Candle and Soap Making

For some reason, candle and soap making have often been lumped together in stores and in the consciousness of crafters. These are two quite different crafts, but they involve equipment and techniques that are somewhat similar.

Candle and soap making both involve melting (or at least heating) something and putting it in a mold to make a new product.

In candle making, the thing that is melted is wax, whether paraffin wax, soy wax, beeswax or some other kind of wax. Candles can also be made by rolling beeswax sheets or using gel wax, which is not melted, but all traditional candle making involves melting something.

In soap making, you can melt old bits of soap, glycerin soap blocks, or solid fat such as lard or tallow. Modern soap is often made with oils that are liquid at room temperature in place of the solid animal fat, but the oils and other ingredients must still be heated and combined with lye in order to make soap.

As mentioned earlier, both candle and soap making involve using molds to make the finished item. In both cases you can purchase molds from your local craft store or online, or you can make your own molds out of items from around the house.

A great household item that can be used as a candle mold is an empty soda can or aluminum can. In the case of a soda can, you’ll need to cut the top off before using. Clean the can out, punch a small hole in the bottom for the wick to go through and use like any store bought mold. (If you don’t want to punch a hole in the can you can use a wick tab to hold the wick in place at the bottom of the can.)

If you’re going to make large quantities of soap at a time, you can make your own wooden soap mold, or you could convert cookie cutters into cute melt-and-pour molds by securing them to a piece of plastic or waxed paper using lots of mold sealer. You could also use a soda can as a mold, just don’t fill it up very high or you’ll have thick soap that will take a long time to set up.

Candle and soap making are also similar in that you can add color, fragrance and other items to both soap and candles to make a more interesting final product. An easy way to jazz up either a candle or a homemade soap is by using chunks of wax or soap that are a different color from your main soap or candle base.

If you use colored soap or wax chunks and pour a clear base over them, you’ll get a kind of see-through, stained glass effect that is very pretty and playful, but incredibly easy to do.

I consider soap making to be more firmly rooted in formulas than candle making. Many people would probably disagree with that, saying that in order to get the best candles you have to be very scientific, paying attention to how hot the wax gets, what percentage of additives you use, exactly how much fragrance oil is ideal and so on.

The truth is that for most hobbyist candle makers, all of this science doesn’t matter than much. As long as you don’t set the wax on fire and limit your additives and fragrance to reasonable levels, your candle will come out fine. It may not be perfect, but is the point of crafting really to make perfect things?

On the other hand, you really do have to follow a formula to get traditional, cold-process soap making to work properly. Things have to be at the right temperature and combined in just the right way to get the soap to turn out right. That’s why I don’t recommend messing around with soap recipes until you have a fair amount of experience. Candle making, on the other hand, is ripe for experimentation. If it doesn’t turn out, you can always melt it again.

Soap making and candle making are both great crafts, and they are complimentary in many ways. They are so great together that it would be wonderful to give someone a gift of homemade soaps and candles together.

If you know that your best girlfriend really loves vanilla, for instance indulge her with a gift basket of handmade vanilla-scented candles, soaps and other goodies. (Here’s a bonus recipe: throw in some pretzels coated in vanilla almond bark, found on the baking aisle. Just melt the bark in the microwave and dip pretzels in one at a time. Allow to harden on waxed paper, then seal up in a cellophane bag. Delicious!)

Candle making and soap making are great crafts that go great together!

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