I already have a big cache of candle making stuff. Then MIL gifted me a bunch of my SIL's leftover wedding candles and the cache could no longer fit in my desk storage drawers and began to flood my crafting area floor space. This sparked putting a hold on nearly every candle making book available through inter-library loan for ideas on how to use this material. Besides, it is day 2 of the month I think of as "Maker's March" so now is as good a time as any to get cracking on the Mary Jane's Farm sisterhood badge in the Make it Easy section #11 Candlemaking.
Research the different types of wax used in making candles. Are certain waxes better than others, depending on the type of candle made?
Bees wax: since it is strong, slow-burning, with a bright flame, it is a great candidate for free-standing candles like dipped pioneer taper candles (advanced badge), or their smaller relatives like birthday or menorah candles. You can also buy beeswax sheets that can be rolled up to make your own pillar candle without needing to melt the wax or pour it in a mold. Since it comes with its own pleasant scent and color(s), it wasn't often listed as a good candidate for colored/fragranced candles. The fact that it doesn't shrink (much) combined with a more sticky texture can make it hard to remove from molds. Some people favor beeswax because it is a renewable resource, while others avoid it because it is not vegan. It is a relatively expensive material and some references warn that it may be sold as a percentage of beeswax and back filled with another, potentially less natural wax like paraffin. Beeswax Alchemy advises to seek out beeswax specifically for candle making where an effort has been made to clarify the wax to remove honey which can impact its color and how the candle burns. You might also see bee keepers wax which has more residual honey; brood wax which has been stained a darker color due to more solids from heavy use in the hive; and white wax which has been chemically refined in a factory to remove its yellowish tint for painting projects.
Paraffin: is a product of the petroleum industry and therefore not renewable. It has several redeeming qualities such as affordability, ability to take color and scent, and the ease with which it releases from molds. It is formulated with a variety of different melting points (30-71*C) which allows flexibility in which type of candle to make with it. But it isn't perfect, it burns faster, is softer than beeswax and can shrink in volume when curing. You or manufacturers can add ingredients like stearin or vybar to improve burn time, hardness, easier release from molds, increase scent throw, and dye vibrancy though. Sadly for me, I am guessing my donated material is this versatile paraffin but am unsure what its melting point, whether it was treated with any of these enhancing chemicals which could effect how it interacts with my molds and who knows what suggested blend rates are for color and fragrance. But at least it is starting out unscented and white!
Vegetable waxes: i.e. soy. Offer a renewable, cleaner, slower burning, less shrinking alternative to paraffin. In contrast to beeswax, soy wax more affordable and vegan. The drawbacks of soy are that it requires more dye, throws less scent, and is less strong than paraffin. Other veggie waxes include rapeseed, coconut, and palm wax. My original candle making kit included a large bag of soy pellets which I will probably use for the first projects in the intermediate section.
In contemplating this project, the format of the wax strikes me as important as its ingredients. Pellets are very easy to melt, but I will need some tools to break the solid block of the gifted candles into small enough fragments.
Research the different ways to scent a candle. What are the pros and cons of each method?
Fragrance: is synthetic chemicals. The advantages are that they are relatively inexpensive and can emulate complex scent concepts (i.e. a perfume, rain, coffee shop, cut grass, etc.) that are difficult to reproduce with single ingredients. The disadvantages are that they may contain phthalates if not explicitly labeled otherwise. One UK title suggests checking that they are manufactured in accordance with IFRA standards as a health precaution.
Essential oil: large quantities of plant material are concentrated into an oil. These can have powerful aromatherapeutic properties, such as lavender for relaxation and sleep or mint for focus. Their disadvantages in addition to offering only a single ingredient plant scent profile are their cost due to the quantity of material needed and that they give less scent than fragrance.
Powdered herbs? was suggested by one title as another fragrance approach for molded candles, particularly for spice-type of scents. However, another source discouraged this approach as too dangerous because the material if not ground fine enough might cause uncontrolled flames.
Au naturel: beeswax comes with its own scent without need for additional fragrance.
Research the different ways to color a candle. What are the pros and cons of each method?
