SJM Posted March 24, 2018 Share Posted March 24, 2018 (edited) Hello all, new here. I started making my own candles a few months ago. And I decided I wanted to start with beeswax because to me that is the most natural wax. And I wanted my candles to be scented, but with fragrance oils rather than essential oils. I am doing container candles because those are the candles that I like best, and if I buy a candle I would like it to scent the room very nicely. I am using mason jars with lids. Diameter is 2.75" 4 oz jar. I'm using cotton braided wicks #4 by premium crafts. All the materials I'm using are made in the USA, which is a must for my candles, if and when I start to sell them. I prime my own wicks, 5 minutes in beeswax. The #4 wicks diameter only went maybe 2" after 3 hours. So i must need a bigger wick? I've done many candles with a blend of beeswax and coconut oil. 50/50, or 75/25. Kinda just deciding on all beeswax, maybe 10% coconut oil at most. I add fragrance to my candles. But I'm afraid maybe it's the FO making my candles smoke after 1.5 hours, which the flame becomes bigger and thinner up top. I know the wick is not too long and having to trim the wick every hours is just annoying to get it to stop smoking. So, my question is, has anyone used fragrance oils in theirs beeswax candles and if so, what brand? Mine is FRAGRANCES AND MORE. I used LA PALM before and that was a waste of money. Didn't mix at all. The one I use now mixes completely, and the scent throw is amazing at 8-10%. I like stronger smelling candles. But then it stays flickering and smoking at around the 1.5-2 hour mark. Any opinions? Should I just switch FO brands? I had the candle in a room with no drafts, and the melt pool depth by the 3 hour mark was just under 1/2 an inch. Seemed perfect to me. It's just the darn flickering and smoking too much. Edited March 24, 2018 by SJM 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TallTayl Posted March 25, 2018 Share Posted March 25, 2018 That is much too much wick for beeswax. Beeswax and containers are a delicate balance. Beeswax lends itself much more naturally to pillars and tapers. To begin with beeswax, consider getting a couple of taper molds. A square braid #2/0 will do the trick and make a delightful, safe candle that burns bright and clean for about 8-10 hours straight. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJM Posted March 25, 2018 Author Share Posted March 25, 2018 I've seen the most beautiful taper candles, like the spiral ones. I've come to the conclusion the I can still use beeswax but will have to mix coconut oil in it to make a cantainer candle. Do you think it would be the FO causing the smoke then? Cuz I would still like to make scented ones. What size pillars would you suggest making for a #3 or #4 wick cotton braided? I have tons of wicks to use up. Will using just plain beeswax and no FO cause the flame to still smoke and dance around, let's say if the wick was too large? Thanks for your suggestion about the tapers. Now, with tapers, do those drip down the candle? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TallTayl Posted March 25, 2018 Share Posted March 25, 2018 I make about 1,000 lbs of beeswax candles a summer, and have for over a decade. Have tested hundreds of coconut and other blends varying from 5 to 95 % in line blends and have yet to have a satisfactory, safe beeswax container that performs as well as container waxes. The closest was IGI 4786 blended with a fully refined white beeswax. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TallTayl Posted March 25, 2018 Share Posted March 25, 2018 Smoking flames are from the wrong size wick for the application. Natural beeswax varies significantly from lot to lot. You will need to learn to read the wax to wick consistently. When burning a pillar the 3” wide round is the easiest. Depending on the wax, a #5 should do the trick. If using more refined beeswax the #4 might work better. Both of these are too big for containers. Every so often you need to hug the wall of the candle into the melt pool to promote a nice, clean burn. Containers don’t let you do that, so most tunnel and burn very poorly. Beeswax burns down then out as the wax walls weep into the melt pool. Hugging those walls is how you manage the melt pool depth, therefore the flame height. Beeswax also hardens significantly over time. Burning one only a couple of days old will give you a false sense of the overall candle. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJM Posted March 25, 2018 Author Share Posted March 25, 2018 Do you have a website where you sell your candles? I would love to see your work and what it all looks like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJM Posted March 25, 2018 Author Share Posted March 25, 2018 And what type of molds are best? Sylicone, metal? