sugarysweet95

Oh and as for why you need container wax, well to be honest you don't "need" container wax, ordinary paraffin wax will work fine in containers - apart from just one problem, the wax doesnt always stick to the sides. It often comes away from the sides of the container as it shrinks when it cools (hence why you can take it out of moulds). Container wax, or paraffin wax with micro soft is softer, so it adheres better to the sides of the container. So it depends on how fussy you are really - if you want the wax to nicely adhere to the container, or if you're not bothered.

I use pyrex jugs in a water bath over the stove!!! They can take massive amounts of heat and are practically indestructible!!!! (i once dropped a pyrex place on a stone floor and it bounced back up un harmed!!!) They're very easy to clean and no chance of rust or wax / dyes etc spoiling it. I use different sizes for when i want different amounts. You can get a few small drips when you pour, but i've yet to find anything that didnt. The paper towel is great for catching them and if you pour over a work surface you can (hopefully) protect your slippers!!!!

Hi and welcome, another fellow Brit to add to the board - there's getting to be quite a few of us now!!! I've found on line stores to be the best for getting equipment and i have three favourites!!! For wax and additives - http://www.craftwiseuk.com/acatalog/candlemaking.html They sell wax in large quantities and it's amazing how fast it goes!!! LOL - It's good paraffin wax in beaded form and they have free postage over £10 which is great (and usually pretty fast as well)!!! For general bits and bobs - http://www.4candles.co.uk/ and http://www.candelights.co.uk/ Both have a nice range of bits and bobs, great customer service and fast delivery. These two http://www.soapbasics.co.uk/ and http://www.sensoryperfection.co.uk/store/Default.asp are great too, sensory perfection has a massive range of great scents, though her ebay store (of the same name) is even cheaper. She's very nice and great to deal with. Anyway hope that gives you some starters. As for making containers. You can buy special container wax (some of the stores above have some) or you can add microcrystalline soft to paraffin wax so it sticks better to the sides. This is on my list of things to try, but i think it would be easier to use an additive than to buy extra wax! Anyway hope that helps!!!!

My library had quite a few candle books in the catalogue, so you could always try ordering them, it's only about 75p or summit. I find the main book shops are useless in terms of candle making books, but what it much better are the book outlet shops - the works has a craft section and sometimes i see candle making books in there. I got a great one from there and it was reduced as well!!!! So whenever i'm at the shops, i just havea quick look in the publishers outlet shops and see what they've got! No what you mean about wanting to see it first, i make bead jewellery too, and lots of books on that look great, but inside are a bit naff!!

There's nothing wrong with just using straight paraffin. I use it a lot and hace gotten great looking votives!!!!! Additives do have their advantages though, but they are not always necessarily. I live in the UK, so don't know what michaels is, but from what i've heard from here, it's not very good, maybe better quality wax might be better (don't ask me what - the types we have in the UK are very different to what you have in the USA!!!). Additives themselves don't creat a better scent throw, but they allow the wax to hold more wax, so you can use more FO. Never heard of these scent blocks to comment, but I've gotten great scent throw from using fragrance oils. You add them (usually at 6%) to the wax just before you pour it (i think it's about 180f). That may give you a much better scent throw. As for air bubbles, from reading this board and my own experience there's several culprits. The main one is pouring the wax too quick - if you pour it slowly and carefully there's less chance air will get in the wax. Air bubbles can also come from adding the FO when the wax is too hot and from mixing the wax to much. I usually the wax stand for about a minute after you've mixed in the FO - this helps remove some of the air bubbles. Also if you pour it too cold, the wax sets too quickly and the air bubbles aren't given chance to rise to the surface. Tapping the mould is a great way of getting rid of air bubbles - but you have to do it quite hard and several times i find for the air bubbles to dislodge. Another great way of getting rid of the air bubbles is using your heat gun. Direct it at the area where the air bubble is and it should help melt the wax and dislodge those darn air bubbles!!!! As for getting a starter kit - you may or may not need one. They are quite expensive for what you get, so you may find it better to get the items in seperately - sounds like you've been making a great start already!!! (and i never go off the temp guides on thermometers - they're just crazy!!!!)

