Following up my first DIY post with beard oil recipes -and your awesome responses, I thought it would be a great idea to make another beard guide and this time I’ll share with you how to make beard balm recipe with beeswax.

If you had the chance to read through my beard oil recipe guide, you might remember that it’s fairly straightforward and simple to do it yourself. It’s all about mixing the right carrier and essentials oils, shake it and use it.

But what’s the deal with making a beard balm recipe though? Is it that easy?

When you first see one, you don’t think that it’s a piece of cake.

Probably because it’s not a cake, it’s beard balm.

To make this clear, it’s similarly easy as to making a beard oil. The only difference is that a bit more preparation is required and a few more ingredients are included in the mix. In principle, it’s all about mixing the right ingredients at the correct dosages.

But we’ll get to that point and you’ll see it for yourself.

Before that, why don’t we just start from the beginning, shall we?

What’s beard balm and what’s it all about?

Beard balm is another beard care product that is perfect for both making your beard softer and styling it.

It’s viscous and it’s perfect for beardsmen that are growing a beard for at least three months since their last clean shave.

Wondering why? No? OK, I’ll explain it anyway.

Up to three months since the last time that you saw your face without any facial hair, beard is short enough and doesn’t require any styling. Hence, no reason for any beard balm or wax. Before you reach the three month milestone, beard oil should be more than enough to make your beard softer while nourishing your skin.

So, what do I choose? Beard oil or beard balm?

Keep in mind that this doesn’t mean that beard balm replaces beard oil but it’s more like a great addition to your beard care kit if you want to soften your mane and shape it while keeping it naturally soft.

Yes, naturally soft as opposed to using beard wax.


More specifically, beard wax is mainly used for styling and some waxes give a bit of unnatural hold -depending always on the actual product. Therefore, the beard balm falls right in between beard oil and beard wax both in terms of softening your beard and styling it.

But let’s talk about what beard balm consists of.

Most all natural beard balm recipes are made of four types of ingredients.

  • Beeswax
  • Butters
  • Carrier oils
  • Essential oils

If you remember from the beard oil recipes that we discussed in a previous article, a beard oil is a mix of carrier and essentials oil. Now, with the beard balm recipe, you need to add two more ingredients.

Be patient until then, we’ll get to it!

Why would you want to make your own beard balm?

That’s a very good question…

I think that there are essentially four reasons why you would want to make your own beard balm recipe.

Save money

Most beard balms that are available on the market cost between $10 and $30 for 1oz to 4oz.

Making a beard balm at home will surely save you some money. But this was something you already thought about.

Let’s get to the calculations then and understand what I’m saying.

Say that you want to make the most basic beard balm recipe which requires only a few ingredients. For the sake of argument, we assume that these are beeswax, shea butter, argan oil, sweet almond oil and tea tree oil.

One simple recipe could be the following:

  • 1 tablespoon of beeswax
  • 1.5 teaspoon of shea butter
  • 1 teaspoon of sweet almond oil
  • 1 teaspoon of argan oil
  • 4 drops of tea tree oil

This beard balm recipe gives you approx. 3oz worth of product.

All these ingredients would cost you a total of around $35.38.

At first, it seems quite a lot of money to spend for a homemade beard balm recipe. Not to mention that I told you already that it’s going to be cheap.

Have you thought how much beard balm can these ingredients make?

If you use the entire volume of all the ingredients, you can easily end up with 30oz of beard balm!

$35.38 for 30oz beard balm…

And you know what? You’ll be able to make this amount of beard balm only because you’ll run out of beeswax which costs around $6 per 5oz. What if you get a little bit more beeswax then?

Still with me?

You know what this means right?

Cost of 30oz - DIY beard balm recipe Vs retail beard balm

If you compare it with a relatively cheap and good product such as the Honest Amish in a 2oz can, you’ll end up paying around $13 for 2 oz.

So, even if you buy the cheapest beard balm that is available on amazon, for 30oz worth of product you’ll end up paying a bit below than $195.00…!!!

Now, comparing it again with the Honest Amish beard balm in a 2oz can, the cost of making your own beard balm with beeswax -and put in a 2oz can, would a bit above $2.

