Several years ago my husband and two older boys visited my husband’s parents in Southern France. A day trip took them to a ochre quarry in Roussillon, a small village with striking red cliffs and an old clock and bell tower. Along with beautiful photos and plenty of memories, they brought back containers of iron oxide in shades of brick red and mustard yellow.
Iron oxide is a chemical compound composed of iron and oxygen (I’ll let my son Caleb tell you more in his blog post about oxides). It’s a dye used in cosmetics that is approved by both the FDA and the Environmental Working Group.
The boys learned that to change the color of the powder, it involved oxidization through baking. The baking process would change the shade of color of the powder to create various earth-tone shades.
What a Great Lip Balm: Testing the color of iron oxide in a tinted lip balm
Over the years, MadeOn customers have asked for a cocoa butter lip balm, which, by replacing the lip balm’s current shea butter with cocoa butter, gives your lip balm a luscious, natural cocoa scent. We decided to experiment with creating a tinted lip balm and found that adding a red ochre (iron oxide), the cocoa butter lip balms leaves lips with a soft, brownish-red tint that looks natural and feels nourishing.
After testing out the ochres my husband and sons brought back, we hit on a few varieties.
VIEW THE TINTED LIP BALMS HERE: https://store.hardlotion.com/products/tinted-lip-balms
Back to France…
Enjoy this short video of the ochre production factory in Roussillon, France:
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[…] iron oxide for the color. Iron Oxide is a natural ingredient, which she explains in more detail here. Renee was kind enough to share her recipe as well as some ingredients so I could experiment. These […]