Luscious Lips

Did you know that when you get to the "bottom" of a tube of lipstick, there's still a ton left? If you have 10 minutes and some basic supplies, you can take the remainder and make a tinted lip balm.

Exhibit A: a lipstick that appears dead. It actually goes down into the tube almost another 1/2".

You can dig this out with any small tool. They make cosmetic spatulas, but I'm just using the handle of an eye shadow applicator.

Look at all that!

Now we're going to melt the lipstick and a few added ingredients. Start with a small glass dish set into a pan of boiling water. We're going to add some oil (I chose coconut), and some beauty butter like shea. I don't recommend just coconut oil because it melts with your body heat, leaving you without that creamy consistency. Most recipes are looking at this ratio: 1/3 oil, 1/3 butter, 1/3 wax. The lipstick covers the wax portion. You can play with the butter:lipstick proportions to give you more or less color.

Once your ingredients are melted (should take less than 1 minute), pour them into your container of choice. I had little containers from a travel toiletry set. You could also use one of those mini jam jars or a small mint tin. Use tongs - your melting container could be hot!

Let cool at room temperature, or fast cool in the fridge. Mine took about 10 minutes in the fridge to re-solidify.

Apply and enjoy your moisturized lips!

Cost: pennies