Benefits of Shea Butter for Lips - DIY Recipes

What are the benefits of shea butter for lips? Shea butter is the perfect ingredient for keeping your lips healthy, shiny, and soft. It can prevent dryness and protect the delicate skin of the lips from sun damage and other harmful elements, as well as provide anti-aging properties by preserving elasticity.

While shea butter can be used all over your body and hair, it’s most commonly used to help heal and hydrate dry, chapped lips. In this blog, we’ll discuss the benefits of shea butter and how to use it to moisturize your lips.

What is shea butter?

Shea butter is a natural vegetable fat extracted from the nuts of shea trees, which are native to West Africa. It has been used as an ingredient in cosmetics and skin care for centuries, thanks to its spreadable consistency and plethora of health benefits.

What are the benefits of shea butter for lips?

The skin of our lips is thin and doesn’t contain the protective barrier of sebum that the rest of our skin has. Since shea butter is full of fatty acids like oleic, linoleic, stearic, and palmitic acids, it can help hydrate your lips by restoring lipids and providing a protective barrier to preserve moisture. It also contains several skin-healthy compounds like vitamins A, E, and F, which act as antioxidants and have moisturizing properties.

Shea butter has also been shown to reduce inflammation and provide antibacterial properties, which makes it beneficial for healing dry, cracked lips. Additionally, the cinnamic acid esters found in shea butter provide UV protection to keep your lips safe from the sun’s harmful rays. 

How do you use shea butter on your lips?

You could simply apply shea butter directly to your lips if you’d like, but for a more convenient option, consider making your own homemade lip balm with shea butter in it. Shea butter has been used to treat skin and lips for hundreds of years, and it’s really easy to use in your own DIY lotions and lip balms.

If you’re looking for some inspiration, here are our favorite lip balm recipes that use shea butter:

Easy DIY Shea Butter Lip Balm

This lip balm recipe uses beeswax, shea butter, extra virgin olive oil, and cocoa butter to pack a lot of hydration in while helping to firm up your lip balm. These ingredients are all popular in DIY lip balms and can be easily found online or in any health store.

We’re using spearmint essential oil for its crisp, refreshing fragrance and soothing properties, but you can use any essential oil you’d prefer. When choosing an essential oil, make sure to stay away from oils that are phototoxic or sensitizing, since these can irritate and harm your lips.

Shea Butter Lip Balm Ingredients:

  • 1 tbsp shea butter
  • 1 tbsp cocoa butter
  • 2 tbsp beeswax pellets
  • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 10-12 drops of spearmint essential oil

Tutorial Steps:

1.    Melt the shea butter, cocoa butter, and beeswax pellets using a double boiler over medium heat.

2.    Add the olive oil and stir well, making sure not to let the mixture overheat.

3.    Remove from heat and add the spearmint essential oil.

4.    Pour into lip balm tubes – this recipe will make around 12 lip balms.

5.    Allow the lip balms to cool and solidify for around 30 minutes before using.

DIY Peppermint Lip Balm Recipe

Peppermint lip balm doesn’t just smell great, it provides a nice, soothing coolness as well. Thanks to the shea butter, beeswax, and coconut oil, this lip balm will moisturize your lips while leaving them feeling minty cool, and soft.

Peppermint Lip Balm Ingredients:

  • 2 tbsp shea butter
  • 2 tbsp beeswax pellets
  • 2 tbsp coconut oil
  • 10-12 drops of peppermint essential oil

Tutorial Steps:

1.    Melt the shea butter and beeswax pellets using a double boiler over medium heat.

2.    Add the coconut oil and stir well, making sure not to let the mixture overheat.

3.    Remove from heat and add the peppermint essential oil.

4.    Pour into lip balm tubes – this recipe will make around 12 lip balms.

5.    Allow the lip balms to cool and solidify for around 30 minutes before using.

How long will homemade shea butter lip balm last?

Homemade lip balms don’t have any added preservatives as the name-brand ones do, so they will go bad more quickly. You should try to use homemade lip balms within three months, but if you’re storing them properly by keeping them out of direct sunlight or high temperatures, they could last for up to six months.

About the Author: Jenni Mac

Hi, I’m Jenni! I am a health and beauty blogger that loves making homemade beauty products. I have been blogging for over three years now, my first blog is RawBeautyBlog.com - it is all about natural products, DIY skin care, inner beauty, and anything else to do with natural living.

Here you will learn all about DIY lip balm! From DIY recipes, to recipes for lip scrubs and glosses, this site has it all! With witty posts about how to take care of your lips in the winter, you'll find everything you need to keep them happy and healthy.


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