Making Your Own Soy Candles at Home

2008-08-04T07:09:00.000-07:00

A guide for making your own soy candles at home.

Making your own soy candles at home is actually easier then you think. There are many companies online that sell candle supplies that can assist you in supplies for making your own soy candles at home. You can even find many of the items for making your own soy candles at home from one of the many arts and crafts stores out there like Michaels, AC Moore, or even Walmart. The first thing to do when making your own soy candles at home is to decide what type of candle to make. For the beginner, the advice here is to start out with a candle that does not require a mold…that means a jar or container candle. So for this article on making your own soy candles at home, we will start with a jar candle. Now that we have that decided, we need to make a sort of shopping list.

Here are the items we are going to need for making your own soy candles at home. Then we will talk about each of them more specifically.

1. Container (for actual finished product)
2. Wax
3. Color
4. Fragrance
5. Wick
6. Containers (to mix color, wax, and fragrance into)
7. Paper towels
8. Newspaper or cardboard to work on

When we consider the container we are going to use for making your own soy candles at home, we want to choose something that is heat resistant, or simply put….candle safe. To take the guess work out of this, here are some easy containers to use: An empty candle jar that came from another candle, a votive cup from a local store…being that it is made to have a burning votive in it, you should be pretty safe. If neither of these appeals to you for your first attempt of making your own soy candles at home, try one of the many candle suppliers online who have a variety of candle safe containers to choose from. Some of these suppliers can be found on the candlegateway.com website.
The next item on our supply list for making your own soy candles at home is the wax, which is one of the most important ingredients. Wax is a bit of a tough one. There are many soybean waxes out there, but soybean wax can be a little tricky to work with. We are going to take some of the guesswork out of this for you…ECOSoya Advanced or ECOSoya Pure are both EXCELLENT waxes and they are easy to work with. You won’t be sorry with your results. For more information about our reasoning on why to use this wax, check out our blog on “easy to use soy waxes”. Now that we have chosen our wax, next is color. For the discussion on this and the next steps, refer to our next blog on making your own soy candles at home.

For more candle info, visit: www.candlegateway.com

Easy to Use Soy Waxes

2008-08-04T07:02:00.000-07:00

Finding easy to use soy waxes.

Easy to use soy waxes can be hard to find. They are out there, but the problem is, there are even more NOT so easy to use soy waxes. We have tried many soybean waxes, there are two big problems with many of them and they are tied together. First, is the final appearance of the candle…that being actually getting a good top appearance. Many “so called” easy to use soy waxes, unless used with very strict process constraints, including pour temperature, fragrance load, etc….result in a bumpy or unsmooth finished appearance. To get around this, there are recommendations for you to heat up the finished product with a heat gun or blow dryer…or you can do a second, very thin pour….or you can even add things to the wax like Crisco to get around this. But the question we have is WHY? Easy to use soy waxes should be just that. If you can find truly easy to use soy waxes with a great finished appearance with no effort, why deal with adding ingredients, reheating, or performing a second pour?

Now, we mentioned a second issue that is tied to the first issue…pour temperature. Many waxes require a very specific pour temperature to give you a smooth appearance. Some require the wax to be at almost a smoothie (meaning like a fruit smoothie) consistency before you pour. This is a pain in the rump, when all you want to do once you get started is get the wax in the jar and get to your finished product. Who wants to wait? So again, the question WHY deal with this strict requirement when there are easy to use soy waxes out there that don’t require it? To us, there is no reason to put yourself through this nightmare if you don’t have to. So what are some easy to use soy waxes? We know of, and are very familiar with three easy to use soy waxes. They are both from the same manufacturer, NGI Wax, also called Nature’s Gifts, Inc. The brand name of the wax is EcoSoya. Three in particular within this brand that are easy to use soy waxes are EcoSoya Advanced, EcoSoya Pure, and EcoSoya Pillar. What’s the difference between these three easy to use waxes? Here’s a brief description of each. Advanced is great for most container scenarios, fragrance load is exceptional, and they take color well. Only issue with this wax is that it doesn’t ship well in hot climates as the EcoSoya Pure. EcoSoya pure ships well in most climates, but requires a fairly large wick in containers over 3 inches in diameter. Other then that, we love it. Lastly is the EcoSoya Pillar blend. This is a beautiful wax for pillars, votives, and tarts. Only problem we have had is that sometimes unmolding can be a bit tough when using a traditional votive mold with a wick pin. To get around it…put it in the fridge for a bit and then no problems.

So again, if you are looking for some easy to use soy waxes, look for EcoSoya. It is fairly easy to find on the internet, many candle suppliers sell it. So, if you can find this, use it…I promise you won’t be sorry, and you will have a soy candle as smooth as a baby’s bottom. These are truly easy to use soy waxes.

For more candle info, visit: www.candlegateway.com

Candlegateway Blog

Making Your Own Soy Candles at Home

Easy to Use Soy Waxes