Cost per oz - DIY beard balm recipe Vs retail beard balm

How does a homemade beard balm sound to you now?

Use it often

You may have guessed by now that one batch of beard balm production is going to last you for two years even if you use it daily.

That’s a heck of alot beard balm.

Unless you’re planning to shave your beard off anytime soon, making your own beard balm is great from any aspect you see it.

Sell it

Well, you’ve already produced it. Why not selling it since you’ve made so much of it?

You’ve seen the markup you can make, then why not making some money out of it?

As you’ve previously seen, the ingredients will set you back around $2.36 for each 2 oz tin and you can sell it for around $10 or even more. Include additional costs for filling, packaging and storing and you can have at least $4 profit on each tin. If you ask me, that’s not bad at all.

You know exactly what’s in the mix

How many times have you bought a product that you vaguely understand -or you don’t, what’s inside.

And who can blame you?

All labels show ingredients with long names that don’t make the slightest sense to you unless you’re a chemist.

Most of times, cosmetic products contain also preservatives and artificial smells. But if you make it at home, you have full control of what it contains and it’s up to you to make it 100% natural.

Isn’t it great that making your own beard balm at home allows you to know exactly what it consists of? After all, you’re putting this thing on your face.

Experimentation

Since when it’s all about the money?

I guess since always, but we’re getting off track here.

You can make your own beard balm just for the sake of experimenting. What if you just want to be creative and make something for yourself or give it to your beloved ones as a present. And not any present. It’s something that you put your heart and soul in it. That makes it even more unique.

There’s only one word to say here. Bravo!

What’s Beeswax and why do I need it in beard balm recipe?

All the best beard balms contain beeswax among other natural ingredients

Let’s start of by understanding what this ingredient really is.

Beeswax is an all natural product coming from honeycomb of the honeybee with a great scent and no expiration date. It can be heated and reused all over again and again without losing its properties.

It has been used for centuries and nowadays all kind of industries include it in either their production process or in the composition of products. For example the personal care industry uses beeswax as a stiffening agent .

Now for our guide in particular, beeswax is one of the main ingredients that you’ll find in a homemade beard balm recipe.

And why is that?

It’s the only ingredient that will give your beard hold and shape.

Although it’s not the ingredient with the highest concentration in the mix, without beeswax, you simply can’t have beard balm.

As you may have guessed, beeswax is also found in beard and moustache waxes but the concentration in the mix is much higher than in beard balms. Hence, the more beeswax, the stronger hold you should expect from such products.

Now that you got an idea of what’s beeswax and what’s used for, where do you actually find that?

Fortunately, beeswax isn’t something hard to find.

There are plenty of options online and you can even find it at a local shop. Most shops with organic products, normally have beeswax.

You’ll be able to choose between two types, beeswax bar and pellet in either white or yellow color.

Depending on the amount of beard balm you want to make, you’ll choose the form accordingly.

With beard balm recipe making, I would choose beeswax bar for a first small batch and for future larger production, I would go for pellet.

And I explain why.

Beeswax bars come in small volume and you can get as little as 1-2oz. With pellet however, the minimum volume is often something close to 1lb.

Yes, it’s much cheaper to get it in pellets but think about how much you want to use.

Besides the volume, beeswax bar is easier to measure for beard balm recipes by simply cutting the amount you want.

With pellets, you follow a different procedure and more precision is required with the measuring. First you melt it, then put it in a container and lastly measure it while it’s still liquid before you mix it with the other ingredients.

Beeswax bars

100% ORGANIC Hand Poured Beeswax

Beard balm recipe items and ingredients

Few more beeswax bars to consider:

Beeswax pellets

Stakich 1 lb Pure BEESWAX Pellets

Beard balm recipe items and ingredients

Additional beeswax pellets to choose from:

What about butter? Are we having breakfast again?

There are a few butters that are perfect for your beard balm recipe.

In most cases, shea and cocoa butter is used but many recipes might also include mango and coconut oil. Well coconut oil is not butter but it kinda behaves like it when in solid state. Not to mention, the excellent benefits of coconut oil for beard and hair.

Just like with nutella on bread, it’s essential to use butter for spread.

