Start Making your own Candles

It is great fun to start making your own candles. I was inspired by my friend Doreen who made all the candles for the tables for her daughter’s wedding, so I bought a Soy Candle Making Starter Kit from Candle Creations so that I could try making my own.

The kit comes with everything you need to get started (except you will need your own Pyrex jug and large saucepan or a double boiler), including a thermometer and instructions. There are enough supplies to make 16 different candles ranging from simple tea lights, mini jars with lids and a medium sized lidded jar. You can choose your desired fragrance and colour combination – I chose Sandalwood & Musk and a yellow colour that I haven’t yet used.

Most people would start by trying out the basic unscented tea light candles but I jumped straight in and decided to make the medium lidded jar candle as a gift. I didn’t really know what I was doing but simply melted a Pyrex jug full of wax – it doesn’t matter if you melt too much because you can just let it set and then re-melt it again later. You hook the handle of the Pyrex jug over the side of the saucepan of water (making sure it doesn’t touch the bottom) and heat it slowly over a low heat until the wax reaches 80-85C, then add the fragrance and stir well. I needed 180ml of wax for my jar and I added 15ml of fragrance (between 6-10% is the right proportion). Leave it to cool to 60-65C and then pour it into the jar.

I had set up the jar by attaching the wick to the bottom of the jar using a wick sticker, putting the wick through the hole in the wick holder and positioning the wick holder over the top of the jar so that the wick is in the middle.

Leave the candle to set. The jar (mine was bright red) comes with a lovely metal lid that kept the fragrance nice and strong. It was a perfect gift for my brother and sister-in-law who have red accents in their lounge.