DIY Natural Candy Cane Lip Balm For the Holidays

My favorite lip balm recipe for the holidays (and for Christmas gifts) is this all-natural peppermint lip balm recipe that is both beautiful and delicious.

Tip: check out our other homemade lip balm recipe.

I Love Making Lip Balm

During winter, one of my must-have essentials is lip balm. It seems that I always have two or three different types in my purse and a few more in my car.

Lip balms are also one of my favorite things to gift at the holidays. People love to use homemade lip balm, especially when it’s all natural.

Be careful with the recipes you choose because there are a lot of not-so-natural lip balm recipes out there. From different types of colorings to artificial flavors, I’ve skipped making a lot of them because of ingredients.

Making Peppermint Lip Balm Naturally

For the past few weeks, I’ve been searching for a good smelling (and tasting) candy cane lip balm. I wanted to make a pretty looking and delicious tasting lip balm for Christmas gifts.

I had a recipe I thought I could use so I went out and purchased some of the ingredients. The plan was to tweak the recipe to be more natural, but I knew that I would need some red cinnamon candies for the color and the taste.

Well, not only do red cinnamon candies have terrible ingredients (sugar, corn syrup, artificial flavor, gum arabic, confectioner’s glaze, carnauba wax, and red 40), but they also don’t mix with coconut oil.

Trust me on this one.

After having a glass container at near breaking point temperatures, and boiling red candies that still would not mix with my coconut oil, it was back to the drawing board. I knew I was going to have to come up with a natural candy cane lip balm all on my own.

My Approach to Making This Recipe Natural

For Color

I chose one of my favorite herbs, alkanet root. When you add the powder to lip balms, soaps, and lotions it turns them a wonderful pink/red color.

For Taste

I pulled out my favorite organic peppermint flavor from my spice cabinet. (I found that between peppermint flavor and pure peppermint extract, the peppermint flavor tended to blend the best because it’s in an oil base.) You can also use peppermint essential oil with good results.

Candy Cane Stripes

Next was my task of figuring out how to make the lip balm two-toned. My first attempt ended with a great smelling, one-tone light pink lip balm. Not exactly what I wanted, but it would work. For my second attempt, I poured the white section first, then allowed it to slightly cool until almost hardened. Once it was semi-formed, I used a knife to push it to one side as I poured the red side. It was a little tough at first, but it worked! Trust me, if I can do it, you can too.

All Natural Peppermint Lip Balm Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp beeswax (find organic white beeswax pastilles here)
• 3 Tbsp coconut oil (find organic unrefined coconut oil here)
• ½ tsp peppermint flavor (find it here) OR 10 drops peppermint essential oil (find pure peppermint EO here)
• 1 pinch alkanet root powder – use more for a deeper red, less for a lighter pink (find it here)
• two 1-ounce tins (find them here)

Instructions

1. Begin by melting beeswax and coconut oil in a double boiler.
2. Once fully melted, add peppermint flavor and stir well.
3. Pour half the lip balm into two 1 oz. tins.
4. While you allow the uncolored lip balm portion to harden slightly, add a pinch of alkanet root powder to the remaining lip balm mixture.
5. Stir the alkanet root powder well, but don’t be surprised if it remains a little grainy looking.
6. Once the uncolored lip balm (in the tin) is slightly hardened but still pliable, take a butter knife and gently move the uncolored lip balm to one side.
7. Carefully pour the colored lip balm portion into the opposite side, making sure not to overlap the uncolored side (don’t pour too much!).
   • If your colored lip balm portion has hardened slightly, put it in the microwave for 30 seconds before pouring to get it liquid once again. Stir well after microwaving.
8. Allow both sides to cool completely, then cap and label.

This peppermint lip balm recipe yields two 1 oz. tins, plus a little extra, so don’t worry if things don’t turn out perfectly on the first try! My first try ended with me just mixing the two colors for a nice light pink lip balm.

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