Tallow Lip Balm Recipe with Honey (2024)

I’m so excited to share this tallow lip balm recipe. It goes on absolutely beautifully, includes raw honey, and can be customized with different essential oils.

Tallow lip balm recipe with honey

This time of year, the dry winter weather in Colorado can be really hard on skin, and lips often suffer the worst. Nothing moisturizes skin better than tallow, and that’s the main ingredient in this lip balm. It’s my favorite lip balm ever.

If you’ve spent time on my blog, you know how much I love grass fed tallow. There’s nothing else like it when it comes to moisturizing, healing, and soothing skin. I talk more about the benefits of tallow for skin here, and how to render tallow using the easy, crockpot method here.

Honey is another one of my favorite ingredients for skincare. It’s moisturizing, balancing and healing. I love it in this lip balm as well, because it gives a nice texture and a little yummy flavor! I talk about the benefits of honey on skin here.

I’ve made different plant based oil and beeswax lip balm recipes in the past. They work fairly well for moisturizing, but they do leave an oily feel. And it always seemed like my hair was getting stuck in my lip balm!

With this tallow lip balm recipe, I was so happy to find out that the application was totally different. It goes on with a lovely, matte finish, and isn’t sticky! No more hair getting stuck in my lip balm. Yay!

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Choosing an essential oil for this tallow lip balm recipe

One of the most fun things about making lip balm is trying different essential oils. Some essential oils work better than others in lip balm. If you’re using a citrus essential oil, it’s important to use a steam distilled essential oil, to avoid photosensitivity.

This just means that the regular citrus essential oils can react with the sun’s rays and burn skin, but the steam distilled ones are safe to use. Read more about essential oils and photosensitivity here.

I have experimented with quite a few different essential oils in lip balms, and some of my favorites are lime, grapefruit, vanilla, peppermint, and cinnamon. It’s worth mentioning that this lip balm is also quite lovely left unscented as well.

Why make your own lip balm?

It’s true… you can pick up lip balms at almost any store you step foot in. They’re everywhere! A lot of them even claim to be natural and organic. So why bother making it yourself? I think there are many reasons. For one, those “natural” lip balm companies found in bigger stores are often owned by huge corporations that might not really have your health and the good of the earth in mind.

These brands often began as small, handcrafted goods shops, but were bought out by the larger organizations. After the switch, the ingredient lists are often changed to be less than ideal. So that’s something to think about when you’re tempted to pick up a lip balm with a bee logo at your local drugstore.

If you make your own lip balm, you’re in total control over all of the materials. You can decide to use only the highest quality ingredients. And, it’s always much more fun to use something you made yourself! It can be completely personalized, just the way you like it.

For me, another big reason to make lip balm yourself is that it’s hard to find a grass fed tallow and honey lip balm commercially available. To get lip balm mad with these wonderful but somewhat non-typical ingredients, you pretty much have to either make it yourself, or source a rare shop that makes this type of lip balm.

Give the gift of happy lips

Another great thing about making your own tallow and honey lip balms is that you can give them away as very unique gifts. Keep this in mind for the upcoming holiday gifting seasons, birthdays, Mother’s Day, and anytime you want to give someone a special and useful gift.

It’s also really fun to design and print labels to go on the tins. Using your own labels gives them a fun, special look, especially when you’re giving them away.

A note about tallow

I’ve found that rendered, grass fed tallow can vary in hardness. Some is quite stiff at room temperature, while some is soft like butter. If you’re using tallow that is very stiff, I would recommend leaving out the beeswax. If your tallow is softer at room temperature, adding the beeswax will improve the consistency of the lip balm.

How to make tallow lip balm instructions

Ingredients:

• 5 tbsp grass fed tallow
• 1 tbsp beeswax (if tallow is softer at room temperature)
• 2 tbsp raw, unfiltered honey
• 15 – 30 drops essential oils

Directions:

1. Melt tallow until it is liquid.
2. Measure tallow and beeswax and put into a heat safe container.
3. Create a double boiler by putting the container of tallow and beeswax into a pot of water.
4. Gently heat the water to a low simmer.
5. Allow beeswax to melt and become completely combined with the tallow.
6. Remove tallow and beeswax from heat.
7. Add honey.
8. Whip the mixture by hand with a fork or small whisk until it starts to cool a little. Don’t rush this step, or the honey may try to separate.
9. Once the honey seems to be staying suspended in the tallow, add the essential oils. Use 3o drops of milder essential oils, such as citrus ones, and 15 drops of more potent essential oils.
10. Combine well, and pour mixture into lip balm tins.
11. Immediately put tins into the freezer to harden.
12. Allow lip balms to come to room temperature, and enjoy.

More things you can make with tallow

How to Make Tallow Balm

Tallow Soap Recipe

How to Make Herb Infused Tallow Salve

Have you ever made your own lip balm?

Which essential oils did you try? Which were your favorite?

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Grass fed beef tallow

Raw unfiltered honey

Organic beeswax

Plant Therapy essential oils

Lip balm tins

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