Candle Making Tips
This article identifies eight problems commonly encountered making candles and provides candle making tips to help you avoid or troubleshoot these difficulties.
Making candles can be great fun. Deciding what type of candle to make and shopping for supplies, for example, are enjoyable for many keen hobbyists.
However, newbie candle makers often stumble into problems that add disappointment and frustration to their learning process. Often they become disillusioned and give up. And that’s a shame, because most of these obstacles have quick and easy to implement solutions. The following candle making tips should help you avoid some of the most common beginner issues.
Candle Making Tips to Prevent Common Problems
1. Start simple. All beginners should start with the simplest candle making process. This gives you the opportunity to learn the basic process and pick up introductory candle making tips as you go.
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You may want to start making rolled beeswax candles…simple, because melting wax is not required.
Or buy some inexpensive soy wax shavings and make natural soy candles (no dye or fragrance required) in small glasses or desert dishes that you may have lying around the house.
Master the basics and when you are ready, move on to making more advanced topics like making beeswax candles, gel candles and candles requiring dyes and fragrances.
2. Quality counts. Another fundamental candle making tip is to use quality products. In general, candle making supplies are inexpensive. But purchasing low quality wax, for example, will never yield quality candles.
3. Use proper heat. Heating the wax to the proper temperature is also very important. The correct temperature depends on the type of candle you are making. In general, if the wax isn’t hot enough, it won’t form correctly. On the other hand, wax that is too hot will lose luster and become brittle once it cools.
4. Solution to smoke. Some candles look beautiful but fill the room with smoke. The problem here is with your wick…it is too long. A good candle making tip is to simply cut your wicks shorter next time. As for the candles you have already created, snipping the wicks to about ½ inch should remedy the situation.
5. Width of your wick. Other candles burn and smell great but develop a large round crater around the wick. Your wick probably isn’t wide enough. You can purchase a wider wick or braid three together to get a good thickness for your next batch of candles. You can’t do anything for candles you have already made, except to remelt the wax and start over. For your candles to burn evenly, remember this rule…the wider the candle jar, the wider the wick.
6. Let them cool. Many beginners don’t allow enough time for their candles to coo. Don’t rush the cooling process or else you will damage the hardness of the candle. Forcing the candle to cool can also result in bubbles forming in the top and middle of the candle. Although these bubbles won’t create physical defects, the melting wax may puddle in these bubbles and extinguish your flame.
Allow candles to cool on a flat surface and away from direct sunlight. Make sure there aren’t any heating or cooling ducts blowing air on the cooling candles. They should not be moved until completely cool. Four hours is normally enough, but letting them cool overnight is always a safe bet.
7. Warm your jars. Sometimes the wax of your cooled candle can pull away from the edges of the glass jar. This is only a visual issue but will make your candles less marketable. Try heating your jars in the microwave for a minute or two immediately before you fill them with hot wax. This should make the wax adhere to the edges of the jar correctly.
8. Give it time. The last of our candle making tips…it will take a few tries to perfect the candle making process and to achieve the candle quality you want, so give it some time. You will have to experiment to find the exact method that works best for your work environment. During the initial learning process, you should only make a few candles at a time to avoid wasting supplies. Make sure each finished product doesn’t have any melting or bubbling issues, when the candle is lit. If it does, simply melt the wax again and try it once more.
Once you have mastered the basics of candle making, you can experiment with different types of candles. The internet is a great place to find candle making tips and solutions to your candle making problems.
Click here to check out my sister Sarah’s ebook collection
Secrets to Successful Candle Making
…it’s chock full of candle making tips to save you time & money
