Creating the Perfect Lip Balm: Styles, Trends, & Textures

Lip balms are universally and perennially popular, whether to keep lips smooth in winter, or to protect against sun damage in summer. Solving for feature or texture challenges with natural or synthetic ingredients can be challenging, but Koster Keunen has the formula expertise to support all of your lip protection aspirations.

With lip balm, the first decision is the one that drives all those that come after. What form should your balm take: stick, pot, or squeezable? Which feature means the most to you and your customers? Are you aiming for sustainable, natural, vegan, or is cost-effectiveness the principal concern?

With answers to those questions in hand, it is much easier to consider formulation options that meet your requirements, while leaving the door open for the addition of color and sun protection in many systems.

At its most basic, a lip balm is composed of a carrier oil and a structuring wax. However, this simple combination can suffer from issues with texture and performance if the two can’t respond to a variety of environmental conditions. Koster Keunen offers structurant options to give your lip balm just the gel strength you are looking for, even while working within a variety of ingredient sourcing constraints.

Koster Keunen waxes, both natural and synthetic, extend your formulation palette by making vegan systems possible in both higher-end and cost-effective combinations. For example, in our Natural Vegan Lip Balm with SPF-15*, Sunflower Wax acts as the natural vegan structurant, giving excellent performance, while meeting the wide range of demands that are brought to bear on a sun-screening lip balm.

Formula#: 11/18-258/837/139-4

Another example is our Classic Lip Balm with SynKos 2050, a simple cost-effective lip balm that glides on effortlessly. SynKos 2050 is a low-cost synthetic wax suitable as a polyethylene and/or petrochemical wax replacement. This formula also features Synthetic Candelilla, a lower cost replacement for Candelilla wax.

Formula #: 12/17-148/858-2A

When your formulation has performance issues, Koster Keunen’s got you covered. Stick balm too brittle? Gel too grainy? Maybe your formula becomes a little unstable or weepy at different temperatures. Koster Keunen’s slate of plasticizers can solve many performance issues, but not at the cost of your formula’s curated labeling.

Our Sustain-a-Balm Lip & Body Balm shows off the excellent performance capabilities of both Sustainable Beeswax and natural Kester Wax K-60P. The socially and environmentally responsible ingredients are featured in a stick balm that leaves skin smooth and comfortable, with all-day wear.

Formula#: 1/20-10005/484/358-5

Koster Keunen’s commitment to sustainability drives our research and development, and our formulations reflect this. Whatever your lip balm questions and goals, Koster Keunen has the formulation guidance, protype formulas, and waxes to get your formula started, and the additional system ingredients, like plasticizers, to make your formula uniquely effective. Please contact us to discuss your formulation needs today.

*SPF estimate