Lip Scrub

[Mobjack Bay]

I’m hoping to make some lip scrubs next week when I get home from a conference. I went ahead and purchased the DIY Bath & Body recipe to compare with any other recipes I may come across between now and then. The purchased recipe is made with Cera Bellina which I may not get in time for next week. Any tips or pointers to nice recipes will be appreciated! I’m really short on time to get my ducks in a row due to work obligations, but I still have a short window of time to order ingredients from Amazon.

 

[AliOop]

I believe that is the recipe @Misschief used for the lip scrub of hers that I tried. It was delightful! I also didn't have Cera Bellina wax, so the ones I made recently were a spin-off from some YT recipes that I found.

 

[Misschief]

I’m hoping to make some lip scrubs next week when I get home from a conference. I went ahead and purchased the DIY Bath & Body recipe to compare with any other recipes I may come across between now and then. The purchased recipe is made with Cera Bellina which I may not get in time for next week. Any tips or pointers to nice recipes will be appreciated! I’m really short on time to get my ducks in a row due to work obligations, but I still have a short window of time to order ingredients from Amazon.

That's the recipe I use. The cera bellina is a key ingredient, unfortunately, and there isn't really a sub for it in this recipe.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

The cera bellina I ordered has shipped and should arrive on Monday! I’m looking forward to making lip scrub!

 

[dmcgee5034]

Can I ask a question or seven about lip scrub? LOL

I’ve only used a few lip scrubs so I looked them up to review ingredients because I never thought about what was in them. Lush and Jeffrey Starr, and they seem super basic for their IMHO crrazzyy $12/oz.
Lush: Castor Sugar (Sucrose) , Organic Jojoba Oil (Simmondsia chinensis) , Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone (Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone) , Flavor (Fragrance) , Red 21 Lake .
Jeffrey Starr: Glycerin, Vegetable, Sucrose, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Oil, Flavor (Strawberry), Sodium Benzoate, Potassium Sorbate, Vitis Vinifera (Grape Seed) Oil, Tocopherol (Vitamin E), Red 40 (CI 16035)

I’ve been making sugar scrubs based on this BB project (changing fragrances and micas, adding Vit E and Optiphen) and it seems pretty similar to these retail ones. I guess my questions are about ingredients.
Sugar base - for lips moving to castor sugar is preferred since lips are more delicate than say… elbows?
Cera Bellina - I’m such a rookie, this post sent me squirreling over to read up on this. Sounds lovely! Is it a must have or luxury bonus add in?
Fragrance oils or flavor oils - do you use fragrance oils for lip scrub? Or do you swap out for a flavor oil?

I’ll just say, in testing of the BB scrub recipe I’m using, it was super nice as a lip scrub and delicious. Even DH tried it and just raves about how nice his lips feel and that the exfoliating level was perfect. Could I sub the granulated for castor sugar and gift it as lip scrub?

Looking to learn from y’all because I’m boggled by how this retails for $12/oz without the lovely sounding cera bellina.

https://www.brambleberry.com/articl...rubs/golden-sugar-scrub-project/PS000277.html

 

[Mobjack Bay]

I’m not a good one to answer most of your questions because I’m just getting started. The cera bellina is for the DIY Bath & Body lip scrub recipe. It’s a feature ingredient in that particular recipe, which is for an emulsified scrub. CB creates an oil gel that makes for a slippy product.

 

[Misschief]

I’ve been making sugar scrubs based on this BB project (changing fragrances and micas, adding Vit E and Optiphen) and it seems pretty similar to these retail ones. I guess my questions are about ingredients.
Sugar base - for lips moving to castor sugar is preferred since lips are more delicate than say… elbows?
Cera Bellina - I’m such a rookie, this post sent me squirreling over to read up on this. Sounds lovely! Is it a must have or luxury bonus add in?
Fragrance oils or flavor oils - do you use fragrance oils for lip scrub? Or do you swap out for a flavor oil?

Castor sugar is a finer sugar. You can definitely use regular sugar but castor is definitely nice. Golden sugar is another substitute for the castor sugar.

Flavour oils vs fragrance oils - you want to make sure that whichever you're using is lip safe. One of mine uses freeze dried raspberry powder as a colour and flavour and it's my favourite. In my lip scrubs (I have 6 or 7 varieties), I use fruit powders, Lorann flavour oils, and sweetened lip balm flavour oils. Some of the ones I use are cocoa powder and coffee (no added flavouring), raspberry powder, TRUE (brand) lime powder with Lorann lemon, Lorann mango with Lorann pineapple, Green Apple lip balm flavour, and others. I even add a bit of citric acid to the Green Apple and it's awesome.

Cera Bellina is the star of the DIY Bath & Body Fruit Smoothie lip scrubs. One of the things I love most about the DIY B&B recipe is that it isn't runny at all. I explain to my customers that it's really like having sugar in a lip balm base. It's soft enough to scoop out but it won't drip.

When I make it, I make 500 grams of the base and make up the scrub in 100 gram batches (each batch of scrub only uses 50 grams of the base and gives me five 20 gram pots) as needed. I only sell at one market so small batches like that are perfect for me.

 

[AliOop]

I second the warning to make sure that everything in the scrub is lip-safe. Most FOs aren't going to be in that category. Flavor oils may seem expensive, but a little bit goes a very long way.

Regular sugar is a tad coarse for my lips, and I'm someone who doesn't mind more aggressive exfoliation most of the time. That means that any sensitive folks will definitely need more finely-ground sugar - best to be on the safe side with that if you can. If you don't have/ don't want to buy/ can't find caster (fine) sugar, you can put regular white sugar in a small coffee or herb grinder and grind it up much finer. That's what I did. Here is a little blurb about it:

Caster sugar in America is often called superfine sugar, baker's sugar, castor sugar, or bar sugar. It is a term used in the UK as well as the US, and in both cases, it refers to sugar that is ground to a consistency between granulated and powdered sugar in coarseness.

 

[Misschief]

I second the warning to make sure that everything in the scrub is lip-safe. Most FOs aren't going to be in that category. Flavor oils may seem expensive, but a little bit goes a very long way.

Regular sugar is a tad coarse for my lips, and I'm someone who doesn't mind more aggressive exfoliation most of the time. That means that any sensitive folks will definitely need more finely-ground sugar - best to be on the safe side with that if you can. If you don't have/ don't want to buy/ can't find caster (fine) sugar, you can put regular white sugar in a small coffee or herb grinder and grind it up much finer. That's what I did. Here is a little blurb about it:

Caster sugar in America is often called superfine sugar, baker's sugar, castor sugar, or bar sugar. It is a term used in the UK as well as the US, and in both cases, it refers to sugar that is ground to a consistency between granulated and powdered sugar in coarseness.

Caster/Castor sugar is also known as Berry Sugar here in Canada.

 

[AliOop]

I'd never heard that term before!

 

[dmcgee5034]

Thanks @Misschief and @AliOop for the guidance

@Mobjack Bay cant wait to see your scrubs and hear about making them

 

[Misschief]

I second the warning to make sure that everything in the scrub is lip-safe. Most FOs aren't going to be in that category. Flavor oils may seem expensive, but a little bit goes a very long way.

In addition to this, one other warning that I don't recall seeing mentioned. If you plan on using micas or other forms of colorant, make sure they're lip safe. Some micas are but some are not; you need to do a bit of homework. Also, food colouring is not recommended for cosmetic use.