You’re still on the same website, yes.

Butter in a beard balm is essential for its spreading properties so that the beeswax doesn’t get stuck when you apply it on your beard. It gives this extra lubricity that the beard balm needs. Additionally, the butter helps the beard balm melt in your hands and get absorbed by your hair follicles.

The idea when you add butters in your homemade beard balm, is that you add the appropriate amount in relation to the amount of beeswax. You’re looking to maintain an optimal balance between butter and beeswax so that you get the best beard balm recipe possible. That being said, if for example you have 1 cup of beeswax, it really depends on the amount of butter that you put in your mix to produce a beard balm or end up with a beard wax.

Let’s discuss briefly the two main butters used in a beard balm recipe.

Shea butter

It’s a natural butter without any chemicals and comes from the seed of Shea tree.

Shea butter has high concentration of vitamin E and it has both moisturising and healing properties, making it perfect for use in cosmetics.

Beard balm recipe items and ingredients

Other shea butters to consider:

Cocoa butter

Cocoa butter comes from the cocoa beans and it’s the actual butter that is used in chocolates. By the way, this butter is also the reason why chocolate melts in your hands.

It’s relatively cheaper than shea butter and it’s used as a bulk agent and for its consistency and just like shea butter, for its melting properties.

Beard balm recipe items and ingredients

And a couple more cocoa butter products:

Carrier oils to make your beard soft

Just like in beard oils, carrier oils account for most of the beard balm mix.

Commonly used carrier oils are jojoba, argan, sweet almond and a few more. Depending on the properties you’d like your beard balm recipe to have, you choose accordingly.

For example, if you have oily skin and hair, it might be a good idea to add jojoba oil since it helps balancing your skin’s natural ability to produce oil. On top of this, it moisturizes and nourishes the hair and this is why it is widely used for hair -and beard, care products.

Another one is argan oil, that has moisturizing properties, rich with vitamin E and it’s the perfect ingredient for hair care products.

Besides the properties that each carrier oil gives to your beard balm, they also “carry” the essential oils. Essential oils have high acidity which could be harmful to your skin and without the carrier oils you wouldn’t be able to have any of them in your beard balm recipe.

You can make thousands combinations of carrier oils with different proportions to give your beard balm all these properties you want it to have. All you need is to experiment and find the perfect match. That’s the beauty in this DIY beard balm recipe guide.

Carrier oils are relatively easy to find.

You can even find them in local supermarkets, aromatherapy shops and online retailers.

When you’re searching for carrier oils, make sure you check a few things such as expiration date, color of bottle (prefer amber since it blocks UV rays). Moreover, the room or shelves where the oils are located shouldn’t be warmer than regular room temperature.

Most used carrier oils to think about for your beard balm:

  • Sweet almond oil
  • Avocado oil
  • Argan oil
  • Black seed oil
  • Castor oil
  • Coconut oil
  • Grapeseed oil
  • Hazelnut oil
  • Hemp seed oil
  • Jojoba oil
  • Kukui nut oil
  • Macadamia nut oil
  • Mango oil
  • Olive oil
  • Papaya Seed Oil
  • Watermelon seed oil

If you’re just starting out and you want to experiment with different carrier oils, you can get a product bundle such as the following.

Beard balm recipe items and ingredients

 

Essential oils for manly scent

This type of oils are the ones that will spice things up for your beard balm.

A combination of different oils can give you all kinds of scents and on top of that, many of them carry valuable vitamins.

Just like in beard oils, essential oils have the lowest concentration in the mix due to their acidity and their strong scents. Only a few drops of each one of them is enough to give your beard balm this extra twist.

The use of essential oils in cosmetics isn’t something new and many products contain them due to their excellent properties. Common essential oils fight conditions like dandruff, eczema, hair and skin dryness, acne, oily skin and many others.

There are hundreds of different essential oils to choose from and each one of them will add an additional property and scent to your beard balm recipe.

No wonder why essential oils are broadly used in aromatherapy.

