FaerieGooner

PS Sorry, one last query! Could I not tell people they could use the bodged tealights as the little scented cakes of wax you can melt over an oil burner instead?? FG XXX

Hello everyone and wow! Thank you so much for all the advice. Feeling rather naive now! I agree beeswax candles have a lovely fragrance of their own and I particularly wanted to use it as one of my friends has really bad asthma and can't tolerate impure, chemically enhanced stuff. But I added the essential oils and colour as the candles were tailor made healing gifts for people and being a holistic therapist I'm rather into my colour therapy and aromatherapy. Glitter was again for colour therapy (and I do love glitter, any excuse) and just a sprinkling on top once they were starting to dry. It was all a bit of a spur of the moment thing really as I was intending to make some blended oils for people but found I didn't have enough base oil left so thought I'd use the same essential oils but add them to the wax instead. I've adapted shop bought tea lights in the past by simply melting their own wax down and adding a tiny amount of wax crayon and essential oils which worked fine. Silly old me just assumed that I'd be able to do the same thing but using my beeswax...doh! I don't actually have any moulds and couldn't find whatever wick I bought years ago from the candle making workshop. I will now look into wicks and the colour blocks mentioned, can anyone recommend any good websites to buy online please? Would be really satisfying to try it properly next time. I suppose I used the word "ton" as I was a bit upset at having used a lot of expensive essential oils like rose and tuberose but I used the same formula as I do for massage blends ie 2 drops of essential oil per 5ml base oil (or in this case melted wax)...with maybe a few extra drops thrown in for good measure! When you guys say beeswax holds fragrance well and that you don't need much, can I ask how much you would use? Did I use way too much? And what can I use for a bit of decoration if glitter is bad...rose petals or teeny tiny pieces of crystal? And pretty please could someone give me a real thicko absolute beginners definition of "choking the wick", ta. Thanks so much for all your input, I really appreciate it, will do a bit of research and let you all know how I get on. FG XXX

Hello there everyone I am desperately hoping someone might be able to tell me why my first batch of candles have gone completely wrong and just won't burn! :-( I used the metal cups and wicks from shop bought tealights, removed the wax and refilled them with a gorgeous mixture of pure beeswax and tons of expensive essential oils (plus a little wax crayon melted in to add colour and some glitter sprinkled on top). Other than the fact a couple of the candles split right down the centre in varying degrees (can only think these were the candles I added more wax crayon to in order to get a darker colour) they look beautiful and are all supposed to be gifts...but I just tested a couple and the wick won't stay alight :-( Any ideas why? I once went on a beeswax candlemaking workshop several years ago and I remember the tutor saying the width of the wick had to be correct for the width of the candle otherwise it wouldn't burn properly...but I'd assumed if it worked for tealight wax then it'd work for my yummy concoction too...apparently not! Is it perhaps because I didn't dip the wicks in beeswax (though they're already coated in the tealight wax)? Any suggestions or ideas would be really gratefully received...thank you :-) FG XXX (will now look for a forum to post an intro in)