In terms of how much scent to use, most people try with 1 oz of FO per pound of wax and then go from there - if it's too strong, add less, too weak - add more. Using additives such as stearine / stearic acid and vybar can help the wax hold more scent if you find you want to use a lot more than 1 oz / lb. However if you use too much it can have the opposite effect. I'm not sure about using vybar, but i use stearine at about 10% and that still gives a great scent throw. As for a bigger candle having a stronger throw, well that only applies if you use the same percentage of FO. (1oz per pound is about 6% FO). If you use a lot less scent for a bigger candle, you probably won't get a very good scent throw. However if the FO is used at the same percentage ( as well as all the other additives / dyes etc), yes a bigger candle should give a better scent throw as it will have a larger melt pool and so a larger area to release the scent from. Hope that makes sense!!!!

yep, it's 1.14 oz of FO. I think it seems a lot because you're using nearly twice the standard scent (it's normally 6% people use, but there's nothing wrong with using more if your wax can hold it). There's a really easy way to work out a percentage of anything, even tricky numbers. Firstly you turn the percentage into a decimal (divide by 100) so for example 50 percent becomes 0.5, 10% becomes 0.1 and 6 percent becomes 0.06. All you do then is times the amount by this decimal, so say the amount of wax your using (11.4 in this case) times the decimal of the percentage (0.1) will give you what percentage of FO you need (1.14)!!! It works for anything though, such as working out VAT etc and very easy to do on a calculator!!!

I've been experimenting with rustics this past week, and there's loads of recent tips on this board on making them, which is great! I think though, it all comes down to experimenting when you make them! Some of the ones i've made i've thought oh no - that's not what i wanted at all, and my mum comes in and immediately says - i really like that one!!! I had a very good idea in my head of exactly what the rustics i'm making right now were gona b like and how i was gona pour the layers. However after the first two layers really didn't go as planned i gave up and did them more randomly, so we'll see how they look when i take them out the moulds!!!! So i guess i'm just saying get in there and have a go and see what happens!!! Live and Learn!!!!!!

Wow - My order arrived this morning!!! Under a week from the US to the UK and only £11 dollars shipping!!!! That would be enough to tempt me anyway, but the oils smell fantastic, well OOB anyway. Not a single one i wasn't very keen on and my fave OOB is the be delicious one, the plumeria on reminded me of the daystart aloha plumeria, which i love!!! Can't wait to try some in wax!!!!! HEHE - I'm very very happy with my order and the prices were so cheap too. Hmmm, excellent service, excellent oils, cheap prices, wheres the catch? there must be a catch somewhere... surely!!!!!!

Ok, i'll try that when i make another rustic tomorrow in my aluminium mould - rustics really are addicting!!!!!

Hi, Glad you have a pretty good idea on what to do!!! The last few days i've been trying rustics and the last lot i did turned out really well!!! As for polycarbonate moulds, i just love them, i love the shapes you get and the ease of wicking them and the fact that you can see through the mould to see how your candle is coming along. As for candles stcking, i have just as much bad luck with candles sticking in aluminium moulds as polycarbonates and about 10 mins in the freezer seems to do the trick!!! As for how long they last, had a few that broke on me, but they were my first ones i bought, when i was only just learning what i was doing! Anyway i have one question about using metal moulds - people often say look down the side of your mould and get the heat gun on any air bubbles etc, but how can you see these in an aluminium mould? Prob a silly question but i'm curious!!!!

I started of my candle making obession with recyling wax, no proper kit for me!!!! My room at uni had a dampish smell, so i got some fragranced candles to help take the smell away! Anyway these candles always had loads of wax left over, so i decided to make a candle! I melted the old wax and soaked some string in it, used paper clips to rig the string upright in the container and poured in the melted wax! It worked a treat and hence began my obsession!!! Hmm, maybe if that first attempt hadn't worked i'd be a lot richer right now!!! LOL!!!!! So if she justs wants to use old wax, she probably won't need a proper starter set!

You have to be very careful when you have water in the wax, but yes, you can still reuse it, thought it's a bit of pain! What i do is i melt the wax and pour it quite thinly in a baking tray. The water will generally sink to the bottom and seperate out from the wax. When the wax sets, you can remove it from the tray and the water should stay in the tray. Just to be on the safe side, i usually break up the wax then into little pieces and leave on kitchen towel overnight to dry, just to make sure there's no little droplets anywhere. It's always worked for me!

Hmmm, I'm going to completely disagree with most people on this thread and say, yes you can re-use old candle wax, but i wouldn't sell them I always use up my old candle wax. I find that when i melt the wax in a double boiler, pretty much all the ikky stuff sinks to the bottom and as long as your careful pouring, it stays at the bottom. I suppose you could use a tea strainer or something, maybe if it was metal you could put it near a flame to make it very hot so the wax didn't solidify in it. Anyway i use the old wax to make tea-lights and little votive type candles - use up all my odd bits of wicks this way too. I re-fill old metal tea light containers and use yoghurt pots as a mould for the votive style candles. My mum has several candles burning every night so i give them to her and generally they work fine. I wouldn't sell them though, just in case!!!!

