Fun with DIY: Lip & Eye Balm (plus an upcoming event in NYC!)

As I’ve mentioned before, I live and die by Aquaphor Healing Ointment. I use it as lip balm, eye cream, mixed with moisturizer to make night creams, on cuts and burns – there is very little in my life that cannot be solved with Aquaphor.

As a fun giveaway for an event next week (March 2 in NYC – details at the end of the post!), I decided to create my own simple Aquaphor dupe. I’m calling it a lip & eye balm, since those are the two most common ways I use it, but it can be used all over, or mixed in your hand with any cream/lotion to make it more occlusive.

It’s a very simple DIY, perfect for beginners. It’s anhydrous, meaning there’s no water phase, which also means it doesn’t need a preservative. It’s the DIY equivalent of a one-pot meal – you just throw the ingredients in a beaker, heat ’em up, cool ’em down, and you’re done. There are only five ingredients (three, if you want to make it even simpler). Sound appealing? Let’s get into it.

What you’ll need

Ingredients:

• Petroleum jelly (also called petrolatum) – plain Vaseline is fine
• Rice bran oil – you can substitute your favorite rich, moisturizing oil (e.g. olive, avocado, camellia, sweet almond, etc.)
• Lanolin alcohol
• Bisabolol – optional
• Oil-soluble green tea extract – optional

Tools:

• Digital scale that reads to 0.01g
• Glass beaker or other small glass container
• Some way to make a hot water bath (my favorite is with a pot and hot plate)
• Stirring utensil (spoon or glass rod is fine)
• Clean, unused, sanitized jar for the final product
• 70% isopropyl alcohol wipes

The recipe

This makes 20g total, which is a TON of lip balm. If you end up excluding the bisabolol and green tea oil, increase the rice bran oil percentage to 23%.

How to make it

1. Sanitizin’ time! Using 70% isopropyl alcohol, wipe down your surface, beaker, stirring instrument, and jar.
2. Measuring carefully, add each ingredient to your beaker. (These extremely janky screenshots are pulled from Stratia’s Instagram stories.)
3. Heat the water in your water bath to about 70C (doesn’t need to be exact, just keep it below boiling). Place your beaker in the hot water bath and stir until it melts.
   

   

    

4. Once your mixture has fully melted, take it out of the water bath and let it cool to room temperature, stirring often. It’ll start to solidify; keep stirring to give it a nice, smooth texture.
   

   
5. Once it’s room temperature, you’re done! Scoop it into your clean jar and enjoy.

Come say hi on March 2!

I made a batch of 200 of these bad boys as a giveaway for a Q&A I’m doing at New London Pharmacy in NYC! Come by between 4-7pm to say hi, ask any questions you have about Stratia/skincare/the world in general (I only guarantee answers for those first two), and get your free lip & eye balm. Plus, since New London Pharmacy is Stratia’s first official retail partner, you can stock up on Stratia products while you’re there. Real talk, I’m v nervous that I’ll be sitting alone in a corner for three hours, so please come and bombard me with questions and take these lovely balms off my hands!!