Choosing a Fragrance for Your Scented Candles
Posted: Friday, December 18, 2009
by Sara Patterson
Walk past any display of candles in a store and you'll see a wide variety of scents. Some are familiar and expected and some may come out of left field. The key is to find the right fragrance for you when you are making your own homemade candles.
All candles start out being made the same way. The first step in homemade candle making is to prepare whatever wax you've chosen. The wax is melted in a double boiler, or you can create a double boiler by simply placing a metal bowl over a pot of boiling water. The top of the double boiler contains the unmelted wax. Once the wax is melted, hold the wick in place inside your chosen mold, and you pour in the wax. Allow the wax to cool for several hours, preferable 4-6 hours, before you attempt to remove it from the mold. Some tips that might be useful to know include using non-stick cooking spray on your mold before you pour the wax so that it is easier to remove the finished candle. Also, you can even put your candle in the freezer for half an hour before trying to take the finished candle out of the mold!
Next thing to remember is that fragrances are added after the melted wax is taken off the heat. With paraffin wax you can add one ounce of fragrance to a pound of wax. With soy wax you can add a bit more 1.12 ounce per pound of wax. If you are working with gel wax consult the density of the wax with which you are working because the amount of fragrance it can take will depends on this.
How do you choose a fragrance? Your local craft store will have many scents and fragrances in stock and you'll be able to find hundreds more on the internet. Some of the most popular are cinnamon, apple, floral scents, pumpkin, clove, and clean scents like baby powder.
Just thinking about some of these bring to mind holiday gifts or perhaps a nice bathroom candle. Scanning through listings of fragrances can be a great way to come up with ideas for uses for your homemade candles. Cinnamon, pumpkin, and clove fragrances make me think of the autumn months. These would also make nice kitchen candles since these scents are traditionally known to cut through those tough kitchen smells. Then there's balsam or peppermint which would make great Christmastime candles and there are all those wonderful floral scents which just beg to be made into candles for a living room or bathroom.
As you begin to explore adding fragrances to your homemade candles one thing to keep in mind is to start off carefully. If you add too much fragrance to your candle it might not burn properly. You can experiment as you try different scents and amounts of these scents because these are your own creations. Adding fragrances to your homemade candles will make them unique and interesting and your friends and family will be glad to get scented candles that you have made especially with them in mind.
Sara Patterson enjoys making scented candles. For more information on http://www.homecandlemakingtips.com.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Nice article. This will be very helpful for me because I love scented candles.Stick with me and we'll have you making your own before long. ~s
Hello Sarah, you have poured a chest of information on candle making - scented candle making. No question there will be enormous demand for candles during this festive Christmas and New Year Season. Rather than buying them from stores you can brag to your friends gifting your hand-made scented candles, which they will cherish and remember till next Christmas.Homemade candles do make wonderful gifts! ~s
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