Cocoa butter is a natural fat derived from cacao beans which explain why it smells like chocolate. Cocoa butter is known for its moisturizing properties so it’s an essential ingredient to add to lip balms in order to protect and prevent chapped lips. Aside from its yummy chocolate scent, cocoa butter also contributes to the creamy texture of the lip balm. It’s important to note though that cocoa butter is available in two variants: refined and unrefined. Unrefined cocoa butter retains its mild chocolate scent and is light yellow in color. On the other hand, refined cocoa butter has been processed to remove its natural scent and color. So if you want your lip balm to smell like chocolate, then make sure to buy the unrefined variant. 



This lip balm recipe is specifically formulated for lip balm tubes so I added more beeswax to make the final product firmer. The addition of cocoa butter (which is a hard butter when solidified) also prevents the lip balm from melting and breaking easily. You can still store it in tin cans/acrylic jars, but it will take a little effort to scoop out the product from the container.

Ingredients
(Makes two lip balm tubes)

1 g extra virgin coconut oil
1 g jojoba oil
2.8 g sunflower oil
3.5 g beeswax pellets
1.5 g cocoa butter
0.1 g peppermint essential oil
0.1 vitamin E

Special Equipment

Pocket-size digital weighing scale

Instructions

1. Combine all the vegetable oils, cocoa butter and beeswax pellets in a double boiler. Over low heat, stir until the mixture is completely melted. If you don’t have a double boiler, then you can just improvise by placing a heat-resistant container over a small pot of simmering water.
2. Remove from heat then add the Vitamin E and peppermint essential oil. Mix well to evenly distribute the oils.
3. Quickly transfer the mixture to lip balm tubes and wait for it to solidify at room temperature before covering the tubes.