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJM Posted March 26, 2018 Author Share Posted March 26, 2018 And do you have to worry about the wax cracking or getting sink holes? I had that all the time with the container candles no matter what I did to slow the Cooling process down. Sorry for all the questions. I have a curious mind Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TallTayl Posted March 26, 2018 Share Posted March 26, 2018 I don’t stock the beeswax year round online. Instead they are reserved for my summer Faire. beeswax is too much work and not enough $ for me to offer year round online. i use mainly seamless aluminum pillar molds as they are the quickest. I make silicone molds for custom sculpted shapes, like my green men and dragon eggs, though. Silicone cools really slowly, and don’t hold up really well over the long run. I have to replace them all yearly. yes, sink holes, cavities, cracks are all issues with beeswax and beeswax blends. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJM Posted March 26, 2018 Author Share Posted March 26, 2018 I've been trying to do as much research online as possible but it seems that people mainly work with soy wax. There's actually the danish festival each year in my home town. Hoping to get a booth this year and sell candles. It's in August so I have time to get my technique down. I'm most nervous about identifying sink holes. Mine would form under the surface but wouldn't bubble to the top. I had to kinda fish for them and fill them in. On average, how long does it take you to create a sellable candle? It's still chilly hear I'm michigan. And let's say you break a candle or the molding process goes wrong. Can you then just reuse the wax and start over? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJM Posted March 27, 2018 Author Share Posted March 27, 2018 And when you say summer Faire, do you bring your candles to a place like how I describe my festival our town has? Or do you actually set up your own candle faire? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TallTayl Posted March 27, 2018 Share Posted March 27, 2018 I have a shop at the Bristol Renaissance Faire which runs for 9 weeks in the summer. Sink holes are inevitable with any wax. You need to poke around and excavate under the surface to learn how your wax sets up. Beeswax is no exception. You can get monster sized holes that extend the the entire height of the candle if you’re not paying attention. Wax temp, pouring temp and rates of cooling play a big role. Sometimes you can recycle a candle that goes horribly wrong, but reheating prescented wax can be challenging. Some people make colored chunks to incorporate into new candles. If you’re shooting for August, pick one wax type and container and learn it inside and out. Soy wax and beeswax take a very long time to “cure” and become what they will ultimately be for your customer. Beeswax continues to harden for months, so what you think is a good candle today may be radically different when your customer gets it. Similar with soy. I’ve resorted to learning a few paraffin waxes in light of how terrible soy wax has been for the last year and a half. I am pleasantly surprised with 4630 and 4786 in containers. They take only a couple of days to cure so you can more quickly tweak wicks and test fragrances. Wishing I had just used either of those when starting out. It would have saved me thousands of dollars and equally many hours of frustration. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJM Posted March 27, 2018 Author Share Posted March 27, 2018 Do you work with more than just beeswax candles then? And do you use mold release spray? I've decided to just work with beeswax. I know I've goT lots of learning to do lol I think of I do fragrant candles then it's just be the container candles if I can get them to work. But I think it best to just get some pillar molds and work with them until I get that down. Then maybe try some silicone molds be design candles. Though those I will use dye with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TallTayl Posted March 27, 2018 Share Posted March 27, 2018 Yes I work with many waxes. The market for beeswax candles is pretty small compared to others, so in order to remain financially viable I have many other products in the line that don’t require so much $ time and effort to convince people to trust enough to buy. Pillar candles sell ok for me following several years of promoting them and building the market. My summer Faire has a special market clientele subtype that helped tremendously. When selling at typical markets and festivals beeswax was a very hard sell. Pillar candles are a hard sell. It takes time to cultivate the base market to keep $ coming in and paying the bills. In order to successfully create a safe beeswax container that burns well, you will need a good 6 months to age and completely test your candles. Like I noted above, beeswax hardens for months after being made, even when blended. Container candles come with an expectation of how it should burn. You don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression. Pillar candles, if not made well, will blow out the sides and leak wax everywhere. This makes it a hard sell to people who love candles. No matter, make sure you have your product liability insurance in place before you send out testers and definitely before you open up shop. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJM Posted March 27, 2018 Author Share Posted March 27, 2018 Well i definitely appreciate all the advice I really only have time 2 days a week to make candles. I just bought some pillar candle moulds, metal. Some 3in, some 4in. I do have questions about wicking. There are a million different charts for square cotton wick candle sizes. You had said use a number 5 in a 3in pillar candle though the charts say #3 for that. So I don' trust the charts. Is it after it has cured that it will work the best? Maybe that is why my container candles didn't work as well. I didn't let them cure for more than a day or 2 before testing them out. I'm confident in making them, but it's the wicking part lol. Since you are experienced would you mind parting some wisdom? 3" pillar calls for #5 you said. How about 4in? Candle sticks? I would love to make the floating flower candles. I'm really not doing this to make money though it would be a plus lol its a way to have a hobby, keep me sane lol I'm a stay at home mom with 2 kids, 4 years and 1 year. My husband's business provides for us really well and I happen to know all about liability, compensation insurances, etc I'm the secretary to his business in a sense lol. And when you say refined wax, what does that intail? I get blocks if organic beeswax, I still have to filter it once. Is the white organic beeswax pellets, naturally bleached (no chemicals) then refined? Or it that mainly for soy, parrifin? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TallTayl Posted March 27, 2018 Share Posted March 27, 2018 Wick charts are typically created based on burn tests using paraffin. You need to test your wax with a range of wicks to figure out what works best for you. There’s just no other way to do it. Beeswax varies quite a bit, and can require a range of wicks for the same size pillar depending on the particular wax you are using. For a typical yellow beeswax a 3” scented pillar in my range uses a #5 square braid. A typical taper in a mold uses a #1/0 or #2/0 depending on the lot of wax. Some lots of wasp are very difficult to burn so you will need to go up a size sometimes. Other lots burn surprisingly easier than others so you will need to go down a size. I have to test literally every case of wax I get to ensure the wicking will work. Some look just fine but self extinguish using normal wicks. The smaller the pillar the harder time you will have narrowing down the wick. This is true for all candles. Small diameter containers and pillars are the most difficult to get right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJM Posted March 27, 2018 Author Share Posted March 27, 2018 That does make sense. For my yellow beeswac I get from the same bee farmer in ohio. And I've heard stories of people receiving the white wax and it Snelling like wood smoke. What would make it like this? I wouldn't want my wax to make a stinky candle lol and I just now realized that they say to trim you wick to 1/4 inch. I've been trimming to 1/8 of an inch, so now I know my tests and the measurements of the melt pool need to be retested smh silly error. But thank you for the advice. If I'm not confident yet with my candles by the time the festival comes around then I guess I will wait until next year. What state do you live in? If you don't mind me asking. Does the weather play a roll in candle making and wax setting up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJM Posted March 31, 2018 Author Share Posted March 31, 2018 Well I made my first pillar candle today, which was pretty fun LOL. But I did notice when I took my candle out that it had all of those lines on the side. Is this from too low of a poor attempt? And I did study about making relief holes into the waxes which definitely did help. And it prevented my candle from cracking which is awesome. But when you do the second pour, when do you do it? I did it when I thought my candle was mostly set in the middle and I did it to fill the relief holes in. And how do you get the bottom of your candles flat again? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJM Posted April 3, 2018 Author Share Posted April 3, 2018 Any advice? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TallTayl Posted April 3, 2018 Share Posted April 3, 2018 Those are jump lines from your wax being a bit too cool and your mold being a bit too cold. I fill when the candle is pretty well set to cold. flatten the bottom on a griddle or hot plate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJM Posted April 3, 2018 Author Share Posted April 3, 2018 Thank you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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