Lip Makeup Recipes
Make your own lipstick, lip stain, and tinted lip balms in your favourite colours without a trip to the cosmetics counter.What do we want in makeup?
Adhesion? Slip? Opacity? A quick overview on the traits we want in our makeup and why.
DIY Cosmetic Ingredients You'll Need
The ingredients list for homemade cosmetics is a bit different than for most other homemade body products—here’s my overview and shopping list.
Help, I made a mess!
My best tips for cleaning up your DIY messes 🙂
Black Plum Lipstick
A recent (and rare) trip to the mall informed me that berry toned lips are in (as are some pretty poppin' eyes, if Sephora is to be trusted). I'd been thinking it was high time to blend up some new lipstick shades for a while, and said mall visit proved to be just the...
Red Velvet Lip Balm
Red Velvet cake is one of those things people can get quite particular about, and with its striking red colour and bright white frosting, it’s hard to blame them. This red velvet lip balm is inspired by this decadent dessert. This indulgent, glossy lip balm uses a...
Royal Hibiscus Lip Tint
This pretty, ruddy russet-toned lip tint glides on with a pop of mint and a hint of golden shimmer. Everything comes together quickly and easily, leaving you with a fistful of little gifts for friends and family in no time. The colour comes from an infusion of...
Ruby Lip Tint
This pretty ruby lip tint gets its ruby colour pop from an infusion of alkanet root—Batschia canescens. Native to the Mediterranean, it produces bright blue flowers and dark red roots that have been used as a dye for hundreds of years. Alkanet powder itself is pretty...
Coral Lip Stain
I'm really excited to finally have a not-deep-pink option for those of you who aren't suited to pure carmine and my Snow White Lip Stain. This coral hued lip stain delivers a potent punch of orange-tinted red that sticks around for hours, and makes a good cheek stain...
Sun Kissed Lip Balm
This fun bronze-tinted shimmery sun kissed lip balm is perfect for summer. With a fantastic cocoa peppermint scent, great glide, and some shimmer and shine, I'm loving having this in my purse this summer. A base of beeswax, , coconut oil, and...
Beetroot Lip Gloss
Beetroot lip stain seemed like a really great idea. Foolproof, even. I mean, if it can make your poo red long after it’s been digested, surely it can perform the simple trick of reddening your lips, right? Wrong. It had absolutely no interest in reddening anything as...
Silver Shimmer Lip Balm
As much as I generally detest winter, I will concede that it can be very pretty. My favourite winter sight is that of trees coated in sparkling ice crystals—it's as if the entire world has been coated in diamond dust. That's what this silver shimmer lip balm makes me...
Snow White Lip Gloss
I thought I'd mark Valentine's Day with this popping pink lip gloss. It gets its bright colour from carmine (just like my lip stain), and though it's almost shockingly pink in the tube, it goes on with just a slight pinkish tint and a bit of shine. A wee hint of...
Rosehip Lip Gloss
I was rather sad when my rosehip lip stain totally failed to do much of anything. It had so much promise! The name sounded so nice! The powder was so, so very pink! And I now had a bag of rosehip powder that I now had no other use for… at least the last problem could...
Peppermint Sugar Lip Scrub Stick
In the winter my lips get unbearably dry. Arrrgh. It's infuriating. Calgary is practically a desert for most of the year, but in the winter I swear we tip into negative humidity. Things don't mold here because it's like living in a dehydrator. Good for line drying...
Cranberry Lip Balm
Every year around this time The Body Shop releases their seasonal line of cranberry inspired body products. I say "inspired" because they don't seem to have much in common with the little red berry other than the colour. I used to love the lip gloss, but once I...
Fall Leaves Lipstick
I am beginning to sympathize with the people who name things like paint and lipstick for a living. There are infinitely more colours than I can adequately and creatively name without straying into bizarre nail polish brand territory (you will know I'm there when I...
Red Velvet Lipstick
When I first published my Red Rose Lipstick, I had a few requests for something that wasn't quite as strong. This is what I came up with. It's fairly simple, following the same principle, and can be made with a couple different secondary clays. It's a lighter, more...
Bronze Shimmer Stick
There are many wonderful things about having Scottish ancestry. You have a beautiful homeland to visit. You can claim many fantastic people, like J.M. Barrie (author of Peter Pan), Ewan McGreggor, Robbie Burns, and Alexander Graham Bell as your fellow countrymen....
Strawberry Shimmer Stick
Here's yet another project I'm really excited to share with you—it's a multipurpose tinted lip balm/blush stick. I'm calling it a strawberry shimmer stick for the colour, and I am just in love with how easy it is to throw this little stick in my travel bag when I'm...
Coral Lipstick
I first fell in love with the colour coral when I fell in love with the dinner dress from Titanic. The beautiful silk/taffeta under dress is a fantastic coral colour, and from there on out... love. It's a fantastically flattering colour clothing and cosmetics. I love...
Summer Shimmer Lipstick
Ahh, summer. Well, it's still a few days off to be officially summer, but I'm calling it. We don't really get spring here, anyways—we just have a period of time where it is winter for two days, then summer for a little while, and then winter again, and so on and so...
Snow White Lip Stain
I can't tell you how totally thrilled I am with this recipe. I've been trying to devise a recipe for lip stain for months. I have thrown out so much pink and red goop since January that I was beginning to lose hope. But then, a new colourant (that was always the...
DIY Red Rose Lipstick
The more I see lipstick around—on album covers, in fashion shoots, and out on the street—the more I seem to like it. I believe that's called a mere-exposure bias ("a psychological phenomenon whereby a person develops a preference for a stimulus based solely on his or...
Coconut Shimmer Lip Balm
A quick scroll through Pinterest or flip through a fashion magazine will tell you that sheers, bright colors, and those skirts with the front half missing (also called hi-lo skirts) are all very "in" this summer. This lovely lip balm is both sheer and bright, and...
Lightly Tinted Lip Balm
This lightly tinted lip balm was borne out of my new (and tepid) fondness for red lipstick. It's very "in" right now (I know, even I'm amazed I noticed). It's fun to wear, but then it inevitably gets on things, can taste funny, and thanks to all the pigment, lipstick...
Tinted Lip Balm
If you haven't tried my lip balm recipe, you are seriously missing out. I recently gave a tube to a friend, and as soon as she tried it she sent me an e-mail gushing about it; its perfect texture, its slight sheen on application, and its A+ melting point. The only...
Homemade lip gloss
In the spirit of doing pretty much everything myself, regardless of added difficulty to my life, I also make my own homemade lip gloss (though it really isn't difficult at all). I'm well aware that you can purchase lip gloss made for pretty much any price you care to...
