DIY Tinted Lip Balm

Hey all! I think I mentioned that I would do a tutorial on DIY tinted lip balm, so here it is! Thankfully I took pictures before I left for Spring Break. I just had to edit the pictures (i.e. crop, haha) and add my commentary before uploading them! Yay!

I was inspired to make my own tinted lip balm because spring is right around the corner, and I'm feeling like sheer color is what I'm going to want to do. Also, I saw that Vaseline has a red tinted tub of stuff, and I thought, "Hey I could make something like that." So I did.

So here's what you need:

The basic idea is: Base, Color, Case. Take a lip balm or some other similar base, sprinkle in some color, mix it together, and put it in a case. Easy peasy. In the first picture, I showed the three I've already made. All three had the rose salve as their base, and their color comes from (from left to right) Maybelline Color Whisper in Berry Ready; a combination of Milani Color Sensation lipstick in Nude Crème and NYC lipstick in Petal; and Hard Candy Baked Blush in Doll Face.

You're probably thinking, "Stacie, that doesn't look like the Hard Candy blush I know as Doll Face." Well, that's because I broke it years ago and had to put it in another container. And that actually made it a lot easier to use in this process. Take a look:

So let's take a deeper look at what we'll need:

Base

As you can see, I've already dug into the rose salve. Both of these are petrolatum-based, so they're very thick and moisturizing. They also give off a very glossy look, which I like. As another plus, they're fairly malleable, so it's easy to mix them with the color. Other, more solid lip balms might not have such a great end result.

Color

Color can be anything: lipstick, blush, or eye shadow. If you use a lipstick, you'll require less product. Using a blush or eye shadow takes more to get anything to show up. A loose powder blush or eye shadow pigment is the easiest way to utilize dry pigment into the base.

Case

And of course you need something to put your concoction in. I heard a while ago about melting down lipsticks and/or combining lipsticks to make your own colors and that small pill organizers were good for this purpose. I've had this for a while, and a couple of the slots were already occupied with lipsticks I had melted down. Thankfully, I had a few slots left when I decided to try out my idea. In this picture, though, there's only one measly spot left. I better make this count! I think I've also seen little pots that you could fill with the lip balm as well, maybe at a craft store or something like that.

Oh, and let's not forget a stirring utensil! In true college girl fashion, I have a plastic-wrapped knife at the ready. It's actually a pretty useful tool for this process.

Make it:

First up, get the base ready. In my case, I just put the base in the case, but you could combine the ingredients in a separate container and then put it in the case when everything is evenly mixed. That actually would have made things a lot easier and cleaner, in retrospect. I recommend it. As you can see, the rose salve has a tint to it, but it doesn't show up at all on the lips--it might as well be clear.

For this walk-through I wanted to show what to do with a solid product. If the color that you want isn't in a conveniently crushed or powder form like the baked blush or the CoverGirl TruBlend Minerals blush I had in the picture, then you'll have to scrape whatever you want to use.

The knife I had was actually pretty useful for scraping. The non-cutting end was pretty smooth and had a slight ledge that really worked to loose the product. I wouldn't recommend using the serrated part of the knife, since it will leave ugly scrape marks in the product, and bits of the blush/eye shadow will be stuck in the teeth and wasted.

Now it's time to sprinkle the product in and mix it up. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo, but as I alluded to earlier, this was a bit of a messy process, so I was quite involved in it and didn't think to stop and take a picture. I'm sure you can figure it out.

So there you go. Just a fun way to make your own tinted lip balm. It's a really great way to use lipsticks that are too matte for you, but you still like the color, or a blush that you think would work really well as a lip product. Yay, Multi-purpose products! And those balms that I pictured just leave my lips so hydrated and glossy, I love it. I'm going to have to do this for the rest of my life, now, I think.

I hope that you have a lovely day, and that you have safe travels if you're traveling :)

~Stacie