Few popular essential oils to choose from:

  • Allspice Oil
  • Angelica Oil
  • Anise Oil
  • Basil Oil
  • Bergamot Oil
  • Bitter almond Oil
  • Black pepper Oil
  • Camomile Oil
  • Cardamom Oil
  • Cassia Oil
  • Cedarwood Oil
  • Cinnamon Oil
  • Citronella Oil
  • Coriander Oil
  • Dill Oil
  • Eucalyptus Oil
  • Fennel Oil
  • Frankincense Oil
  • Ginger Oil
  • Grapefruit Oil
  • Jasmine Oil
  • Lavender Oil
  • Lemon Oil
  • Lemongrass Oil
  • Lime Oil
  • Mandarin Oil
  • Manuka Oil
  • Myrrh Oil
  • Myrtle Oil
  • Niaouli Oil
  • Oakmoss Oil
  • Orange Oil
  • Oregano Oil
  • Patchouli Oil
  • Peppermint Oil
  • Pine Oil
  • Rose Oil
  • Rosemary Oil
  • Rosewood Oil
  • Sandalwood Oil
  • Spearmint Oil
  • Tangerine Oil
  • Tea Tree Oil
  • Thyme Oil
  • Vanilla Oil

If you’re not sure what essential oils you need, I would recommend buying an essential oil starter kit that allows you to experiment.

Essential oil starter kits

Essential Oil- Beginners Aromatherapy Gift Set 14/ 10 ml

Beard balm recipe items and ingredients

 

Starter Set 14 Gift Pack 100% Pure Essential Oils

Beard balm recipe items and ingredients

 

Tools you need to make your very own beard balm

No need to worry about specials tools.

Most of them you’ll find them already in your kitchen.

You’ll need:

Optional

  • 1 measuring cup
  • Graduated Cylinders
  • 1 funnel
  • Gift sacks

By optional, I mean that you don’t necessarily need those if you’re planning to make small dosages of beard balm. If you want to take things one step further and produce larger amounts, I highly advise you to purchase them for higher accuracy.

Let’s see why you need each one of them and how you’re going to use them.

Pot or pan

Pot or double boiler to melt and pour your beard balm recipe

 

When we begin with the instructions, you’ll see that you have to melt the butters and beeswax before you steer and put them in a container.

If you don’t want to mess up any of your pots or pans, it’s better to purchase something specifically for the beard balm recipe.

Unless you prefer your pasta a bit waxy…

Having said that, there are pouring pitchers designed for candlemaking and this would be the perfect product to melt your ingredients.

Kitchen scale

This is probably something that is already inside your cupboards. You’ll need a kitchen scale in order to accurately measure the butters and beeswax you need for your recipe. And you really don’t want to mess up with the beeswax portions.

In case you don’t have a precision scale in your kitchen, you can always have a look at this one.

Containers for the balm

Once you are done making your beard balm, you’ll want to pour it in a small container where it’s going to cool off, become solid and ready to be used the next day.

The safest container in which you can pour the beard balm is an aluminium tin. Glass or metal container might not be the perfect solution when you pour the hot beard balm. Glass may shatter and plastic might melt. Choose wisely.

Few containers that I’ve used are the below:

Screwtop tins

2oz. Shallow Screw Top Tin. (6 Tins)

Beard balm recipe items and ingredients

Eye dropper

Normally, the carrier and essential oils you purchase have lids and caps with integrated eye dropper.

It’s very useful for accurate dosages and especially with the essentials oils, precision is paramount. A few extra drops of tea tree oil is more than enough to give you a disgusting beard balm.

Labels

Even if you’re planning to make a small production of beard balm, it would be cool to name your product and very useful to add its ingredients. Not to mention that it looks great if you want to give it to someone as a gift.

You want to sell it? Even better!

Try to get self adhesive stickers to make your life easier. You can either try to print them out yourself or use a professional printer for better results.

Optional Items

Most of the optional items I included are meant to be used when you want to create larger amounts of beard balm.

With such products you can be more precise when you make the oil transfers and have accurate dosages for your mix.

As for the gift sack, it’s kinda self explanatory. Use it if you want to sell your beard balm or simply when you want to give a nicely wrapped gift to your friends who care about grooming their beards.

How to make beard balm recipe step by step

Homemade DIY beard balm recipe. How to make it at home

Image Courtesy: flickr.com/shalommama

Here comes the moment you’ve been waiting for.

