You don’t always have to purchase lip products from your local cosmetic store. Instead, you can make natural products at home! With this comprehensive guide, you can start making lip gloss at home.
All About Lip Gloss
Lip gloss is a popular cosmetic product that gives lips a plump, lustrous appearance. Most glosses have moisturizing ingredients, like vitamin E oil or lanolin, to nourish lips.
Generally, cosmetic-grade product recipes have the same primary ingredients. These ingredients include carrier oils like olive, jojoba, avocado, or coconut. They help lips retain moisture and contribute to the shine.
Furthermore, lip glosses have pigments for color, and you can use mica powder or natural powders to achieve specific tints. The lip product also contains wax (most commonly beeswax) to help the gloss stick to the lips.
Like most skincare products, specific types of lip gloss contain additional ingredients to enhance the formula. For example, Flavor Oils, fragrances, and SPF protection can improve lip glosses.
What Makes Homemade Lip Gloss Better?
Store-bought cosmetics have natural and artificial ingredients. Unfortunately, some glosses contain toxic ingredients like phthalates, synthetic colors, parabens, phenol, and mineral oil. Unsafe chemicals can cause health problems or burn your lips.
Fortunately, natural, and organic glosses won’t harm your skin. In many cases, they can improve your lips! Organic ingredients contain vitamins, antioxidants, and natural moisturizers that nourish skin.
Leave store-bought lip gloss in the past and create natural formulas with benefits at home.
Prepare To Make Homemade Lip Gloss
Lip products are some of the easiest cosmetics to make, and you can produce lip gloss at home with all-natural ingredients. You can also incorporate Flavors, pigments, and scents to elevate the product. Here are the things you need to get started making lip gloss at home:
Base Ingredients
Your lip gloss base contributes to the shine, moisture, thickness, and longevity of the product. Depending on your cosmetic goals, you may use different types of oil to achieve that coveted high shine.
- Castor oil or rosehip oil for shine.
- Olive oil, grapeseed oil, or tea tree oil for moisture.
- Coconut oil, jojoba oil, or sweet almond oil to stretch the base.
- Vitamin E oil or Vitamin C with Omega 3 oils as an antioxidant.
- Shea butter or beeswax to increase the thickness of glosses.
Cooking Tools
Although lip gloss bases are oils, butters, and waxes, you need to heat the ingredients to combine everything. Here are the things you need:
- Measuring spoons
- Double boiler
- Glass bowl
- Whisk
- Pipette
- Container
It’s important to use cooking tools exclusive to cosmetic making, so food particles won’t infiltrate your lip glosses and vice versa.
Each cooking tool will help you successfully integrate each ingredient and transform them into glosses. The measuring spoons help you precisely measure your ingredients.
The double boiler will melt the wax and oils together without burning (or frying) the ingredients. You’ll use a small glass bowl to hold the mixture, and the whisk will combine everything.
Lastly, the pipette will help you distribute the lip gloss to containers.
Flavoring Oils
Using highly concentrated ingredients, such as Lip Gloss Flavoring Oils, can enhance your lip products. Simply put, they make plain bases taste better. Choose a Flavoring Oil that suits your needs (and tastebuds). Some mimic baked goods, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages—like our Sweet Tea Flavored Liquid Concentrate—fruit, and more!
Please note that Flavoring Oils are not fragrances or sweeteners. However, some Natural and Artificial Sweeteners, like Monk Fruit, can improve your lip products.
Since oils have a high concentration, follow our suggested usage table:
- One cup of gloss base = one to three drops of Flavoring
- Four cups of gloss base = five to eight drops of Flavoring
- Eight cups of gloss base = 10 to 15 drops of Flavoring
Fragrance Oils
Fragrance oils can improve the smell of your lip gloss and complement Flavoring Oils. Although fragrances aren’t mandatory, they can transform basic bases. Consider adding a few drops of essential oils—like lemon, rosemary, or mandarin—to add a pleasant aroma to your products. Some oils, like spearmint, also add a slight plumping effect to lip glosses.
Pigments
You can add pigments with natural coloring agents and tints to enhance your formulas. The extra color will make your products visually pleasing unless you want a clear lip gloss base.
You can incorporate pigments in a few ways, but mica powder is the most known agent. It’s a silicate mineral that adds glitter to lip gloss. The powders come in various colors, ranging from dark to light hues.
You can also use beetroot powder for a red tint, cocoa powder for a chocolate-brown shade, or matcha powder for a green hue. Please keep in mind that food-based powders also flavor lip glosses.
Lip Gloss Containers
Plastic or glass tubes are the ideal pocket-sized containers for your homemade lip gloss. Remember to incorporate an applicator with tube glosses. You can also use a plastic squeeze tube with a built-in applicator.
How To Make Homemade Lip Gloss
Making natural lip gloss is an easy DIY project to try at home. All you have to do is follow these steps:
- Prepare a spot near your stovetop with suitable counter space, so you can melt ingredients and mix your gloss with pigments, Flavoring Oils, and other ingredients. It’s best to lay out all of your ingredients and cooking tools on the countertop.
- Open the lip gloss tubes and place them on the countertops. Doing so allows you to immediately fill them once the glosses cool down.
- Whisk one-half tablespoon of olive, grapeseed, or tea tree oil, one tablespoon of coconut, jojoba, or sweet almond oil, and one-and-a-quarter tablespoons of castor or rosehip oil in your double broiler.
Alternative tip: Heat two inches of water below a heat-resistant glass bowl to recreate the same effect if you don’t have a double boiler.
- Let the mixture come to a low simmer, and then take the base off of the heat. Continue to whisk the ingredients as they cool.
- Add one-third teaspoon of vitamin E oil or vitamin C with Omega 3 oils into the mixture. Add one to three drops of Flavoring oil, two drops of fragrance oils, and one-half tablespoon of mica powder to the melted mixture. Gradually incorporate the powders until you achieve the desired tint.
- Use the pipette to place the lip gloss into your tubes. Don’t place the tops on the lip gloss tubes yet. It’s important to let the products sit until they reach room temperature. You can use them when they become semi-solid!
DIY lip glosses are great projects to do at home, whether you want handmade products for personal use or to start a cosmetic business. Always refer to this guide for an in-depth look at natural lip glosses.
