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How to make Lip Scrubs; Formulating for Beginners

Updated: May 13, 2022


Here’s how I see it. Lip balm is the lotion for the lips and lip scrubs is like the body scrub for the lips. I think this is pretty obvious, but we can see this same connection with the ingredients. A lot of the anhydrous ingredients we use in our lotions can be also be used in our body scrubs. The same goes for lip scrubs. A lot of the ingredients we use in our lip balms can also be used in our lip scrubs.

If you’ve never made a lip scrub, but have experience with lip balms then that’s a good place to start when choosing your ingredients. If you don’t have experience with lip balms, that’s totally cool too, I got you!


Welcome back to my formulating for beginners series. I created this series to help people formulate their own custom formulas. It’s easy to just copy someone else's recipe, but what really separate people from one another is their ability to come up with a unique formula that separates their products from the rest. This is why it’s so important to truly understand the ingredients you are using and why you are using them.


I’ve covered a lot in this series so far, so if your new, go back and watch or read the rest of the series. If you don’t there will be some things mentioned in this post that might not make sense.


What is a lip scrub?

The first thing you always want to ask your self when you go to make something new is; What is it? What’s it’s purpose? Just understanding these two simple things will help you a lot when choosing your ingredients. A lip scrub is a semi liquid or semi solid product that contains a physical exfoliant. (personally l like the semi solid lip scrubs.) Lip scrubs help exfoliate and moisturize the lips. So knowing this, we now know we are going to need an exfoliant and we need some moisturizing ingredients as well.


What ingredients are found in lip scrubs?

Lip scrubs are anhydrous, anhydrous means contains no water, and since lip scrubs are suppose to be moisturizing we know we need to reach for oil soluble ingredients that are moisturizing. Things like oils, butters, waxes, etc.


As for a physical exfoliate, lip scrubs usually use sugar as an exfoliant since sugar is edible and we are using this around our mouths. You may see some lip scrubs on the marked with a bit of coffee grounds or some other kind of exfoliant mixed in like poppy seeds, but the main exfoliant used is sugar. Most sugar works fine. I usually use white granulated sugar, but brown sugar is also really popular. I would stay away from more abrasive sugars like sugar in the raw and of course powdered sugar isn’t a good choice.


Lip scrubs often contain some kind of flavoring and some vitamin E. As we learned in my previous posts, vitamin E is an antioxidant, so it will help keep the oils we use in this scrub from going rancid. No, it is not a preservative!


Basic Lip Scrub Recipe

The simplest way to make a lip scrub is by mixing together some sugar and some oil. It’s nothing fancy, but it gets the job done and it's cheap to make. The only issue is getting the right ratio. Heres the formula I like;

  • 80% sugar

  • 20% oil (i used sunflower. Any oil works. It’s popular to use a blend of Castor oil with another oil of choice.)

If you want to add some flavor oils subtract from the oil phase. So now your formula will look like this;

  • 80% sugar

  • 19% oil

  • 1% flavor oil

Since we are using a plant oil we should add some vitamin E to keep the oil fresh longer. So subtract from the oil phase again & here is the new formula.

  • 80% sugar

  • 18.5% oil

  • 1% flavor oil

  • 0.5% vitamin E

Making this basic lip scrub is extremely simple, just mix everything together. If you want to add coloring. You can use mica powder and I like to mix this into the sugar first, before adding the wet ingredients.


Note; Not all mica powder is lip safe. Blue and Green mica powder are not recommended for the lips. Instead you need to use a Lake Dye. I purchase all of my mica powders from mad micas. These are ethically sourced mica powders. They also sell Lakes, FD&C dyes and other colorings.


The downfall of this formula is that the oil does eventually settle to the bottom. This personally doesn’t really both me, as there is still some oil through out the product so the lip scrub still feels extremely moisturizing, but I do know this is a concern for a lot of you, but don’t worry, there are plenty of simple ways to fix this.


Semi Solid Lip Scrub

In order to keep the oil from settling we need some kind of binding agent, so this would be some kind of thickener that will add some viscosity to the product and keep all the ingredients together. The simplest ingredients you could add, is either a wax, a butter, or a fatty acid/fatty alcohol. I would recommend a wax or fatty acid/fatty alcohol over a butter as butters have a much lower melting point than waxes and fatty acids/fatty alcohols. So if your scrub has the possibility of getting to hot there is a chance the butter could melt and then settle to the bottom.


Here are two different formulas. One with a butter and one with a wax.


Semi Solid lip scrub with cocoa butter;

heated phase

  • 23.5% oil (any oil works I used sunflower)

  • 15% cocoa butter

cool down phase

  • 60% sugar

  • 1% flavor

  • .5% vitamin E

directions; Add together both ingredients in the heated phase and place in a water both to melt. While it melts mix together your sugar and mica powder in a separate container. Once the heated phase is melted mix while it cools down. You can place it in the freezer or fridge and come back and mix periodically as it cools until it solidifies. Or you can leave it out in room temperature and let cooled to under 100°f then add in the cool down ingredients and mix until combined. Scrub won't solidify for a while if left out in room temperature. So you can mix in the sugar and cool down ingredients while it is still liquidy as long as it is under 100°f.


