Alkanet Tinted Natural Lip Gloss

This is day ten of my 30 day blogging challenge. My goal this month is to post one recipe every day. These recipes feature natural colorants and additives and are scented using natural essential oil blends. I’m changing it up a bit and posting a lip gloss recipe instead of soap recipe! This lip gloss in naturally tinted using alkanet! I’m not much of a lipstick girl, so this is perfect for a natural looking tint.

The secret to getting a super dark stain from the alkanet is to tint the whole recipe batch and not just the liquid oils. No straining is involved using this process. YAY! Let’s get to it!

Alkanet Root Tinted Lip Gloss

Beeswax – 15 grams
Shea butter – 20 grams
Apricot kernel oil – 40 grams
Lanolin – 5 grams
Coconut oil 76º Melt – 40 grams
Castor oil – 20 grams

Alkanet Root Powder – 1 teaspoon

This recipe is a bit on the soft side so goes really well into containers. It is not something that you would put in tubes. To use tubes, up the beeswax amount to make it stiffer.

Herb Tinted Lip Gloss Process

Step 1 – Put all of the ingredients into a mason jar or a pyrex container. Everything…even the alkanet! I like to use pyrex containers with handles as you can easily hang them on the side of a pot to create a double boiler situation.

Step 2 – Put into a pot of boiling water to melt.

Step 3 – Once melted, turn off the burner and allow it to harden in the pot. (Don’t change the setup). The water will stay warm for a bit allowing the lip gloss to infuse.

Step 4 – Once hardened, repeat. Turn the heat on and melt once more.

Step 5 – Turn the heat off and allow the gloss to infuse while the water keeps it liquid for a long time.

Step 6 – Once it is solid, test it using a clean popsickle stick or something similar. If you are good with the color it is time to move on to the next step. If you want more color, infuse some more.

Step 7 – Check out the picture below. By allowing it to harden in the warm water, all of the alkanet falls to the bottom before it hardens. No melting and no straining!

Simply scoop off the tinted lip gloss, leaving behind the bottom part which is mostly alkanet root powder. I guess alkanet is pretty heavy…it all falls to the bottom. No floaters at all!

Step 8 – Melt the lip gloss gently, add any heat sensitive ingredients such as vitamin e and essential oils. Pour into pots or tins!

I LOVE making tinted lip gloss (or balm) this way and makes it even more simple when doing big production batches! No straining. (Which usually doesn’t get all of the particles anyway!)

Enjoy!

(Before and after! I love the light tint!)

Happy Lip Gloss Making!

Amanda Gail