How To Make Candles

I love to have candles on hand. The ones that smell great and burn good are well, pricey. I just can't bring myself to pay that much for the really nice expensive ones. Soooo....I learned to make really nice expensive ones cheaply. In fact according to my figuring it costs about $1.40 per candle. Yep that cheap, and they're unbelievably simple to make.

I use soy wax and 100% cotton wicks, that way there's nothing toxic in them. Usually I do not even use coloring. The candles I made in this post are pink especially for my friend Carmacita.

The only supplies needed are wax, wicks, metal wick tabs, scent and old glass jars. You can buy these easily on the web.
The flower pot is a candle I bought for Carmacita in Yosimite. Finally we refilled it yesterday. I use any jar I have available. If it is a large jar use two wicks.

Close up of a wick in a metal tab. Cut the wicks a little taller than the jars. Next, insert the wick's end in a metal tab and crimp it tight with a pair of pliers. I use a tiny dab of hot glue to hold the wick in place in the jar. The wicks I bought are waxed so they stand up straight at first on their own.

Fill a glass bowl with wax flakes. Place inside a pan filled halfway with water. Add any scents or color at this time. It's usually one ounce of scent per pound of wax. You can double this if you don't mind the expense and like your candles to smell really strong. Simmer until the wax melts fully. Stirring seems to speed this process.

Then pour the scented melted wax into jars with prepared wicks. I fashion a little tray out of foil to catch any wax spills. Good thing I didn't skip it this time. One of the jars had a tiny hole, and all of the wax drained out. If the tray wasn't there it would have been all over my cabinets and floor. I use a grid of clear tape to hold the wick in the center. If you enlarge the picture I'm sure you'll see it.

Here's Carmacita with her refilled candle.

Usually I reuse any old jar from pickle to peanut butter jars. I burn them in pretty holders so the ugly jar isn't seen. It's also safer that way. Don't forget to blow them out when your done!

I buy my supplies from General Wax.

50 lb bag of soy wax - $62.00 or $1.25 per lb

Metal tabs - aprox .02 cents apiece

100 yard spool of wax coated cotton wick - $13.50 aprox .025 for 6 inches of wick

Fragrance- around $25.00 for a 16 oz bottle or about $1.56 per oz (this is the most expensive item and the prices vary on the quality of the fragrance and scent)

For my batches I use 2 lbs of wax, 2 ounces of fragrance, 4 to 8 wicks and 4 to 8 metal tabs. This makes four candles. It costs about $5.565 per batch or about $1.40 per candle or actually a little more if you figure in shipping for the supplies. I don't remember how much I paid for shipping, but I do not remember it being extravagant. The jars I count as free since they are recycled. Even with shipping it still easily beats $10.00 to $20.00 or more for those northern candles :)