I think you can buy microcrystalline soft for use in paraffin candles. It makes the wax softer, more like container wax, so you can probably mould it much better. I have found, if you get ordinary paraffin wax at just the right temp (i have no idea what it is i'm afraid) it can be quite mouldable. Me and a friend were making things out of the wax that leaked all down the pillar candle (one of my more earlier attempts - think it was an air pocket!). Anyway we made some pretty cool shapes, but you have to be quick or the wax sets and it goes all hard. So anyway you could try melting some wax and before it's all melted, try moulding it - if you melt the wax in a double boiler it's cool enough to handle when it's semi melted. There's also dip and carve wax, I think you can mould little shapes with that too when it's semi cooled. The shapes can then be "stuck" - using wax glue or melting them slightly - to the pillar and the candle then dipped in wax several times to fill the gaps. I've never tried it, but it's a candle making book i've got and i keep meaning to try it. Anyway hope all this helps!!!!

Thanks for the help. I'll ry pouring down the wick or with the stick (i think i got what you meant with that) with my larger moulds and i'll try the heat gun with the smaller moulds (which are long and thin to pour into tilted). Do you use a water bath and if so, at which point in making the rustic? Also, do you use the heat gun when the candle is still in the mould, during or after making or do you use the heat gun when the candle is out of the mould? Thanks for the help!

Hi Everyone. Was wandering if anyone can help me. I've been making some layered rustics today and making them slanted. they turned out ok, but not brilliant (using straight paraffin with about 10% stearine). Anyway I have a few questions on how to make them better. My first problem is that i pour the wax in the mould and tilt it, which of course causes a thin layer of wax left on the non slanted side. I read a while ago on here that people pour the wax in with the mould pre-slanted, but i'm not sure how you do this without it still getting on the sides (not to mention my smaller moulds are difficult enough pouring into anyway!). Anyway this thin layer means that it slightly overlaps the next layer and they never adhere together properly. (The reason being that there is only a thin layer of wax, so it sets very very quickly). When i do slanted ordinary candles, the temperature is hot enough to melt this thin layer so it works fine, but as rustics are poured much cooler it doesn't So my first question is, is there a way around this??? My second (and final - i think!!!) question is, do you use a water bath to cool your rustics in (to help mould release) or not? If you do, do you put the candle in the water bath after each layer, or wait til all the layers are done then put it in the water bath? Anyway if there's any more tips on making layered rustics please let me know - i've seen some fantastic rustics on here and mine are pitiful in comparison!! Thanks in advance!

Well as i'm here in the UK, think i'll be waiting a week or so for the fragrances, can't wait!! After all these comments i've learnt candle source is a great supplier and reasonable prices too!!!! There's so many FO suppliers out there it's hard to know which are any good! Think this one will be going high up in my favourites list! Thanks for all your suggestions, fingers crossed my oils don't take too long to come!!!

Hi, Thanks for FO description on black magic, think i'll add that to my list of future scents to try, sounds nice. These are the ones i got, quite a few, as i had trouble choosing!! Baby Powder Be Deliciuos DKNY Type Bedford Falls Butt Naked Fruit Blast Hyacinth J&J Bedtime Bath (Soothing Lavender) Kumquat Melonberry Mid Summer Night Monkey Farts Moonlight Path Night Blooming Jasmine Ocean Mist Orange Cantaloupe Orange Dreamsicle Pearberry Pears & Petals Plumeria Relaxation Sage & Citrus Spring Rain Starfruit & Mango Stargazer Lily Sun Washed Linen Tropical Islands Vicks Vapor Rub I'd just put in an order with ICS too (looks around guiltily!!!) so i chose different ones to them. Can't wait to try the vicks, have a bad cold and want to see if it helps!!!!!

You could always pick some cheap glass tumblers from ikea or tescos or sainsburys or summit. Never tried them myself (i don't do containers) but i think they'd work great, just as good as from any proper suppliers i'm sure!!! There's some great UK suppliers for wax / wick / dye etc, but the ones i've seen don't really do much in the way of glasses! A very long post, but quite a recent and helpful one for general UK suppliers is http://www.candletech.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42747

Oh,i think i understand what you mean now!!! Can't edit it now though, very strange!! Oh well, at least my head is starting to work again!! LOL!!!!

Thanks for the suggestions. I've put in my order. I was really tempted with the black magic one, it sounded great, but couldn't find any scent descriptions, so could someone please describe it to me? Thanks

I lik 1 oz as then i can tell if i actually like the FO and try a couple of small candles with it. I'm quite picky with what i do and don't like, so it's annoying when you buy 2oz and then don't like the scent!!! I know you can sell them etc, but it's still a bit of a waste!

Don't understand what your saying? I tried to be as helpful as i could be and gave the same advice a lot of people have given me!!

I think a good place to start is to decide what type of candle you want to make and the type of wax / dye and fragrance. Most wicks have a guide as to what size and type candle they're for. If you try this recommended wick and you get a large flame / smoking etc then you probably need to try a smaller wick, wick down. If you get a tunnel / small flame then you probably need to wick up (choose a larger size). It gets more complicated when you use things additives, and the type of FO and wax / dye can affect how well a candle burns, so remember to make notes on what you use and how well it burns. Hope that helps