Commercial dyes: were unanimously recommended for coloring candles. These dyes can come in disks, melts, powders and liquids. One source recommended solid formats (i.e. chips) over liquids due to less impact on the candle's burn performance, but none of the titles presented a comprehensive overview of the pros and cons of different commercial dye formulations. In your workflow, you add the dye to the melted wax right before adding fragrance and pouring.
Crayons?! two sources explicitly cautioned against using crayons to color candles. Their reasoning was that crayon colorant didn't suspend evenly within the wax and would sink toward the bottom when you stopped stirring. They also believed that some of the settled sediment could be drawn up the wick and cause the candle to sputter excessively. I am a mom of a creative 6 year old, with a large portion of my under bed storage real estate devoted to broken crayon bits, so this was not quite enough of a caution to scare me off crayon candle crafts entirely.
Post-curing painting, etc.: several projects within the books suggested using the finished candle as a canvas on which you could paint details with a brush or textured sponge, possibly even dipping the candle in marbled paint for effect. Another project suggested affixing gold leaf to your pillar candle. Others suggested you could dip a neutral colored candle in colorful wax(es) to add additional interest. You could also carve through the color-dipped exterior of a commercial candle to reveal the contrast of its white base.
Au naturel: beeswax comes in its own soft yellow to dark brown color without the assistance of dyes.
Book summaries:
Candle making Basics - for visual and kinesthetic learners, this is the best book to start with and treat like a textbook. It reads like the Ikea manual. A chapter is devoted to each of 4 styles of candles. If you had worked through those 4 chapters, tackling any of the inspiration sections of the other books would be straight-forward. Actually you could probably get away with doing only 3 of 4 chapters (container, molded, and dipped) because the rolled beeswax pillar is kind of a novelty. Each chapter has its own supplies list, which is great because some specialized equipment may not be worth the investment if you never plan to make that type of candle. Even if they aren't artfully styled, there are tons of photos of each step in the process and instances in which things went wrong and how to troubleshoot. If I were picky, I wish there had been a little more discussion of substitutions/improvisations, i.e. if you don't want to devote a double boiler to wax crafts, could you Macgyver one with nesting a smaller container in a pot of boiling water? But overall, this is a solid resource.
Complete Candlemaker - this was the earliest published title in the round up (1997) and was lacking a lot of detail about contemporary types of wax and tools. It had the most jaw-dropping photos of candles and was meticulous in attributing them to different candle-making businesses, but I found myself more inclined to whip out a credit card and go shopping than empowered or informed enough to approach making something that elaborate myself. But if you can't find Candle Making Basics, this covers a lot of the same territory.
A Modern Guide to Making Candles - if I kept one book for reference, it would be this one for its concise but comprehensive candle making 101 section. The authors have arrived at a similar approach to me (soy wax, focus on scent vs. color or shapes). If I had any criticisms, it would be that the resources were all UK-based and the seasonal ideas chapters could have been more condensed and less of a coffee table inspo aesthetic. Don't let their Amazon preview fool you, I think they put in a weird Proustian candles and memory digression in the front so that you couldn't pull the meat of their 101 chapter without paying for it, it gets much more practical and less airy fairy after that.
Handmade Candles & Smudge Sticks - if you are looking for a project idea book, this is the best. Nearly every idea would trend on Pinterest and I wanted to try more than half. That said, the how-to section is pretty bare-bones. It seems like smudge sticks should have been its own book but that they didn't have quite enough material to justify that.
Beeswax Alchemy - this was by far the most popular and highly rated book on Amazon/Goodreads of this roundup. That said, it would only make sense if you are dead set on using beeswax and the candle formats that it is best suited to (plus all the other diy uses for beeswax). I would rather learn on the less expensive materials and more varied shapes and styles of candles as a beginner.
Rajiv's Pioneer Village Candle Youtube - I love Rajiv, but trying to keep a high cadence on my stationary bike for 60 minutes while watching him leisurely dip beeswax tapers and sing to himself took an Herculean effort. That said, I will definitely be revisiting this for the "pioneer candle" project at the advanced level of this badge.