I Made My Own Burt’s Bees Chapstick!!!

I’ve seen some tutorials on Pinterest on how to make your own chapstick, and I’ve been wanting to try it for a while now 🙂

 

 

Burt’s has been my favorite chapstick for years 🙂   But it always intrigued me that you could make your own, plus the fact that chapstick is $3 sometimes $4 a tube, and I carry chapstick around with me everywhere (therefore using a lot of it), I decided it was time to try to make my own and I am oh-so-glad that I did!  It’s easy, and it smells so good!  It’s smoother, and the mix of the beeswax and peppermint oil smells wonderful!

 

I found several recipes and started reading and comparing.  The one that especially caught my eye was the one that said it was an exact copycat recipe of Burt’s Bees…and for only 12¢ a tube!!!  (click on the picture below)

 

 

 

So what I’m writing here isn’t really a full tutorial…but this is my variation of what I did with her recipe 🙂

 

I also found this helpful tutorial from Nerdy Farm Wife.  She goes into the ratios you need if you would want to experiment more with other ingredients or substitute anything.

 

 

Happy Money Saver’s ingredient list was:

• 20 grams Beeswax (about 3 Tablespoons of the whiter beads, but you can use a white/yellow bar too)
• 20 grams Cocoa Butter or Coconut Oil (about 2 Tablespoons)
• 45 grams Sunflower Oil (1/4 cup)
• 8 drops Vitaman E oil (4 vitamin E oil tablets worth)
• 2 drops DoTerra Rosemary essential oil
• 12 drops DoTerra Peppermint essential oil
• Pea-sized drop of Lanolin ( she said not to use much of this or your balm will taste bad)

 

 

I knew that the melting difference of cocoa butter and coconut oil was huge.  Coconut oil melts SO quickly, while cocoa butter is a lot harder.  So I wasn’t too sure about using the coconut oil instead of the cocoa butter like she said.

I also didn’t have sunflower oil.  OR vitamin E oil.  OR Lanolin.

So I modified the recipe like this:

• 3 T. beeswax
• 2 T. cocoa butter
• 1/4 c. almond oil
• 20 drops DoTerra Peppermint essential oil (you don’t have to use DoTerra…just use a quality oil)

 

And I don’t have a little kitchen scale to measure the grams exactly…so this is proof that you can make good chapstick without needing to be really exact 🙂  Though one of those scales might be nice to get someday!

 

 

 

 

I was surprised how quickly it all melted.  We had beeswax ‘beads’, so that probably helped the melting process go more quickly.

 

 

I used a glass medicine dropper to fill the chapstick tubes that I’ve been saving as I used up my Burt’s Bees (I’ve been planning this for a long time, lol!).  You can buy tubes, though,  (see Happy Money Saver’s tutorial) if you don’t happen to keep empty tubes in your closet 😀

 

It looks all clear when you first put it in, but it sets up pretty quick (on the left).  At first my medicine dropper was starting to resemble a candle because the beeswax kept cooling each time I dipped it 😀  But I kept squeezing and stirring the dropper in the hot beeswax until it melted off.

 

 

My sisters were laughing as I was exclaiming, “Look girls!  Look!  I MADE that!” 😀  But it is a pretty neat feeling to see all of these full chapstick tubes that YOU made 😀

 

The chapstick sinks as it cools, so I topped it off with more melted chapstick to make it look smoother.

 

 

 

One recipe of hers made 12 tubes, plus a little bit left over that I put into a plastic container to melt back down later for refills. I’m guessing it probably would have made 18 or so tubes.

I actually like my homemade Burt’s better than the actual Burt’s Bees 🙂  It’s not quite as hard as Burt’s Bees, but also not too soft…I don’t like soft gooey chapsticks!

Is it worth it?!  YESSSSS!  I think I’m going to make my own from now on…it’s easy, it’s cheap, and I know exactly what I put in it 😀  I think it took me an hour, from start to finish.  That doesn’t include all of the overthinking, and analyzing I did over different recipes before I started, buuuut….that doesn’t count 😀

I also had the added blessing in that Mommy keeps “strange” things like Cocoa Butter, Beeswax, and essential oils around…and she let me use them if I gave her some chapstick, hehe!

 

A little cleaning tip: after emptying the pan of the chapstick mixture, wipe it out right away with a paper towel.  That way the beeswax doesn’t harden on the pan 🙂  I did the same thing with the medicine dropper, then I squeezed boiling water in and out of it to clean the inside.

 

Be sure you check out the Happy Money Saver’s tutorial.  It was easy to follow, clear, and to the point…just what I like!

 

How about you?  Have you made your own chapstick or another beauty product?  What are your favorites? 🙂 🙂

 

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