Candle Making Recipe

There is no single candle making recipe that will get you through all potential candle making situations. I don’t even like the idea of a candle making recipe, because that implies that it is rigid and scientific, involving formulas more than fun. While there are some pointers that can be helpful when starting out making your own candles, much of learning about candle making must be done through experimentation.

There are some parts of candle making that seem sort of like a recipe: adding the color and fragrance. These are the places you can really mess up your candle if you don’t follow a formula. Adding too much dye or oil will keep your candle from burning well. Of course, a candle with too much fragrance will also have a stronger smell than you probably would like. So how much is too much? If you’re wanting strongly scented candles, the maximum I would put into a batch of wax is one ounce liquid fragrance oil to one pound of candle wax. Most people would like more like a quarter ounce per pound. The oil should be weighed; don’t do this with a liquid measure.

I make my own candles so I don’t have to deal with the crazy, strong scents that are so popular in store-bought candles these days (who knew how hard it can be to find an unscented candle?) so when I use fragrance oil I keep myself to two or three drops per batch of wax. I don’t like to measure, so this way I know I’m well under the amount that is going to give me trouble.

Dye is a tricky matter, too. A really great tip I found on Gen Wax for making consistently colored and correctly dyed candles is to melt a pound of wax as you normally would to make candles, then fill 10 sections of an ice cube tray evenly with wax (you’ll have leftover wax). When the wax has cooled, pop the wax cubes out and melt them again, this time adding a whole little brick of wax buds. When the wax is melted and the color is well-incorporated, pour the wax back into the ice cube tray, this time filling 11 holes.

When these wax cubes have cooled, each one has the perfect amount of coloring to dye one pound of wax. This is a great way to make sure that a bunch of candles poured separately are going to have the same color and completely takes the guesswork out of dyeing your candles.

The two basic additives that beginning candle makers are likely to run into are stearic acid and vybar. I use stearic acid (also sold as stearic powder) in almost all of my candles to harden the wax and make the candles a little more durable (the only times I don’t use it are when I forget). It’s great because you can’t use too much. I usually use one or two tablespoons per pound of wax.

Vybar is another hardener that is often less expensive than stearic powder but might also be more difficult to find unless you have a local candle making shop. Some vybar products also help make your candle more opaque. Use one teaspoon per pound.

Another really fun additive is parol oil, which is used to give the surface of your candle a mottled appearance, like snowflakes or starbursts. Add one half to one ounce per pound of wax to make your candles look really cool.

Beyond these few formulas, just about anything goes when making candles at home. I think people are afraid to experiment. We don’t want to try something just to see what will happen for fear that we’ll make a big mess.

The almost-worst thing that can happen is you’ll make an ugly or unusable candle that you’ll have to melt and start over. No big deal. The actual worst thing that can happen is that you’ll start a fire, which isn’t likely if you follow the basic safety precautions and instructions. Be careful, have fun, and remember, it’s only wax!

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