DIY Coconut Lip Gloss

As the goddess Mindy Kaling once said, "Sometimes you just have to put on lip gloss and pretend to be psyched." 

This seriously works. It's a secret weapon - when our hair's doing its own thing entirely, or we're tired, or just not having it altogether - a little bit of red goes a long way. That being said, my boyfriend won't bring his lips anywhere near mine when there's lipstick on them, so wearing a tinted lip gloss is a compromise. 

Making your own lip products is great for a few reasons: one, you know exactly what's going in them and two, you're in control of how much flavor and color is going in, so you can get the taste and tint just how you want it. You can also change the ratio of oil to base, so the level of gloss is to your preference - for this tutorial with Bramble Berry, I decided to go with avocado oil for its soothing qualities, and added just enough to create a bit of shine without being a liquid. 

Using ingredients from Bramble Berry, I made three different shades of coconut lip gloss: coral, merlot, and clear. The coral and merlot shades look pretty pigmented, but go on as a slightly tinted gloss. A tip from Bramble Berry is to put a spoon in the freezer before you begin, which you can dip into the hot gloss while mixing to test the color - the mixture will harden automatically on the spoon, which allows you to test the shade before it hardens. I found this very helpful! 

Shopping List:

16 oz Avocado Oil

(2) 4 oz Nourish Lip Balm Base

2 oz Coconut Flavor Oil

1 oz Coral Mica

1 oz Merlot Sparkle Mica

10 sets Non-stackable Clear Lip Balm Pots

2 droppers

1 tsp sugar (optional)

I made two tins of the clear shade, to wear on its own or over a matte lipstick. I added a small amount of granulated sugar to this mix to make it into a slight exfoliant, and it tastes kinds of amazing. 

Clear Coconut Lip Gloss 

Ingredients:

1 oz Nourish Lip Balm Base

2 ml Coconut Flavor Oil

2 ml Avocado Oil

1 tsp granulated sugar

Makes two pots of lip gloss

This shade has a pretty red sheen, and can be worn on its own or used throughout the day to refresh a red lipstick.

Merlot Lip Gloss

Ingredients:

2 oz Nourish Lip Balm Base

3 ml Coconut Flavor Oil

4 ml Avocado Oil

1 tsp Merlot Sparkle Mica

Makes four pots of lip gloss

The coral is perfect for summer, when you want just a little bit of color to add to a beachy or brunch look. 

Coral Coconut Lip Gloss

Ingredients:

2 oz Nourish Lip Balm Base

3 ml Coconut Flavor Oil

4 ml Avocado Oil

1.5 tsp Coral Mica

Makes 4 pots of lip gloss

The process for each is very simple: 

1. Melt the lip balm base in the microwave in 20 second increments, stirring in between, until fully melted.

2. Add flavor and stir until mixed.

3. In a separate bowl, combine color mica and oil until fully mixed.

4. Add color mixture to base mixture. Stir until fully incorporated, then pour into lip gloss pots and allow to harden. 

In the case of the clear gloss, I added the sugar at the end. Again, you can tweak these recipes as necessary, depending on how much flavor or pigment you want. I gave a few away as gifts, but will be using these throughout the year when I need a little bit of color! 

Rails in the sky

Evan has a special knack for choosing the best random turns to take while roadtripping. After a night of camping on the Oregon coast in a torrential downpour, a night in which we discovered that our tent's weather-proof guarantee was not very true at all, we were soggy, hungry, and a little bit grumpy on our way to Portland when he took a random turn off the freeway and we ended up on this abandoned railroad above the road. Ferns grew through the wood & steel and it curved into the fog, disappearing beyond us into the green. After a rough night and morning, it was a spontaneous reminder of why we drive up and down the coast, why we sleep on the ground and skip showers: to see new things with new eyes. Besides, a little rain never hurt anybody. 

Shirt: Indy Brand Clothing

the watering hole

Here are the rest of the photos from our adventure with Indy Brand. It isn't an adventure unless something goes wrong, yeah? Like when two Pacific Northwestern-ers trek through a park named for its creek, walking in the hot sun much further than they ought without sunscreen and water, only to finally get to the creek and find it completely and utterly bone dry? Yeah, we kinda forgot that California is in a drought. You can't imagine the sad, pathetic looks on our faces when we came upon that dry stream bed--we are still used to to western Washington, where there is a body of water on every corner. And oh, we were hot. But, we kept hiking and found this little watering hole where kids were wading, teenagers were drinking cheap beer, and we got to cool down. We learned some lessons for the next adventure, missed the PNW just a teensy bit, and had so much fun photographing these tees--livin' the dream is right. All part of the story, all part of exploring with my love.

on him: 'find home' tee in green

on me: 'livin' the dream' tee in grey