Anyone with experience in candle making?

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I have 'made' jar candles. I got some soy wax and wicks for cheap. I have been saving the pint sized jars from coconut oil for a while and used those. The wax claimed to be a single pour type but I still did a second pour to make sure the air pockets were filled. Once they were solid I added 2 match books and sealed them up.

I figured for the cost of the supplies and reusing the jars it was worth it for about a dozen emergency candles. I am still saving the jars and hope to make another batch soon.
 
Wax is pretty expensive. Sometimes it's cheaper to buy big dollar store candles and double boiler the wax and make what you want. We saved tuna cans and catfood cans, washed them out, cut strips of corregated cardboard and rolled in the can like a coil (but not sticking out of the can) and poured in hot wax. When cooled, these things stay lit all day long, and you can even cook on them. Grandson and I made a box full of them.
I remember in my teenage hippy years...getting a wading pool, putting damp sand in, scooping out holes, pouring in melted wax, adding a wick. Take out when cooled. Also using an empty milk carton (the rectangle cardboard type), pour some hot wax, add ice cube, more wax, more ice cube and a wick. Peel away carton when cooled.
Also remember putting a taper candle in an old wine bottle. Letting the wax drip down. Far Out.
 
I save the 'ends' from all my candles. Including whatever is left from my jar candles. I purchase new wicks at the craft store. Then made 'new' candles with the combined old wax that I melted and put in my old now-empty candle jars.
 
Is it worth it to make your own candles? I think it depends upon a few factors. What will you use them for? Why do you want candles? How much will it cost? Can you make them cheaper than you can buy them? Are you building up a supply of them for a grid down situation? Do you want to make them as gifts?

I have made various candles over the years, starting when I was a teenager. I am certainly not a pro. My daughter and I both have been collecting partially melted candles. She got me a metal pitcher for melting wax for Christmas and I got her wicks and the metal holders to hold the wicks in place. It was perfect!

She has made some candles since then with a friend. I have not made any yet. We debated about what to do with wax from partially burned candles that is colored. I have a bunch of red wax. The concern is that once we melt it in the pitcher, how will we get the red out? Or will all future candles have some of that red in them? I think pouring out as much of the wax as we can, and then using newspaper and paper towel to wipe it dry is our best way of doing it.

Wax is not cheap. I have watched Craigslist and gotten some partially melted candles from a few people. One man had quite a few and asked me what I was going to do with all of those bags of candles. I told him, I wanted to melt them down and remake them into candles. Partially melted candles can be dirty and the dirty parts can be removed if you work at it. Cutting off the burned part of the wick before you put them into the melter is advised.

I made candles in milk cartons as a teenager, pouring melted wax over crushed ice. It was a fad for a while, but I have not seen any in quite a while.

I made sand candles when I was in college. The sand is best if it is wet so that it can hold up. Otherwise, it can collapse and your candles get kind of messed up and mishapen.

I have also helped make candles in molds, dyed and scented. Having nice molds is great, if you make lots of candles, but molds are not cheap. There are certainly many other options than buying expensive molds.

I know someone who used to make candles, using cans from oil that used to be found in the trash at service stations. He would use leftover pieces of wax from projects, cut them into pieces, and add them to his mold, then pour a white or lightly colored wax over all of it.

I have some jars leftover from food, that will not necessarily be good for jams and jellies. I plan on using those for candles. My daughter eats a jar of Queso with her corn chips every couple weeks or so, and those jars add up. They are a great size for making candles. These could be great gifts, if we clean up or repaint the lids.

I have collected a few nice candles over the years. I really prefer candles in a jar. I like to keep a lighter in the top with the lid on. I have one of those in every room of the house, in the event of a power outage. Probably having a saucer of some sort for them to sit on is a good idea. My daughter has had rings burned in some of her furniture by just burning a candle in a jar, with no saucer. The jars do get warm.

Several years ago, my daughter and I bought tall glass cylindrical candles at K-Mart for $1.00. Are they considered votive lights? You can buy them with religious images on them, but we bought plain ones. We would decorate them and give them as gifts. I still have a few of those. Interestingly, I was in Sav-a-lot, a smaller grocery store mostly with Hispanic foods. I saw some candles that are similar to the ones we got at K-Mart, only much smaller. They were around $1.00. I think I will decorate some of those for gifts next year for Christmas.
 
Decades ago (after a divorce, when I was redisovering my creative side) I made candles. Pillars and votives with essential oils in them. And as a family project, my (then) young boys and I rolled up frankincense and myrrh resin in sheets of beeswax to make pillar candles for Christmas gifts. None of those projects were very cost effective - but they were fun! lol So the answer as to whether or not candle making is worth attempting really depends on why you're considering it.

