Lipstick

Make Your Own Lipstick at Home

Ever wanted to make your own lipstick? It’s easier than you think—and with our Go Native Lipstick Kit, you’ll have everything you need to get started.

Go Native Lipstick Kit

When you purchase the kit, you can choose from:

5 x 5ml clear glass pots (you will need a lip brush to apply)
5 x 5gm lip balm tubes
5 x 5gm kraft tubes

You also have the option to add a set of mini measuring spoons—and if it's your first time, we highly recommend them! They're essential for measuring out your pigments accurately.

Each kit includes a ready-made vegan lipstick base from Marie Rayma’s book Make It Up, along with our top tips, a helpful video tutorial, and a few of our favourite shade recipes.

Let's play!

How-To Video: Make Your Own Lipstick

Watch our step-by-step guide to see the process in action.

Equipment You Might Find Useful

If you're working from scratch using Marie Rayma’s original recipe, these tools will make the job a whole lot easier:

Mini scales – for measuring tiny amounts of ingredients accurately (down to 0.01g).
Glass beaker – for melting and mixing your lipstick base.
Mini silicone spatula – perfect for blending pigments and scraping every last bit from the sides.

Don’t have these? No worries—any heatproof container and a regular spatula will do in a pinch. But these tools make the process faster, easier, and less messy.

Why Measuring Spoons Are a Must

Mini measuring spoons are key for pigment. The recipes are based on specific spoon measurements: TAD (1/4 tsp), PINCH (1/16 tsp), and DROP (1/64 tsp). These tiny quantities can’t be accurately guessed—and even a small variation can change your final colour. Level off your pigments with a knife for consistency, and don’t pack them tight.

Adding Your Pigment

Now it's time to add your pigment. With your measuring spoons take out the colour you want and sweep the top with a knife to level it out, don't pack them tight, this way you'll know you're always using the same amount therefore upholding the integrity of your shades.

Weigh out 6g of your base into your beaker or dish. It's good to use 6g even if you're filling a 5g container to make allowances for mixture getting lost around the sides of your dish, better to have a touch too much than too little. It won't look like much, I'm making 12g here so will look like half as much as the far left picture.

Blending The Pigment

Once you've got your pigment in with your base (remember you don't have to put it all in at once, you can build colour gradually until you reach your desired shade) place it back in the water bath. You want the water to be hot but not boiling as boiling water runs a higher risk of splashing into your mixture and if that happens you'll want to chuck it out and start again. Give it a minute or so to soften up and then start blend and, you guessed it, smooshing! You can take it out of the water to do this and put it back in to soften it again. As you can see from the far right picture it will be pretty globby at first. Really make sure you work all the pigment in as a little goes a long way so every bit of it works towards your final shade.

This is where the mini spatula is really useful, for running around the edges and gathering mixture that's stuck to the sides and popping it back in to soften. Just keep smooshing! You'll see the consistency change and when you're convinced it's all mixed in you're ready to pour.

Pouring

Prepare the container/s that you want to fill, here I'm using a 5ml clear glass pot and a 5g white plastic tube You want a flat, easily cleanable surface. As you can see in the picture on the far right, as you pour it will solidify so just run your spatula around the edge and place it back in the water bath to soften it up again. You might have to do this three or four times.

You Made Lipstick!!

Leave your lipstick to set. Putting it in the fridge will speed up the process.

DIY Lipstick Shade Suggestions

These are some of our favourite formulas to get you started. The ratios below are based on 6g of base.

Spoon size guide:

TAD = 1/4 tsp
DASH = 1/8 tsp
PINCH = 1/16 tsp
SMIDGEN = 1/32 tsp
DROP = 1/64 tsp

(The shade pictured in this blog is Sasha.)

When formulating your own shades the rule of thumb is 7 x PINCHES (1/16 tsp) of pigment per 6g of base, not including micas (the pigments that do the grunt work when it comes to colouring). Feel free to experiment with less or more.

And have fun!

Sasha (Deep Red)

3 x DASH (1/8 tsp) red rouge
1 x PINCH (1/16 tsp) red iron oxide
1 x DROP (1/64 tsp) brown iron oxide

Manila (Orangey Coral)

1 x PINCH (1/16 tsp) titanium dioxide
1 x PINCH (1/16 tsp) red iron oxide
1 x PINCH (1/16 tsp) + 1 x SMIDGEN (1/32 tsp) yellow iron oxide
1 x SMIDGEN (1/32 tsp) rouge red
1 x PINCH (1/16 tsp) princess peach mica (optional)

Farrah (Bright Pink)

1 x PINCH (1/16 tsp) + 1 x DROP (1/64 tsp) rouge red
1/2 tsp + 1 x PINCH titanium dioxide
1 x PINCH (1/16 tsp) princess peach mica

Naomi (Deep Plum)

1 x DASH (1/8 tsp) + 1 x SMIDGEN (1/32 tsp) rouge red
1 x PINCH red iron oxide
1 x PINCH brown iron oxide
1 x PINCH titanium dioxide
1 x SMIDGEN (1/32 tsp) + 1 x DROP (1/64 tsp) *ultramarine blue

Bob (Dark Brown with Bronze Shimmer)

3 x PINCH (1/16 tsp) brown iron oxide
1 x DASH (1/8 tsp) yellow iron oxide
1 x PINCH (1/16 tsp) + 1 x SMIDGEN (1/32 tsp) red iron oxide
1 x DASH (1/8 tsp) bronze satin mica

Note: Ultramarines are not approved for use in lipsticks in the USA, but are permitted in all cosmetics (including lipsticks) in the EU. 'Naomi' is the only shade listed here that includes ultramarine blue—feel free to skip it if you're unsure.

Have fun and tag us in your creations—we'd love to see your shades! #gonativenz