Candle Making for Beginners

I love candles, they bring so much warmth and glowing light especially over our dark winters. However due to my candle addiction I was left with a lot of empty candle jars and rather than keep buying more candles, I decided to have a go at candle making and making my own container jar candles.

The ingredients for making candles. A lit candle in the center with a small pair of scissors, a match, two bottles of essential oils, three wicks and a scattering of soy wax pellets

Over the years I have learned that I like soy candles and ones with aromatherapy oils rather than synthetic fragrances (as they seem to give me headaches).

I have loads of craft stuff in my house and was a bit daunted at bringing even more “stuff” into the house, but actually was pleasantly surprised at how little I needed as I could repurpose other items in the house due to the waxes low melting point and the fact that it is super easy to clean. I am sure that more professional candle makers have lots of tools that make things easier, but this is a tutorial for beginner candle making with minimal items needed!

Materials and Tools Needed to make your own Candles

This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking one of these links, I will make a small commission (hopefully enough to keep me in tea all year) at no extra cost to you! This allows me to keep creating and sharing free tutorials for you to try. Thank you!

Soy Wax – I tried flakes and pellets
Wicks – for ease I used pre-waxed wicks
Essential oils
Wooden Skewers
Washi Tape
Glass jug
Empty containers or jars
Glue Dots

Prep your area by covering with brown paper or old newspapers and have fun. They don’t have to look perfect! Once you master the art of simple candles then there are lots of moulds and colours you can use.

How to make Candles

Start by cleaning your containers – I ran all of mine through the dishwasher to ensure that they were free of old wax or dirt.

Measure the wax – now depending on the type of wax you have depends of the amount needed. So if you are using soy wax flakes, then it is double the dried flakes in the container to melted. So fill the container twice to get the right amount approximately. For soy wax pellets if is one and a half.

Melt the wax – As a rule of thumb you can melt wax the same way you can melt chocolate, so double boiler, slow cooker or microwave. I use a large pyrex jug for my wax as I like the lip for pouring and I melt mine in the microwave using the medium setting. The melting point of soy wax is 49 degrees c.

While the wax is melting I prep the jars and wicks. I use a glue dot on the bottom of the wick and stick it in to the center of the jar.

To keep the wicks upright I made a support from two wooden skewers and some tape. Some people use pegs. I used what I had in the house.

Add your fragrance. I use essential oils which are not as strong as synthetic fragrance blends. Ideally, the recommendation is a 6% to 10% oil to wax ratio, but I say try and remember that they will smell a lot less when the candle is set. I don’t like strong candle fragrances and used Lime, Basil and black peppercorn for my daytime ones and, lavender, roman chamomile and jasmine for my evening ones. I used a wooden skewer again to give it a good stir.

Pour the wax – As your wax will have cooled a little now is the perfect time to pour the wax. Keep a small amount back for topping up as the candles will dip at the wick as they start to cool.