For myself, if I'm looking for general purpose candles to have in case of emergency, those religious candles that Weedy mentioned are what I tend to pick up - they're always ending up in the clearance section of our grocery store for 50 cents for the tall ones. Or sometimes I find those 100 hour candles pretty cheap on Emergency Essentials in their overstock section - not too often, but enough that I have a good stash.

However, I do have a bag of beeswax beads waiting for me to make candles out of them. I want to make some beeswax tea lights with essential oils. But that's strictly because I enjoy the idea of different essential oil blends in beeswax - there's nothing cost effective about using beeswax to make candles. :rolleyes:
 
When I made my jar candles I got 10lbs of soy wax for $8. The wicking was $2 for 6'. For $10 I made 12 candles and have wax and wicking left over for a bunch more. Way cheaper for me than buying dollar store candles.
Decades ago (after a divorce, when I was redisovering my creative side) I made candles. Pillars and votives with essential oils in them. And as a family project, my (then) young boys and I rolled up frankincense and myrrh resin in sheets of beeswax to make pillar candles for Christmas gifts. None of those projects were very cost effective - but they were fun! lol So the answer as to whether or not candle making is worth attempting really depends on why you're considering it.

For myself, if I'm looking for general purpose candles to have in case of emergency, those religious candles that Weedy mentioned are what I tend to pick up - they're always ending up in the clearance section of our grocery store for 50 cents for the tall ones. Or sometimes I find those 100 hour candles pretty cheap on Emergency Essentials in their overstock section - not too often, but enough that I have a good stash.

However, I do have a bag of beeswax beads waiting for me to make candles out of them. I want to make some beeswax tea lights with essential oils. But that's strictly because I enjoy the idea of different essential oil blends in beeswax - there's nothing cost effective about using beeswax to make candles. :rolleyes:

I have a bag of the beeswax beads as well. I use it purely for personal care recipes. I am so stingy with them I keep them hidden in the back of the fridge.
 
When I made my jar candles I got 10lbs of soy wax for $8. The wicking was $2 for 6'. For $10 I made 12 candles and have wax and wicking left over for a bunch more. Way cheaper for me than buying dollar store candles.

That's awesome! :thumbs up:
 
When I made my jar candles I got 10lbs of soy wax for $8. The wicking was $2 for 6'. For $10 I made 12 candles and have wax and wicking left over for a bunch more. Way cheaper for me than buying dollar store candles.

I have a bag of the beeswax beads as well. I use it purely for personal care recipes. I am so stingy with them I keep them hidden in the back of the fridge.
Where do you get your soy wax? Gotta link? A friend of mine makes soy candles and sells them.
 
Where do you get your soy wax? Gotta link? A friend of mine makes soy candles and sells them.

I think I got it on Amazon a while back at a really reduced price. Forgot why it was on sale but I remember it ended up being less than a dollar a pound.
 
Great replies everyone! I'm still goating but I wanted to let you all know a little more about what I was thinking.

So this year we are having a pumpkin patch. I'm planting jack o lanterns, pie pumpkins goards and loufa. ( That's for another thread) we want to sell them roadside. We live on a busy country road, in a nice area and I see a severe lack of little roadside stands....anyways. This may bomb. But the only place to get a pumpkin in town at Halloween is Walmart or home Depot or the grocers. Don't plan on making any real money...but it gives us a goal and a crop to perfect. And it's just a few weeks of the year.

So I'd like to have a little more to offer during those few weeks. I was thinking I could sell eggs, of course, and the loufa and gourds , assuming i can master the drying of the loufa.

My other idea was candles. I have these cute little baby food jars I've been saving. Add a little ribbon, I think I could make a couple dozen and maybe sell a few as " impulse" items. And if I have left over I just use myself.

My long term dream is to have a little country store ... Or just be THE place to get your pumpkin in our town every year and just open on the holiday. I've even thought about contacting local Crafters and maybe consigning quilts and things. All long term ideas. But the candles I could do now.( Coffee cup is for scale)
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I'm kinda liking the dollar tree idea.
 
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I’ve made my own candles for years.
Usually collect candles and wax blocks at thrift stores. Then make my own. Also make fire starters out of our drier lint, old unusable egg cartons and used wax.
Everyone saves there wax remnants for us too.
:horseback:


Tell me more about dryer lint fire starters please.
 
Tell me more about dryer lint fire starters please.

Probably a topic for another thread but lint, wax, and possibly sawdust added to paper egg cartons work well. Cotton “rounds”, not cotton balls dipped in wax work very well and are easier to store.
 

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