CHAPPED & DRY LIPS: Causes, Treatment & Prevention
What are chapped lips?
The skin on your lips is thinner and more sensitive than the skin on the rest of your body. Also, your lips don’t contain any oil glands. When exposed to unfavorable conditions they are at risk of becoming chapped.
Chapped lips are defined as dry, cracked skin on your lips most frequently due to:
cold, windy, or dry weather,
sun exposure,
recurring licking of your lips,
or dehydration.
Normally, you can treat chapped lips at home with the use of a quality lip balm or ointment to ease discomfort and speed up healing time.
Sometimes chapped lips (known medically as cheilitis) can also occur from contact with an allergen, a certain medical condition or vitamin deficiency. If this happens, you should visit your healthcare provider for advanced treatment options.
What are the symptoms of chapped lips?
Dry or cracking lips
Peeling skin
Itching or mild pain
Sores on the lips
Painful stinging reactions when eating (citrus fruit, spicy and salty foods)
How do you heal chapped lips?
Chapped lips can be efficiently treated at home by:
Using lip balm throughout the day and before sleep,
Applying sunscreen when outdoors,
Covering your lip area with a scarf when outdoors during winter,
Staying hydrated,
Avoiding licking, picking or biting at your lips.
Your lips will heal much faster if you start treating them as soon as you notice the problem.
You should also avoid using lip makeup while your lips are chapped, giving your lips time to heal. If you can't skip on make-up make sure you use a non-irritating, non-drying lipstick, lipgloss or lip oil on top of your lip balm/ointment.
I have a neat lip conditioner formula in my shop that works perfectly for that purpose (just leave the essential oil out of the formula if you have chapped lips). It protects, intensively regenerates and moisturizes the lips with a pop of color.
NATURAL SKINCARE INGREDIENTS FOR CHAPPED LIPS
Ingredients to consider incorporating into a product for chapped lips:
Plant butters (cocoa, shea or mango are my favorites)
Beeswax
Lanolin
Plant oils (castor seed oil, sunflower oil, hemp seed oil)
Soothing, restoring, or moisturizing actives (such as ceramides, bisabolol, hyaluronic acid lipo, zinc oxide, CBD)
Avoid flavoring and aromas: essential oils like cinnamon, citrus, mint/peppermint, eucalyptus, and camphor are wonderful in skincare but can be irritating to chapped lips. If you want to add some fragrance to your lip balm try using an oil infusion/macerate instead (read how to make them here) or add a very low concentration (I recommend up to 0.3%) of soothing essential oil like lavender or immortelle.
If your lips burn, sting, or feel uncomfortable when you apply the lip balm to your lips, an ingredient is probably irritating your lips. In that case, you would want to re-develop your formula, re-think your ingredient choice and simplify your product to make it efficient and safe to use.
LIP BALM INGREDIENT SELECTION
I used only three ingredients to make a lip balm that efficiently and quickly treats chapped lips and offers immediate relief to dry and tight skin of the lips. Essentially, I always try to formulate my skincare products based on simplicity and efficiency. Instead of layering "all the ingredients that could work", I try to find out which ones work best and use just those. Sometimes I feel like we can easily be carried away as formulators and think that the formula will be "perfect" once we've included all the ingredients that are usually used for addressing a certain skin problem, but I frankly think it should be vice-versa. When there is nothing (not one ingredient) that can be taken away from the formula, I know that the formula has reached its optimal constitution.
Lanolin (INCI: Lanolin)
Lanolin has excellent emollient, nourishing and calming properties, reduces TEWL (transepidermal water loss), and is perfect for protecting and repairing dry, scaly and damaged skin. It helps to relieve skin redness, smoothens and softens the skin.
It is a widely researched skincare ingredient with a complex mixture of esters of high molecular weight aliphatic alcohols, sterols, ceramides and fatty acids. It is perfect in formulations for reinforcing the skin's barrier function.
Since lanolin is an animal-derived ingredient (from sheep's wool) try to find a supplier that sells ingredients from a producer who treats animals with care and respect.
Cocoa butter (INCI: Theobroma Cacao Seed Butter)
A lovely butter with a delicious aroma, that is highly nourishing and helps to improve the elasticity and suppleness of the skin. It is high in stearic, oleic and palmitic acids that help to nurture the skin and form a protective barrier over the skin to hold in moisture, preventing the skin from drying and peeling. It is a great choice for lip balm formulations due to its firmness, with the ability to soothe cracked skin and protect it from external factors.
Beeswax (INCI: Cera Alba)
I used beeswax to give this lip balm consistency, firmness and stability of the formula. Beeswax is a wonderful skincare ingredient that brings emollient, soothing and softening benefits to the lips. It makes the skin smooth and velvety. It also acts as a protective barrier, forming a thin layer on the skin, helping the skin to maintain its moisture. It is especially well suited for use on dry, rough and irritated skin.
I used high-quality, unrefined ingredients for this lip product. Some formulators find lanolin stinky (yikes), in that case, use the refined one. None of my unrefined lanolin (from different suppliers) had a strong or bad smell, I actually find it quite gentle and pleasing. A highly subjective matter, just do your thing. ;)
Enjoy this wonder- recipe & method below.
3-ingredient LANOLIN LIP BALM
Formula:
40% lanolin
35% cocoa butter
25% beeswax
Method:
Melt all ingredients and pour into sanitized lip balm tubes. Leave to harden. Kiss, kiss, kiss!
Fragrance & antioxidants:
For fragrance guidelines, read the blog above. I did not add any fragrance to this formula because I wanted to make sure it is appropriate for sensitive, reactive skin and children. An antioxidant is not necessary since all three ingredients are very stable with a long shelf-life, so this lip balm should be gone well before its expiry date with regular usage. If you will be including any extracts or actives, an antioxidant would be recommended.
Usage:
Apply multiple times per day and before sleep.
This lip balm is:
Perfect for preventing or treating chapped lips.
Appropriate for sensitive skin, children & toddlers.
Multifunction balm, efficient in treating dry rashes.
UPGRADE YOUR LIP PRODUCT FORMULATION SKILLS
Learn how to make an oily lip gel that is a product similar to lip gloss with the protecting properties of a lip balm, deep regeneration and nourishment of a lip mask, and (optional) color of a liquid lipstick. With added hyaluronic acid it actively improves the conditions of dry or chapped lips and makes the lips more smooth, soft and plump.
2 BONUS RECIPES are included in the e-book: tinted & full-coverage oily lip gel.
