Clean up

[lacey]

I am new to candlemaking and have only made a couple candles so far. One of the things I found to be a little difficult was clean up. I have checked many sites and cannot find any instructions on proper cleanup of equipment. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

[Hillary]

If you mean your pour pot, stirers and that stuff, you can usually blast it with a heat gun and wipe it clean with paper towels. After that I wash with soap to get the scent and any color off. Or you can also put them in the oven on really low, like 170, on a cookie sheet lined with foil first, then paper towels on top of the foil. The paper absorbs the wax that melts off, and foil keeps it from getting all over the pan. This is how I do it anyway. Maybe there are other ideas. Soy would be much easier to clean up. HTH

[candlesprite7]

I just wipe everything with a paper towel while it's still hot. If not hot then I do hit it with the heat gun and wipe it down.

I never had any problems with scent or color bleeding into the next candle I made. If there is anything left in the pot it isnt enough to make a difference.

[Scented]

I do the same as Sprite there, but I also keep a canister of unscented wet wipe things around incase those pots don't want to part with the previous color or scent. Happens rarely, but man it gets the hot pink leftovers outta there.

[lacey]

Thanks for your help. I will try these methods

[GingerN]

I make soy candles, just 2 -16 oz. at a time, and use large juice cans, one for each scent. That way there is no clean up of pouring pots. I store them in a large box and just dig through to find the one labeled with the scent I am pouring that day. Takes up more room, but keeps me from cleaning an individual pouring pot each time. Maybe this will work for you.

[Katcameback]

I use paper towels too. My husband and kids now know that they are not to touch my paper towels, lol. I tell them they are MY paper towels, and if there is a spill on the floor, they can use their shirt to wipe it up, but they are not allowed to use MY paper towels! My husband thinks I have gone nuts....

[CareBear]

I... use large juice cans, one for each scent. That way there is no clean up of pouring pots.

When I was a kid my mom and I made candles with paraffin from the grocery store, and crayon bits for color. I don't recall what we used for molds. We melted the wax in juice cans too - boy your post brought back memories!

We made them a lot, but never burned them after the first few cause of the crayon stink when we tried! Probably have one that's over 30 years old lying around her house somewhere!

[grandmaskitchen]

I heat up my pour pots, wax melters, etc. and wipe them out good with paper towels. Then, I spray some goo gone in them and wipe out excess wax, oils, and dyes. Works great!

[debscent]

I'm with Scented, I also have baby wipes (get them at the dollar store really cheap) and wipe out the pots for any residual wax or scent.

[gingerinarkansas]

I sometimes use newspaper to wipe out my warm pots. I've never had any problem with ink bleeding into/on the pots. Most of time I use paper towels or napkins. Ginger

[Guest Candelishis]

At Wally world, I found this HUGE dispenser of those blue shop towels. You know, the super-absorbent blue thick paper towels. I think there was 1,000 in it. They are AWESOME - way better than regular paper towels. I do the same as most of you, and just wipe everything out with a shop towel when it's still hot. I also bought an $80 deep sink kit at lowe's and had DH install it downstairs, so if I do need to wash anything out, I don't have to go upstairs for it. It's all pretty convenient! Oh, and I have a bunch of those pampered chef brown plastic square scraper thingies, and I work on this huge old laminate table, and if i spill, I just scrape the wax off with one of those when it dries. They work awesome too!