Making your own beard balm isn’t very complicated. It might take a little bit more time than making a beard oil but it’s almost as simple as that.

The idea behind making a beard balm is that you need to use approximately 65-70% beeswax and butters and the remaining 30-35% with carrier oils and a few drops of essential oils.

Depending on how strong hold you want from the beard balm, try to play a bit with the percentage of beeswax in your mix. The higher the amount, the stronger the hold. Try not to put too much since you won’t have a beard balm anymore but more like a permanent glue.

Step 1

First thing you want to do is prepare the portions of all the ingredients and materials you want to use. Make sure you’ve got everything ready so you don’t search anything while your mix is heated or slowly gets solid.

Step 2

This is the trickiest part.

Place the beeswax and butter in the pot and start warming them up.

We discussed already that it’s better to use a pot that it’s either meant for candlemaking or one that you wouldn’t plan to cook with it ever again.

Low fire is more than enough for both ingredients to melt quickly and easily.

You don’t want to warm it up so much until it boils. Otherwise you’re all set to prepare another batch i.e. all your effort goes wasted.

While your wax and butter is melting, it wouldn’t hurt stirring the mix every few seconds.

Step 3

Once everything is liquid in the pot, take it away from heat.

While your mix is still warm, add your preferred carrier and essential oils and stir. Make sure that your mix isn’t solid before you add your oils.

You don’t need to stir for hours, 20 seconds will be more than enough.

Step 4

When you’re done stirring, pour the liquid mix in the tins. As already recommended, aluminium tins are preferred to other material for safety and convenience.

Step 5

If you already finished pouring the liquid beard balm in the tin, your job is almost done.

Leave it overnight to thicken and in the morning you’re ready to apply your new homemade beard balm on your glorious beard!

Step 6

Enjoy!

As promised, it wasn’t that hard after all, right?

Choose your favorite beard balm recipe

Besides experimenting with your own beard balm recipe, you can also try and prepare a few that are already made and tested from other fellow bloggers.

The following homemade beard balms are only a few that I was able to collect. Feel free to try them out and let me know how it goes.

If you’ve got a recipe of your own and you would like to share it with me, leave a comment with the ingredients and dosages and I will include it in this article.

Happy cooking!

The Manliness Kit Recipe

  • 2 tbsp Beeswax
  • 3 tbsp Shea butter
  • 3 tsp Jojoba oil
  • 2 tsp Argan oil
  • 3 drops tea tree oil
  • 2 drops of Bergamot essential oil

TE Whiskey and Woodsmoke

  • 2 Tbsp beeswax, coarsely chopped
  • 2 Tbsp shea butter
  • 1 Tbsp cocoa butter
  • 3 tsp jojoba oil
  • 2 tsp sweet almond oil
  • 1/8 tsp bourbon oil
  • 4-8 drops cedar essential oil
  • 1 drop rosemary essential oil

SS Beard balm recipe

  • 2 tbsp of beeswax
  • 4 tbsp of coconut oil
  • 2 tbsp of shea butter
  • 5 tbsp of almond oil
  • 10 drops of your favorite essential oil

TD Manly homemade beard balm recipe

  • 1/4 cup shea butter
  • 1/4 cup coconut oil
  • 2 tablespoons sweet almond oil
  • 2 tablespoons cacao butter
  • 2 tablespoons beeswax pastilles
  • 20 drops Believe
  • 14 drops Sacred Frankincense
  • 5 drops Clove

TRS DIY beard balm recipe Sweet & Woodsy

  • 2 tbsp of beeswax
  • 2 tbsp of jojoba oil
  • 1 tbsp of shea butter
  • 1 tbsp of 100% argan oil
  • 4-5 drops of vitamin E oil (optional)
  • 8 drops of Idaho Blue Spruce essential oil
  • 6 drops of Valor essential oil blend
  • 4 drops of Frankincense essential oil
  • 2 drops of Rosemary essential oil
  • 2 drops of Bergamot essential oil

4 out of 5 beard balm recipes were found on the below blogs and websites.

 

Image Courtesy: bigstock.com/Geo-grafika