Beard balm – DIY recipes

Beard balm with vanilla and cinnamon leaf oil

While out shopping with a friend, he started checking out some beard balm and beard oil. He didn’t pick any up, but when his birthday rolled around, I bought him something, and wanted to make him some beard balm to gift him as well.

I started out with three recipes, each with different ratios – I figured I’d try a few different things and see what he liked in terms of scent and texture/moisture/etc.

Recipe one

• 2 tbsp carnauba wax
• 2 tbsp shea butter
• 1/2 tbsp coconut oil
• 10 drops vanilla essential oil
• 20 drops cinnamon leaf oil

Beard balm with vanilla and cinnamon leaf oil

I derived the balm base recipe from Molly Muriel’s site (with a few of my own changes) which advises that the carnauba wax will take about 3 days to fully harden. That was ok with me, since I made the balm on Wednesday, and would see him on Friday – but likely he wouldn’t use the balm right away! According to the Apothecary Garden, Carnauba wax is harder than beeswax. They recommend only using 10-15% of the wax in a product, so this might be a bit too hard to use in the balm… we’ll see!

I LOVED the scent of this one – the cinnamon leaf oil has a rich, warm, spicy scent. This made just one of the jars I had, filled up to the brim 🙂

In terms of essential oils – cinnamon has astringent, anti-bacterial, and anti-fungal properties.
I used coconut oil in this recipe – coconut oil is conditioning and protective, and it helps other carrier oils from going rancid with a shelf life more than double most other carrier oils. It’s also good for treating acne.

Recipe two

• 1.5 tbsp beeswax
• 1.5 tbsp shea butter
• 1/2 tbsp cocoa butter
• 1/2 tbsp jojoba oil
• 1/4 tbsp sweet almond oil
• 6 drops peppermint oil
• 12 drops lavender

Assortment of beard balms

This one has a really soothing fragrance – I have a lavender-mint tea that I was inspired by for this, it is always a good tea before bed, so I imagine this balm would be nice after an evening shower. The base for the balm is from the Bulk Apothecary, that I made a few minor adjustments to.

This one made up two of the jars I had for the project, one filled up to the brim, and the other nearly full.

In terms of essential oils – lavender treats acne, prevents itching, and helps fragile or dry hair.
According to Garden of Wisdom, Almond oil is good for all skin types, especially skin prone to eczema, sensitive, inflamed, or dry skin. It softens and soothes skin.
Jojoba oil offers protection and is emollient while still letting the skin breath. It’s good for oily skin or scalp, and can help control acne. Like coconut oil, it can extend the shelf life of other oils, and is an anti-oxidant.
Cocoa butter is good for sensitive skin, and deeply hydrates skin.

Recipe three

• 2 tbsp coconut oil
• 1 tbsp shea butter
• 1/2 tbsp beeswax
• 3 drops camphor oil
• 6 drops eucalyptus oil

Camphor and eucalyptus beard balm

The base for the balm is from Heartful Habits (with my own adjustments of course) and I thought that this scent was pretty outdoorsy – but also a little like the cold-and-flu massage bars I have made in the past – not sure how that one will play out for the recipient.

This one made up enough to fill my jar, plus two small little jars I had leftover from the solid perfume project made earlier.

I used Shea Butter in all of my recipes, which is an ingredient good for healing dry and cracked skin and treating eczema, psoriasis, and sun damaged skin. It’s also supposed to be good for treating stretch marks (not really an issue with beard balm!) and moisturizes, repairing dry, brittle, or damaged hair.

I also used beeswax in more than one recipe. Beeswax is used for conditioning and smoothing hair, and has anti-inflammatory properties to calm and sooth skin. The wax is protective, helping hold in moisture and reduce dryness. Unlike petroleum products though, it won’t clog pores. It has anti-bacterial properties (like honey) and has been used to treat wounds. It’s also good for treating dry skin or itchy skin… something I think would be useful with a newly growing beard?

Recipe #1+2

Once the balms had started to firm up, I realized that the scents that had been nice and strong while the balms were liquid were pretty mild once firmed up… I really loved the potential for the scent of recipe #1 – vanilla & cinnamon, but thought that the texture of #2 would be better, so made up another two full-to-the-brim jars combining the base of #2 (with a minor change) with the scent (amped up big time) from #1. The recipe is:

• 2 tbsp beeswax
• 2 tbsp shea butter
• 1 tbsp cocoa butter
• 1 tbsp jojoba oil
• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• 50 drops of vanilla oil
• 90 drops of cinnamon oil

Cinnamon vanilla beard balm

I opted to use the coconut instead of sweet almond oil in this one because of the coconut property of extending the shelf life of the other carrier oils, plus, I thought the warmth of the scent of the coconut oil would nicely meld with the warmth of the essential oils.