Mistakes of a beginner candle maker

We've all started and made our first candle. Here we have collected the most common beginner mistakes. We hope that this article will be useful to you and that you will avoid these things in the very beginning!

1. Adding too much fragrance oil to the wax. Beginners usually find it difficult to calculate the amount of scent to add to the wax, or do not have more accurate gram scales, so the scent is poured "by eye", so its concentration exceeds the recommended one, and the candle is of poor quality - due to an excessive amount of scent, the wax becomes too soft when it sets, surface defects are possible due to drops of scent, the wick cannot cope with such a quantity of scent and burns irregularly, too hot or vice versa - it goes out.
2. Candle ingredients are measured in milliliters, not grams. You should only weigh everything in grams (in large quantities in kilograms) if you are making a candle and want accuracy, since the normal state of candle wax is solid. You need to determine the final (net) weight of the candle in grams, which you will indicate on the candle label. Therefore, also weigh the fragrance oil, do not measure it in milliliters.
3. Paying special attention to the flash point of the fragrance oil and trying not to heat above this temperature or pouring fragrance oil into the wax at this melting point of the wax. This is a mistake, because the flash point is only relevant in very specific situations, the temperature at which the fragrance oil could ignite in an open flame or from a spark. This temperature, for example, is relevant for manufacturers of gel candles, because for gel wax it is recommended to choose only those fragrance oils with a flash point higher than +76.7°C, as well as fragrance oils with a flash point that is too low, some suppliers do not send by air mail (by plane). Pouring a fragrance oil into melted wax that is at a higher temperature than the flash point will not ignite it. Also, the low flash point temperature of the fragrance oil does not mean that the scent in the candle will be weak, but it is always recommended to pour the wax with fragrance oil as soon as possible.
4. Another mistake is made when testing candles, when you change more than one parameter in the candle during the test. Be sure to change only one parameter in the recipe at a time, i. e. wick size only or scent percentage only. If you change two or more criteria at the same time, you won't know which change was the determining factor in the recipe. Also keep the production temperatures the same: wax melting temperature, fragrance addition temperature, wax pouring temperature are the most important to note.
5. Ignoring the importance of curing a vegetable wax candle. Curing a soy or other vegetable wax candle after production for at least 2 weeks affects not only the intensity of the candle's scent after lighting it (i. e. scent hot throw), but also the behavior of the wick during burning. The candle burns more efficiently, more slowly, the wick more accurately matches the diameter of the wax melt pool.
6. Judging the wick size of the candle just after the first burn session. Never judge the efficiency of a candle burning only after the first burn, the burning session should last up to 4 hours, and after the first burn, the wax does not have to melt to the edges of the container. Only after the 3rd to 4th burning session, the wax should melt from the walls of the vessel and burn cleanly. If after the first burn session a pool of liquid wax forms all the way to the edges of the vessel, the wick is probably too large.

Read another article: Candle Making Terms