How to make a natural cleansing balm

Cleansing balms are one of my favourite formulations to make. They’re quick, affordable, and endlessly versatile – and they’re also perfect for cold, winter days.

What I love most about balms is that, beyond their luxurious skin feel, they’re a fantastic way to experiment with anhydrous (oil-based) systems. You get to see, in real time, how each ingredient alters the texture, stability, and overall feel of your formulation. Every batch is like a mini masterclass, helping you refine your skills and grow as a formulator!

In this post, I’ll walk you through the key points to keep in mind when creating a natural cleansing balm, show you how clays and charcoal can take your cleansing balm to the next level, and share a sample balm formulation you can make and customise at home. Let’s get started!

Why make cleansing balms

Natural cleansing balms are super easy and affordable to make, and they let you experiment with all kinds of exciting botanical ingredients like butters, waxes, clays and oils.

They’re also a real treat for your skin, especially during the colder winter months when it’s freezing outside, and you have central heating drying up your skin, making it feel essentially like cardboard!

Balms melt effortlessly into the skin, dissolve away makeup and dirt, and leave the skin barrier feeling cared for instead of stripped. You can learn more about the skin barrier in the post below:

Skin barrier 101: Essential guide for natural cosmetic formulators

How to avoid a greasy balm

Since a cleansing balm is an anhydrous product (meaning it’s oil-based), it can be challenging to achieve a nice and non-greasy skin feel. The good news is that small tweaks can completely change the user experience!

Here are my go-to strategies to not get a sticky, greasy feeling after you rinse your face:

1. Balance your butters with dry oils like macadamia or passion fruit seed oil. I’m using these in my charcoal balm formulation below!
2. Add a touch of lecithin. You might be familiar with lecithin as an emulsifier, but in a cleansing balm, it’s great to improve the skin feel. And don’t worry, it won’t emulsify.
3. Experiment with clays. They reduce greasiness, add creaminess, and provide gentle exfoliation.

Getting the texture right is where formulation becomes really fun. You’ll learn so much from simply adjusting percentages and swapping ingredients, so make sure you keep experimenting and remember to write everything down!

Adding clays or charcoal to your balms

Next time you’re making a balm, consider adding clays or charcoal. Why?

Firstly, they improve the skin feel, giving your balm a creamier, more luxurious texture. Secondly, they help cleanse the skin, lifting away excess dirt, sebum, and even makeup. Thirdly, when you massage the balm in, the clays or charcoal act as a gentle exfoliator.

Because an anhydrous balm is waterless, clays won’t have much of their usual absorbent or adsorbent properties. That said, it does depend on the environment and how you apply it. For example, if you put the balm on your face (in a dry environment) and leave it on while relaxing in the bath, it can act like a mask, absorbing impurities too!

Important note: Clays are notoriously difficult to preserve in water-based formulas. So the best way to avoid contamination and unwanted microbes is to use clays in waterless formulations, like in cleansing balms! Just make sure that you or anyone using it doesn’t introduce water to it. Otherwise, it will need preserving.

Storage & packaging tips

Because cleansing balms are anhydrous, they’re easier to keep safe from microbial contamination – but only if you keep water out.

Ideally, you should package your natural cleansing balm in an airless bottle. If using a jar, store it in a dry, clean place and always keep it closed. Avoid dipping wet fingers into the balm, as this can introduce moisture and compromise its safety.

A nice trick when using a jar is to make smaller quantities, so you use the balm quickly. You can also use a small spatula to scoop the product without touching it directly. It also adds a nice, luxurious touch if you want to sell your balms!

How to make a charcoal deep cleansing balm

• Makes: 100g
• Level: Beginner-friendly
• Formulation type: Hot process

Formulation method:

Here’s a natural cleansing balm I love making. It’s rich, grounding, and beautifully balanced on the skin. It looks, feels, and smells earthy.

You know, the kind where you dig into the earth when you want to plant something, and you are enveloped with this grounding ‘earthiness’, well, that kind. It’s also deeply cleansing, perfect for winter, and won’t strip your skin barrier.

Use it as is, or adapt it with your own favourite oils, butters, or aroma blends.