Note; each butter has a different hardness, they can even vary supplier to supplier. If you use a different butter than me your product may have a different viscosity.


Semi Solid lip scrub with wax;

heated phase

  • 33.5% oil (any oil works I used sunflower)

  • 5% sunflower wax

cool down phase

  • 60% sugar

  • 1% flavor

  • .5% vitamin E

directions; Add together both ingredients in the heated phase and place in a water both to melt. While it melts mix together your sugar and mica powder in a separate container. Once the heated phase is melted and cooled to under 100°f you can add in the cool down ingredients and mix until combine.


Note; each wax has a different hardness, they can even vary supplier to supplier. If you use a different wax than me your product may have a different viscosity.


More advanced lip scrubs

There are loads of other ingredients you could use in lip scrubs. You want to look for ingredients that are oil soluble, lip safe, and moisturizing. Here is a list of some ingredients you can use; note these are just ingredients that I know of and that I own, there are loads of other lip safe ingredients you could use in lip scrubs.


Oils, Emollient Esters, Butters, Waxes (beeswax (NOT VEGAN) candelilla wax, carnauba wax, sunflower wax, etc) Flavor oils, Vitamin E, Jojoba Gel / Versagel / TKB gel base or any other lip gloss base, Lauryl Laurate, Natural Wax Jelly, Lipeptide, Vollip, Polyamide-3, stearic acid, glyceryl stearate, cetyl alcohol, behenyl alcohol, cetearyl alcohol, ritamulse SCG, lanolin (NOT VEGAN), cera bellina (NOT VEGAN) etc.


Adding these more advanced ingredients can create some really unique textures. For example, if you use things like Jojoba Gel / Versagel / TKB gel base or any other lip gloss base or Natural Wax Jelly you can create a more gel like lip scrub.

Natural Wax Jelly is also a great natural alternative to petroleum.

Lauryl laurate is a skin-penetrating agent, it increases slip and helps create a less greasy product.

Lipeptide is an anti aging agent containing tripeptide-1 and hyaluronic acid. It can help minimize lines around lips and is said to increase lip volume by 30%

Vollip works as a lip plumper

polyamide 3 creates clear solid gel sticks so it could be used to help increase viscosity while not changing the color of your product.

stearic acid, glyceryl stearate, cetyl alcohol, behenyl alcohol, cetearyl alcohol, ritamulse SCG are all hardeners but also emollients that help moisturize without feeling greasy. Technically ritamulse SCG is an emulsifier, but it contains Glyceryl Stearate, Cetearyl Alcohol, and Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate which are all lip safe and since this product doesn't contain water there won't be any emulsifying happening it will just thicken.

lanolin this is not vegan! this is commonly used in lip balms and lip masks. It is a moisturizing agent that helps create a protective barrier on lips to reduce trans epidermal water loss. It has a long lasting moisturizing effect when compared to other oils.

cera bellina, to put it simple, is a fancier version of beeswax. It has improved oil gelling properties and provides a more smooth and luxurious texture. this is not vegan.


Advanced Semi Solid Gel lip scrub

heated phase

  • 13.5% oil

  • 5% polyamide 3

  • 20% natural jelly wax

cool down

  • 1% flavor

  • .5% vitamin E

  • 60% sugar

directions; combine all ingredients in the heated phase and melt down. Polyamide 3 is extremely tricky to melt. Get the water bath as hot as possible and mix as much as possible. While the heated phase is melting weigh out your sugar and add in your mica powder and mix in. Once the heated phase has melted and returned to 100°f or lower add in your cool down phase and mix until combined.


Advanced Lip Plumping Lip Scrub

heated phase

  • 10% cetyl alcohol or ritamulse SCG

  • 21.5% oil

cool down

  • 7% vollip

  • 1% flavor

  • .5% vitamin E

  • 60% sugar

directions; Add together both ingredients in the heated phase and place in a water both to melt. Cetyl alcohol will make a thicker lip scrub and ritamulse SCG will be thinner. While it melts mix together your sugar and mica powder in a separate container. Once the heated phase is melted and cooled to under 100°f you can add in the cool down ingredients and mix until combine.


note; vollip can cause skin sensitivity. Use with caution. Start with a lower percentage of vollip and work your way up if no irritation occurs.


Advanced Anti Aging Watermelon Lip Scrub

heated phase

cool down

  • 2% lipeptide

  • 1% flavor

  • .5% vitamin E

  • 60% sugar

directions; Add together all ingredients in the heated phase and place in a water both to melt. While it melts mix together your sugar and mica powder in a separate container. Once the heated phase is melted and cooled to under 100°f you can add in the cool down ingredients and mix until combine.

Hopefully by now you understand the basics of making a lip scrub and hopefully you are now able to come up with some of your own formulas. Let me know if you have any further questions down in the comments. Thanks for reading! :)





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