by Mike Eggert

Please note, this is NOT a guide on how to make candles, it is just a story about someone who did.

This is a story about My Wife. She loves candles. All candles, particularly smelly candles.

For a long time she was buying the cheap candles from the discount stores. Eventually, the thought came about that #1 the candles being bought were low quality and #2 they rarely had a strong scent while burning  #3 Lots of people make their own candles. The adventure begins.

With lots of determination and a computer connected to the internet, she began her trek. Have you ever searched for 'Candles' in Google?  Over 60 million hits. Surely there is information about MAKING candles.

Bingo, 17 million hits. Well, undaunted she kept closing in. Searching for that bit of information that would allow the creation of the best candle ever made. Eventually she finds several sites that are easy to navigate and seem to have some good information.

After printing almost a ream of pages we start to gather the needed materials. Not really that simple. We have to decide what kind of candle we want. Pillar, container, votive, tea light, soy, bees wax or whatever.

A decision was made. Container candles, paraffin base. Jelly Jars...Cool. Buy the jars at Wal-Mart and we are set! So far, so good, we have 4 dozen 8 oz jelly jars. Now for the wax, Doh!  Only 50 different kinds to choose from!

Each distributor had a different recommendation and different name for the wax....After some research and finding a site with LIVE online help we came up with a vague idea what we needed. (Wicks, tabs, additives, color, scents, thermometer, etc.)

About $100.00 and 5 days later we get the stuff. Now we have another dilemma. What do we melt it in? Well, digging in the garage and the attic produced a 'double boiler'. Having big Ideas and all, we figured this was too small to mass produce our newly discovered gold mine product but decided to give it a try for a while hoping we could keep up with the demand.

Our Business Begins!

Did I mention anything about trial and error? Well seems that the solid weight of wax doesn't produce the same amount of liquid. In other words, you melt 1 pound of wax and it doesn't fill 2 "8 ounce" jars. If you remember, these are scented and colored. The scent and color adds volume to the solid wax that has to be calculated when you start the melting process or you end up with half filled candles or not enough containers. Oh another thing you have to figure, different waxes melt at different temperatures.

Also if you get them 'TOO hot' they have a tendency to burst into flame. Depending on the type of color you use also determines the temp you bring the wax to. The color has to blend as does the scent, at the right temp.

Well, we follow direction for adding the stuff and mixing it at the temperatures needed. Another GOTCHA! The wax has to be a certain temp to pour correctly. It has a trait that makes it cool (for some chemical reason) so this has a small window. Too hot and it shrinks too fast, too cold and it has bubbles, just right, well, this can happen with practice. We did a few and had some success.

We pour our first candle and after constantly checking it for a couple hours, we finally have a candle that is cooled enough to burn.

At the same time we notice that the wick has moved to one side. Great! Now the test, we strike the match and light the wick. Ok, so far so good. It burns. A bit big at first but it soon quiets down. After a couple minutes of waiting for the room to fill with our fantastic fragrance, we notice that it is only around the candle. The scent isn't very strong. Oh no! An expensive cheap candle! Just like the ones from the dollar discount stores.

Well back to the drawing board. Re-figure the wax for a new batch, because we had TOO much left over but not enough to fill a jar. Re-Calculate the scent to wax ratio, and add more color. The first one wasn't the color we wanted. Eventually, we came up with the right formula; a good blend of wax and an excellent brand of scents. And as for the additives, they are not needed if you get the right wax, but nobody tells you that.

The coloring is still a science that needs improvement but we are getting better. As far as the scent goes, we finally figure the absolute MAXIMUM ratio we can use. This is ONLY with the liquid scents we use. Other brands are all different concentrations.

Jelly jars are cute if you decorate them right, which brings me to another story. Labeling and marketing.

Another day another time.

candle making saga continues at 417candles.com




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