Ever wanted to replicate your favorite lip gloss? I’ve got a homemade lip gloss recipe that will help you do exactly that.
And, due to the moisturizing power of its ingredients, and the way it glides across the lips, I’m going to describe this particular recipe as a cross between a DIY lip gloss and a DIY lip balm.
Introduction
The Simple Way: Creating your own lip gloss can be as simple as mixing Vaseline with a bit of your preferred lipstick or blush for color. Just mix 2 tablespoons of Vaseline with a teaspoon of your chosen lipstick, a little blush, or beetroot powder if you’re going for a natural tint.
Something Better: However, In this post I’m going to show you how to take things further to create something more comparable to shop-bought lip gloss.
I have given this homemade lip gloss a fresh, minty scent but feel free to substitute this with a cosmetic-safe flavoring you want. You could use a drop of lip-friendly essential oil, such as Lavender or orange.
While this will give your lips a lovely, shiny appearance, the biggest draw to this recipe for me is how amazing it is at softening the skin of your lips, as well as protecting it from the elements.
I find that sometimes it’s a choice of aesthetics over practicality. But if you make your own lip gloss it allows you to do both. You can look great and feel great at the same time!
What’s In This Homemade Lip Gloss Recipe
Ingredients such as lead found in commercial lip gloss definitely give me cause for concern. So let’s take a close look at some of the key natural ingredients we’re using in this recipe.
Liquid Lecithin
Plant-derived Lecithin is a good replacement for synthetic emulsifiers and has been used for hundreds of years. It adds a lovely thick creaminess to your homemade lip gloss that’s both sticky and slow penetrating. This is exactly what you want!
If you’ve never heard of Lecithin; it’s a wonderful natural ingredient that is suitable for all skin types and is one of the best moisturizing ingredients on the market.
It is full of nourishing goodness that traps moisture within the skin while adding a protective layer, making this the perfect gloss for anyone prone to dry and chapped lips.
On the downside, it can have a bit of an odor, so I would always recommend adding a couple of drops of essential oil or flavoring here.
Carrier Oils
Castor oil is my number one choice for a homemade lip gloss, as it has a naturally glossy look and easily glides across the skin.
Coconut oil is another high-shine, slow-penetrating oil. It has some lovely skin-softening values and is suitable for the most sensitive areas.
Last but not least is the olive oil. This can be replaced with another slow-penetrating oil, but honestly, why would you? It’s so easy to get your hands on it. You can buy it at your local grocery store! It has some good anti-aging values and has been used in skincare since ancient times.
Beeswax
Beeswax will thicken the gloss and give it some good stability. It’s a common ingredient in lip balms due to its softening abilities and the way it gives the lips a protective barrier against the elements.
Our vegan friends will want to make use of candelilla wax as a substitute. However, it has double the stiffening power of beeswax and so you will want to use half as much. This will lower the weight of your homemade lip gloss, though, and may make it less glossy overall. Check out my vegan lip balm recipe for more vegan options.
Colors, Tints & Dyes
I’ve used red iron oxide and a silver sparkle mica in my lip gloss. This will give the lips a nice red shimmer (depending on how much you add). You can totally replace the red oxide with mica but unlike oxides, mica doesn’t transfer any color to the lips. Mica just gives your lips a dewy gloss.
There are some fantastically vibrant colors and glitter around that can be teamed up with a fruity flavoring, too. Either way, you will want to add a bit of color or you will end up with a beige-looking lip gloss that doesn’t look very appealing, and who wants a beige day!
You can also color your lip gloss by using other natural ingredients such as beetroot powder for red lips, hibiscus powder for pink lips, or cocoa powder for brown lips.
Does Natural Lip Gloss Need A Preservative?
Before I show you how to make lip gloss, it’s worth mentioning that this recipe has been made with only oil-based products. This is great because you don’t need a preservative and it will last about a year (approx). Vitamin E oil is included in my recipe as an antioxidant which helps to slow down oxidization.
Best Lip Gloss Containers
You can buy small 10ml lip gloss containers and tubes on Amazon for a very reasonable price.
If this is your first time purchasing these, do yourself a favor and choose the ones that come with the syringes, it just makes this job so much easier and they can be washed and stored ready for next time. The lip gloss isn’t suitable for a pot or tin as it isn’t solid enough.
In the spirit of doing pretty much everything myself, regardless of added difficulty to my life, I also make my own homemade lip gloss (though it really isn’t difficult at all). I’m well aware that you can purchase lip gloss made for pretty much any price you care to name, from a 99¢ Lip Smackers that smells like soda pop and candy, to north of the $50 mark with stuff that probably isn’t much different from the $5 stuff. Not that I’d know anything about $50 lip gloss other than what the packaging looks like.
This is my own recipe, and I’m pretty pleased with it. Unlike many glosses that tend to vampire the moisture out of your lips, this one provides a great dose of moisture and shine. You can adjust the viscosity of the gloss by tweaking the amount of beeswax by a gram or two, but I’d recommend making at least one batch of this recipe before messing with anything.
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