Lip Balm: How to use 2 Flavors with two different usage rates

I recently received a great query through our technical support email that inquired about how to create a lip balm with two different flavor oils and how to calculate for each. The two flavors in question are Chocolate Cream Flavor Oil and Peppermint Essential Oil. As some of you know, my answers often appear to be questions instead.

Here is the dialog so you can follow along and learn how to use two flavors AND how to do the math.

Customer: I would like to combine your chocolate cream and peppermint for a holiday lip balm. My recipe is a total 4.6 oz and makes about 26 tubes. Can you please help me figure how much of each flavor oil to use?
MMS: Do you weigh the items to make your lip balm mixture? If so, do you weigh in ounces?

Customer: Yes, I weigh in ounces. Thank you.
MMS: Does your scale offer metric units? Grams? if so, what is the readability (the smallest unit the scale can weigh and how does it increment upwards)?

Customer: My scale does offer grams….1 g is the smallest and it goes up 1 gr at a time.
MMS: These answers are awesome! You ask a good question and the answer is difficult to calculate without these answers.

Chocolate Cream is generally used at 2-4% of your mixture. So we calculate 4.6 x 3% to give us a good chocolatey flavor. Without a percent sign on the calculator it looks like 4.6 x .03 = .138

I doubt the scale goes to 1/1000 of an ounce so it becomes hard to weigh. This is where weighing in metrics can help. The 4.6 ounces becomes 130.4 grams, and the .138 ounces becomes 3.9 grams. We are still dealing with some limitations on the scale but now we know how close we can really get. The peppermint is even harder. I would make the test batch with 3% Chocolate Cream and 0.3% Peppermint Oil. It is easy enough to add more flavor but more difficult to add more fixed oils to make a double batch of lip balm.

4.6 oz x 0.003 = .0138 oz Peppermint
130.4 x 0.003 = 0.039 grams Peppermint

It looks to me that making a master batch of this flavor mixture is the better route to go. It would be 10 grams Chocolate Cream and 1 gram Peppermint Oil. From there you would calculate 3.3% or multiply by 0.033 to get the weight needed.

Long explanation isn’t it?

Customer: Wow! Now I don’t feel so bad about how much trouble I was having trying to figure this out. I think you are right, a master batch would be the best route. I am so grateful for your help. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
MMS: I would love to hear how your master batch turns out.

Customer: Just an update for you – the master batch was great. I made the lip balm this morning, and I like it. I’ll pass out a few over the weekend and see what others say. You can smell the chocolate right away and the mint is not overwhelming but you get it. I think it is just what I wanted. Can’t thank you enough!
MMS: Yippee!

From our team to yours: any time MMS can make your project seem more enjoyable and successful from the very first test batch then we are thrilled! It is what we work for each day. If you have two flavor oils that you would like to combine, offer them here in the comments and I will assist with some math and suggestions. If you don’t want a public answer, go ahead and send in your request to us in email. We will keep that private for you.