Helpp please - natural tinted lip balm problem

Hello, I hope someone can help me.

When I pour my tinted lip balm, it comes out all mottled in appearance....I'm looking for a smooth color.

I infused coconut oil with beet powder and alkanet powders and used this infusion to get the color.

Wax is candelilla.

I pour into jars / posts

Sorry, I don't know how to insert an image here. Appreciate any guidance!
Thank you!

To post a picture, scroll down to the bottom of this thread to the "Quick reply" section. Write a message as usual.

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Ha ha, you beat me to it, DeeAnna. I just went looking for your excellent explanation, found it, and was just about to post a link to it here when I saw that it was now completely unnecessary. lol

By the way- welcome, Sabistar! A picture is worth a thousand words as they say. Without a picture, my best guess is that the candelilla wasn't melted as completely as you thought. I use candelilla in one of my balm formulas, and unless I melt it really, really good, I'll end up with tiny grains in my balm. Basically, I keep it on the heat for a good 10 minutes beyond when I think it's already been melted, and I swirl it around my vessel and check the sides for any tiny 'grains' before I pour it. If you happen to have any of those tiny grains, it sounds understandable to me that things might end up looking a little mottled.


IrishLass

I'm afraid I don't have any words of wisdom for solving Sabistarr's lip gloss problem, but I hope I've solved her picture-posting troubles!

THANK YOU for the help with photos - here it is.

I will try melting the candelilla further - but the balm is actually very smooth and if I scrape into it, the color seems to be less spotty / mottled... (left of photo)

Its really very strange.

Hmmm.... it may just be a matter of needing to stir the living bejeebees out of it as it is cooling. Did you add any other additives to the balm? Especially any water-soluble additives?


IrishLass

I'm guessing it is a thin layer of your wax making a pale-colored film on top as the product cooled -- a little like the blush of cocoa butter that sometimes appears on chocolate bars. This can be caused by too-slow cooling or by repeated cycles of slight cooling and heating. What is happening is the oils and fats that melt at a lower temperature are remaining too soft or liquidy for too long, while the wax is crystallizing into tiny solid particles. If this stage takes too long, the crystals of wax can migrate around and come to the surface, making the blush you see.

Some ideas:
Pour the product when it's as cool as possible yet still pourable.
Try to cool the product quicker after it is in the tins, so the wax stays mixed into the product properly while the lower melt point ingredients harden up.
For the tins you've already made, try gently heating the surface of the lip balm to lightly melt the surface layer and see if that helps the appearance.

You may want to rethink your recipe to include ingredients that are not so widely separated in their melt temperature - candelilla wax melts about 158 deg F (70 C) and coconut oil melts about 76 deg F (24 C). Consider adding a butter or other ingredient that melts somewhere between those temps. Otherwise it may be difficult to keep the product looking good over time -- think about the scenario of putting the tin in a pocket or in a purse in a warm car. The coconut oil will easily soften at body temperature, but the candelilla particles will remain solid even on a hot day in a hot car.

What about rapid cooling the whole batch when you make it? Treat it like body butter. When it cools to just wArm, throw it in the freezer and stir every 10ish minutes till firm. Then whip with a hand mixer till done & then fill the tins? You can use the back of a spoon to make the top smooth.

Deanna - thank you so so much. That is exactly what was happening - I reformulated, added some shea and cooled faster. Its beautiful! Thank you!

Very pretty! Does it add color to the lips?

I'm glad I could give you some useful ideas to tweak your product. Those pictures were a great help.

I make a lip balm without color that is beewax (melts about the same as candelilla), jojoba, and sunflower, so my recipe has somewhat the same issues as yours -- low melt point oils and high melt point wax. I haven't seen any obvious blush on my lip balm, but I think there are a couple of reasons why. First, I'm pouring into tall skinny lip balm tubes, rather than flat tins. Most of the wax particles will have a long way to migrate to reach the top of the tube so not as many particles make it to the top to cause a blush. Also my balm is not colored except for the natural colors of the ingredients, so any blush will not be nearly as noticeable as with your tinted balm.

It's kind of cool how little tweaks can make such a big difference!

Well, at least it's cool after the problems are solved.

Yes, it does add a light color to lips. Its been a long process formulating!

Thank you DeeAnna - I couldn't find a way to PM you, but wanted to say I'll stick around the forum - you were such a great help and I'd love to be able to pass on help to someone else, and I know I'll learn a lot - thanks for all you do!

The new ones are very pretty.

To PM a person, a simple way is to find one of their posts and click on their user name. A list will appear and one of the choices is "Send a private message to <user>"