Lou McLeod: Candle Making Basics | How To Make Candles

Tuesday, 13 September 2016

Candle Making Basics | How To Make Candles

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Home Skills Homemaking Skills Candle Making Candle Making Basics | How To Make Candles

Ready to learn the candle making basics? If you want to get started on being self-sufficient, candle making should be on your list. Stop buying candles and learn how to make them. It’s not really as hard as you think. You can even customize the color and scent. How fun is that? So let’s get started and find out how to make candles today!

Candle Making Basics | How To Make Candles

You’ve read a million articles on how to make the best homemade scented candles, and you still don’t understand the process? Here is a straightforward tutorial filled with tips and tricks to get you a homemade scented soy candle worthy of a gift! You won’t be sorry when you discover the simplicity of candle making. It takes a bit of an initial investment, but if you’re looking for a fun hobby to pass the time, this is it! Check out all of our secrets on candle making by following this quick and easy tutorial! Fill your house with homemade candle this summer. Have fun and happy candle making!

Don’t forget to check out the lovely shop farrroutscents!

Supplies:

For Pillar Candles: Aluminum molds are used to make pillar candles as well as wax tarts, to make either of these you can purchase them at here.
Molding Clay: Found at Jo-Anne Fabric
For Container/Jar Candles: You can use recycled wine bottles if you have the knowledge of how to cut them, this can be looked up via youtube.com but takes some practice and patience to get right, I suggest starting with an old container of salsa or a mason jar both can be purchased at any Target or Jo Anne Fabrics for mason jars.
Wick Bars: you can find these online as well at here or you can use pencils and wrap the wick around the pencil and wrap the wick around that.
Wick Tabs: you can find these at Jo-Anne fabric
Hot Glue Gun: again at any Jo-Anne Fabric

For Both:

Scale: you need a kitchen scale to weigh out your soy wax and fragrance oil
Small Pan: This will be used along with the aluminum pour pot for the double boiler method
Thermometer: Find this in any Target or Supermarket
Aluminum Pour Pot: This is what you melt your wax in, it can be found in any Jo-Anne Fabric
Soy Wax: You can find fantastic all natural pillar and soy wax online, the brand I use for my online candles shop is eco soya cb-excell and the eco soya pillar soy wax. You can find that here or you can go to any Jo-Ann’s Fabric, Michaels etc. and find soy wax there as well.
Fragrance Oil: there is the big argument over whether or not to use fragrance oil vs. essential oils, in my opinion fragrance oils made by here are specifically designed to be safe for use in candles, using essential oils takes away from the worlds supply and can cause headaches when burned.
Duct Tape
Wick: There are many types of wicks, my recommendation and the only wick I will use at Farr Out Scents is hemp wick dipped in beeswax; it is sustainable and clean burning. You can get this on an Etsy shop here.

Step 1.

Weigh out your soy wax using your kitchen scale and aluminum pour pot. Make sure you put the pour pot on the scale and zero it before pouring soy wax in. The equation for ounces to grams is 1oz=28g

Pour in the soy wax

Step 2.

Weigh out your fragrance oil- you will want to do 12% of your total wax amount used for a strong scent throw and 9% for a milder scent throw

Weigh out your fragrance oil

Step 3.

Melt your wax using a double boiler method (this is when you use a small pan) Melt your soy wax to 180 degrees Fahrenheit and then turn of the burner right away to start the cooling process before you add your fragrance oil

Melt the wax

Step 4.

Let your soy wax cool slightly about 60 seconds and then pour in your weighed fragrance oil.

Let your soy wax cool

Step 5.

Stir in the fragrance oil using a metal spoon for 2 minutes- this is important because the fragrance oil needs to be evenly displaced in your wax to make sure your oil doesn’t pool at the top of your candle once cooled and poured

Stir in the fragrance oil

Step 6.

At this point you want to turn on your oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit and put your glass containers or metal molds (in the picture shown we used recycled wine bottles that have been cut and sanded) in the oven while your wax cools–your container and wax should be as close in temp as possible to get smooth candle.

Put the bottles in the oven

Step 7.

When your wax has cooled to 110-135 degrees Fahrenheit take each container out separately and string the hemp wick through the wick tab and using the hot glue to attach the wick tab to the container you can then use your wick bar or pencil/pen hold to hold the wick(s) in place and use duck tape to hold the wick in place-make sure to center wicks perfectly I use a wooden ruler to make sure that it is perfect.

String the wick

Step 8.

Time to begin pouring. You will want to pour very slowly so that your candle doesn’t have a caved in “hole” on top which affects the overall look. Make sure to leave an inch or so at the top of the candle and you need to let cool for two days before it is ready to be burned – add a personal label using your own printer and sticker paper.

Start pouring