Christmas Science – Making lip balm

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Making a Christmas present using science

Making lip balm is a fun activity which involves more science than you might think. It can be carried out in school as a fun end of term activity or at home in the holidays and the resulting products are great Christmas presents for friends and family.

Note: If you do this at school please carry out the activity in a food preparation environment like a food technology room.

Making lip balm

Lip balm is a mixture of different substances including beeswax. Beeswax is a solid at room temperature so it has to be melted into a liquid so it can be mixed with the other ingredients. The function of lip balm job is to keep lips your moisturised. Lips dry out quickly because, unlike other areas of your skin, they don’t produce their own oils to keep them lubricated.

You will need:

  • Saucepan or microwave-safe container
  • Plastic or wooden spoon
  • 2 tablespoons of beeswax
  • 2 tablespoons of honey
  • 2 tablespoons of almond oil
  • A few drops of flavouring (find these in the supermarket with the cake ingredients) e.g. vanilla, almond, peppermint, orange (OR: replace the honey and flavouring with a sprinkle of Kool-aid (find this online) which adds both flavour and colour).
  • Small, clean jar with a lid (these can be bought online)

Method

  1. Melt the beeswax, honey and almond oil in a microwave-safe container. Use 10 second bursts, stirring in between and be careful not to burn it. Alternatively, you could melt the mixture in a saucepan on the hob.
  2. Stir the melted mixture until all the ingredients are mixed.
  3. Stir in the flavouring.
  4. Pour the mixture into clean jars. Let it cool before you put the lid on.

Ideas to extend the activity

  • Research the function of each ingredient in the lip balm.
  • Make three different types of lip balm and test them out on a sample of people. Ask them to rate each out of 5 on appearance, taste and feel. Collect the results, display them in a chart and draw conclusions.
  • Experiment by trying different ratios of each ingredient and see how this affects the appearance and texture of the lip balm.
  • Design a label for the top of your jar.

For some fun and festive chemistry demonstrations that can be done at school take a look at the article Christmas science – Ice Ice Baby!

By Gemma Young for Smart Learning