Step-by-step method

Step 1: Melt the wax, butters and lecithin in a water bath

Melt the myrica wax, cocoa butter, cupuaçu butter and lecithin in a water bath. Stir during melting for a uniform temperature distribution.

Step 2: Remove from the heat and stir

Once everything is melted, turn the heat off and remove the beaker from the water bath. Stir while it cools down a little bit.

Step 3: Add the passionfruit seed oil and vitamin E

When the blend is cooler, add passionfruit oil and vitamin E to the mixture.

Step 4: Stir in intervals

Stir while cooling in intervals in the fridge or in a cold water bath.

Step 5: Pre-disperse part of the clay in the macadamia oil

While the clay won’t dissolve in the oil, pre-disperse it in part of the macadamia oil phase to avoid any clumps. When the butter comes to a light trace, you can add this oil/clay blend to the mixture. Blend well.

Step 6: Add the alpha-bisabol and the essential oils

Add the heat-sensitive ingredients, the alpha-bisabolol and the essential oils. Continue your cooling and stirring until you reach the trace you’ve been looking for.

Step 7: Package & label

Pour your blend into a suitable container, label it, and let your cleansing balm sit for at least 12 hours in the fridge (ideally 24 hours), and then let it adjust to room temperature. And that’s it! All you have left to do is use your charcoal cleansing balm.

Ingredient notes

Here’s why I chose these specific ingredients for this natural cleansing balm:

Clays:

I adore my natural shades of pink, yellow, orange and green! But for this natural cleansing balm, I wanted to take it a step further and create a small wow/shock effect. Activated charcoal perfectly ticked all my boxes!

It has that earthy zzzzzing, the blackness is perfect for the earth scheme, and it is deeply cleansing. Also, charcoal is one of those trendy must-have ingredients at the moment. At this percentage, charcoal won’t stain the skin and will be easy to wash off.

Butters:

Cupuaçu butter belongs to the same family as cocoa butter, but it is more like a soft butter, like shea. It contains a balanced combination of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, and has moisturising and barrier-repair properties; the scent is woody-nutty.

This butter also has a nice and soft skin feel, and some might even say it is the perfect plant-based substitute for lanolin.

Cocoa butter is a hard butter known for its excellent skin feel, and it adds richness to the texture. It has a characteristic chocolatey scent.

Wax:

Myrica wax is a vegan wax, derived from the peels of the myrica berry. It helps improve the overall product’s feel and texture. Here is a great post if you want some inspiration for your choice of wax:

6 vegan waxes for organic cosmetic formulations

Oils:

Passion fruit seed oil comes from the Amazonian fruit maracuja or passion fruit. The oil is rich in linoleic acid and oleic acid. This oil brings carotenoids, flavonoids and vitamin A to the formula and offers a lightly fruity sweet scent.

Macadamia nut oil contains oleic acid and unusually high concentrations of palmitoleic acid. It’s known as a vanishing oil and gives the cleanser an extra silky-soft feeling. It has a neutral scent.

Essential oils:

I’ve used cedarwood (Cedrus Atlantica Bark Oil) for its earthy and grounding scent. In skincare, it is mostly known and used as a cleanser, a general tonic, and an ingredient that reduces oily secretions. I’ve paired it with sweet orange oil (Citrus Sinensis Peel Oil, expressed) for its uplifting effect and to freshen up this whole blend.

Extracts:

I’ve used alpha-bisabolol for its anti-inflammatory properties for (winter) sensitive skin and barrier repair, along with lecithin and tocopherol, which will act as an antioxidant to prevent our lovely natural cleansing balm from going rancid prematurely.

Your turn!

Now it’s your turn! Try making our natural cleansing balm, or let your creativity run wild and design your very own formulation. Either way, don’t forget to tag us on social media using the #formulabotanica, and to leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

Curious about how Formula Botanica teaches organic cosmetic formulation? Join our free sample class today and learn how to make your own natural and organic skincare from scratch, no previous experience needed.

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Jilly Schechter

Jilly Schechter is a Tutor at Formula Botanica, where she helps our students to become better organic cosmetic formulators. Jilly lives in Belgium and loves writing tutorials on how to make skincare and haircare.