Homemade Lip Balm

With cold dry weather comes chapped lips. Chapped lips are not a given at this time of year, but just recently I woke up with the beginnings of a split lip. You know that annoying vertical cut in the lip that never seems to go away. The more you lick your lips the worse it gets.

Fortunately, at the first signs of the unwanted condition, I made a homemade lip balm and within 24 hours (I kid you not), the split was healed. Granted, I did apply the balm several times a day, but by the time I woke up the next morning my lip was just fine.

My hubby, who previously kept the Chapstick folks in business, used the balm. He was amazed at the quick relief. He now uses it occasionally because he’s no longer suffering from chronically dry chapped lips.

Here’s what I did

Ingredients:

• Shea butter
• Bee’s wax pellets (I purchased mine from my local health store)
• Coconut oil
• Essential oils: Rosemary, Frankincense, Lavender, Myrrh (I believe rosemary is the heavy-hitter in this concoction and probably the only necessary oil)

The Process:

1. In a double boiler place equal amounts of shea butter, bee’s wax and coconut oil and allow it to melt. In my case, I used one tablespoon of each.

2. Stir occasionally to ensure thorough mixing.

3. Add drops of essential oils and stir. Working with essential oils is a forgiving process. Because my first batch wasn’t very large I added approximately 3 drops of each oil (rosemary is particularly good for healing wounds).

4. Pour into a glass jar and allow to cool.

5. Once cooled, apply to lips. Easy peasy.

Note: It does not taste good. There are lip balm recipes out there with things ingredients like peppermint, honey or even syrup to make it taste good. Personally, I didn’t care about the taste. What I cared about was making sure I mixed the right oils that would work best on my split lip and that it did.

Down the line, I’ll experiment with better tasting balm, but the taste is secondary.

Homemade Lip Balm – Multi-Use

My daughter, who had a horribly itchy rash and dry skin, applied the mixture to her body. It stopped the itching immediately. Within a week or so, her rash was gone.

I’ve since made a larger batch to keep on hand just in case. I use it for scrapes, rashes and of course, chapped lips.