Pumpkin Spice Lip Balm Recipe with Essential Oils: Easy Fall DIY

This pumpkin spice lip balm is a lovely, simple fall project. Melt tallow, jojoba oil, and beeswax together, tint it with a pinch of mica, and stir in a pumpkin spice essential oil blend. That’s the whole recipe: no molds, no curing time beyond an hour on the counter, and no equipment beyond a saucepan and a heatproof bowl.

It’s part of a larger set of pumpkin spice bath and body recipes built around this same warm, spiced scent, though it works perfectly well as a standalone project too. If you’ve made any pumpkin spice DIYs before, this one will feel familiar. If this is your first, it’s a good, low-commitment place to start.

The mica gives the balm a soft, honeyed-orange natural fall color. One batch makes 8 to 10 tubes, plenty to gift and for yourself.

What You’ll Need to Make Pumpkin Spice Lip Balm

Makes 8-10 lip balm tubes.

• 2 tbsp Tallow
• 2 tbsp Jojoba Oil
• 1 tbsp Beeswax Pellets
• Pinch of Orange Mica Powder
• 3 drops Ginger essential oil
• 2 drops Sweet orange essential oil
• 1 drop Cinnamon leaf essential oil
• 1 drop Nutmeg essential oil
• Empty Lip Balm Tubes (8-10) – Clear tubes are great for showing off the color
• Lip Balm Tube Filling Tray – Holds tubes steady for easier filling

This combination of essential oils creates a pumpkin spice blend but without clove. Clove essential oil may be too strong for the lips, so I’ve left it out of the recipe. The other oils together have a more mellow pumpkin spice scent.

How to Make Pumpkin Spice Lip Balm

Step 1: Melt the Base Ingredients

Set up a double boiler. If you don’t have one, set a heatproof bowl over a small saucepan with an inch or two of gently simmering water.
Add the tallow, jojoba oil, and beeswax to the top bowl or pot. Stir every minute or so as everything melts.

Beeswax has the highest melting point of the three ingredients, so you’ll still see solid flecks of it after the tallow and jojoba oil have gone fully liquid.

Keep the water at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil. Direct high heat can scorch the beeswax and leave a faint burnt smell in the finished balm. Full melting usually takes 5 to 8 minutes.

Step 2: Stir in the Mica

Once the base is fully melted and no beeswax flecks remain, sprinkle in the pinch of mica. Stir continuously for 30 to 60 seconds.

Mica is a very fine powder, and while it disperses quickly, it can also settle toward the bottom of the pot if you stop stirring, which leaves the last few tubes noticeably lighter than the first.

This step is where you decide the final color. Once the balm sets in the tubes, there’s no remixing it, so it’s worth taking the extra thirty seconds to get an even color all the way through.

Step 3: Cool and Add the Essential Oils

Remove the pot from heat and let it sit for a few minutes until it feels warm rather than hot. You should be able to hold your hand a couple of inches above the surface comfortably.

Adding the essential oils at this stage, rather than while the base is still on direct heat, keeps their scent from cooking off before the balm even sets.

Stir in the ginger, sweet orange, cinnamon leaf, and nutmeg essential oils to give the lip balm that distinctive pumpkin spice aroma. Mix well so the oils are evenly distributed through the base.

Note: You can either add drops of individual oils or make the blend first without clove, then add seven drops of the blend.

Step 4: Pour the Lip Balms into Tubes and Keep Aside to Set

Working quickly, pour the liquid balm into the lip balm tubes, filling each one right to the top. The mixture shrinks slightly as it hardens, so a full pour now avoids a sunken-looking balm later.

A small pouring pitcher or a repurposed squeeze bottle makes this noticeably less messy than pouring straight from the pot.

Let the filled tubes sit undisturbed on a flat surface for about an hour at room temperature. Resist the urge to cap them or move them early. Jostling the balm before it’s fully set can create air pockets or an uneven surface on top.

How to store homemade lip balm

Kept in their tubes and stored somewhere cool and out of direct sun, these lip balms hold up well for about six months to a year. Warm environments, a car dashboard, or a sunny windowsill will soften a tallow or shea-based balm faster than a cool drawer will.

Troubleshooting Common Problems

Balm turns out too soft: This usually means there wasn’t quite enough beeswax relative to the oils, or the room was warm while the tubes were setting. Add an extra half teaspoon of beeswax to the next batch to firm things up.

Color looks streaky or uneven: The mica likely settled before pouring, or wasn’t stirred in long enough. Keep stirring right up until you start pouring the last tube.

Scent seems faint once set: You may have added the essential oils while the base was still quite hot. Let it cool a little longer next time, or stir in the oils in two additions instead of all at once.

Base starts to firm up mid-pour: Set it back over the double boiler for thirty seconds to loosen it up before finishing the remaining tubes.

Balm looks cloudy or slightly grainy: This is typically from cooling too fast, such as setting the tubes in the fridge. Room temperature setting gives a smoother, clearer finish.

How to Make Pumpkin Spice Vegan Lip Balm

Both tallow and beeswax are animal-derived, so a fully vegan version needs a substitute for each.

In place of the beeswax: Use about 2 tsp candelilla wax. Candelilla wax has more setting power than beeswax, so a smaller amount does the same job.

In place of the tallow: Use 2 tbsp shea butter or cocoa butter instead. Both melt smoothly alongside the jojoba oil and candelilla wax in a double boiler. Your lip balms will have slightly different, but just as lovely scents, with these substitutions.

The rest of the process stays the same. Melt, cool, add the oils, pour, and let set. The vegan version sets at a similar rate, though shea butter versions can feel slightly softer, so keep them somewhere cool while they set if your kitchen runs warm.

More From the Pumpkin Spice Bath & Body Collection

This lip balm is one of five recipes built around the same pumpkin spice blend of ginger, sweet orange, cinnamon leaf, nutmeg, and clove.

Once you have the blend down, you can use it in a body scrub, a set of sugar scrub bars, a melt and pour soap, and a whipped body butter, each one using the scent a little differently, from a quick exfoliating scrub to a long-wearing leave-on butter.

The products are also designed to work together. A scrub or scrub bar followed by the body butter makes a simple two-step routine, and the soap works well as an everyday companion piece at the sink.

Any two or three bundled together make an easy, cohesive gift set without any extra effort, since they already share the same scent.

For the full blend breakdown, all five recipes to create a cozy fall collection, and gift set ideas, explore the pumpkin spice bath & body hub.

If you want to gift just the lip balm, bundle three tubes together in a small kraft box or wrap them in tissue paper tied with twine, tucking a cinnamon stick under the bow for a small, seasonal detail.

Frequently Asked Questions

This lovely fall lip balm rounds out the pumpkin spice collection nicely. It’s easy to make in a single sitting and the easiest to give away without any wrapping beyond the tube itself. Whichever pumpkin spice product you started with, this one is worth adding to the lineup.

For the rest of the collection, the Pumpkin Spice Hub has the full set of recipes and gifting ideas.