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How do you know how much scent to put in?


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Hello there. I am new here and in fact this is my very first post. :smiley2:

I made my first batch of candles last weekend and they actually turned out better than I expected (for being my first time). I wasn't quite sure how much fragrance to add though. I guessed and it turned out ok but how do I know in the future? How do you measure? Is there a tool I can use (a dropper maybe??) or is there another way of figuring this out? Any help would be appreciated!

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If you buy a digital scale. It will make your life so much easier. You should only have to add 1oz of fragrance oil per pound of wax. I know that some add up to 1.5oz of fragrance oil to there wax. But to me if I cant get a Fo to throw with only 1oz than I don't use it. HTH

I do have a scale and that makes sense, thanks so much!

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Welcome! :) What kind of wax are you using? Every wax has a maximum recommended FO load suggested by the manufacturer. 1 oz. PP is pretty middle-of-the-road, but it doesn't hurt to read up on the type of wax you are using and know the manufacturer's recommendations for it... :)

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I use 1 ounce per lb. No more or no less. I am like charmcandle(if I cannot get a good throw with 1 ounce) I drop that scent. I've only had problems with maybe 6 scents. A couple times I tried another company for a certain scent but I will NOT go over 1 ounce per lb.

The cost is way to much adding extra FO AND at times there will be problems with wicks drowning the more fragrance you add. Nit worth time and money.

I use 444 and 402 soy wax and both are good with the fragrances I use. I went to the 444 since the 402 I was buying keeps going up. Either one I have good luck with the hot throw and how my candles burn.

LynnS

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One more thing.I remember when I started making candles my friend told me,"If you use less than 1.5 ounces of FO you might as well forget it".They will not be good. So I made a Apple Pie candle as my first one. I used 1.5 ounces of FO to 1 lb of wax. I had to open all doors and windows in the house. It was way to MUCH. I knew right then I made a BIG mistake.

My friend doesn't burn candles but when she brought one with the 1 ounce per lb she said she just opens the jar and a year later she could could still smell the candle. Same with a few other people who tell me they don't burn candles but smell mine forever without burning them. Just a waste of FO to use more than 1 ounce. Way to costly also.

LynnS

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I think you'll find most people use 6% load in their wax but there are those who use up to 9 or even 10% (often referred to as triple scenting). But what Stella said about different waxes taking different loads is very critical. The ultimate answer would be if you overload the scent and it shows up as oil on top of your candle. Not good. I use about 7% load which is about 1.5 oz depending on the fo. Some are really strong (florals and some bakery scents) while others are light in nature and delicate. I don't mind adding extra fo if its a really good seller. Just remember that differences in load can created differences in the wicking. Too much information? Oh and welcome to the board!

Steve

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Maybe this would make it simple.

Paraffin pillars - 1/2 to 1 oz per lb of wax (start with 3/4 oz).

Paraffin containers - 3/4 to 1 1/4 oz per lb of wax (start with 1 oz).

Soy candles - 1 to 1 1/2 oz per lb of wax (start with 1 1/4 oz).

Those numbers aren't hard and fast, but good to get you started.

One fragrance oil could easily be twice as strong as another, or even more. You can increase the amount for a weaker one or use less of a stronger one, as long as you stay within the guidelines for the kind of candle you're making. If it doesn't smell good or burn well with the amount you need, don't use that fragrance. They don't all work well in every type of candle.

Sometimes you hear people talking about percentages. 3% is about 1/2 oz per lb. 6% is about 1 oz per lb. 9% is about 1 1/2 oz per lb.

Edited by topofmurrayhill
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Thanks for the correction Top. I don't use 1.5 oz pp of wax. This is my formula: 8 oz container holds 7 fluid ozs. so I use 6.5 oz of wax and .5 oz of fo per candle. I think that kinda works out to close to 7.5 % or 8% ratio. I just multiply the number of candles to be made with that fo and mix and pour. I get zero waste and a slightly more concentrated mix of wax and fo. It seems to have worked out rather well for me but that's with Clarus 70/30 (soy/paraffin). I totally sold out this Christmas and currently have no stock and no willpower to begin again. Sorry about the misinformation; although some folks do use 1.5 fo per pound.

Steve

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Hi Steve. I wasn't trying to correct you. Just wanted to answer the original question in a way that I thought might be helpful to a beginner.

I did notice the inconsistency in your post but figured it was a typo. The percentage part was right though. It's based on candle weight and your net weight is 7 oz, so .5 divided by 7 is just over .07. That's 7% fragrance just like you said.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I must be different with my scents. Well right now I am not TOO worried about throws so much as at least getting it to look right (at least to me). I do add some FO, but very little (usually about 2% PP) as to just make the candle smell nice.

One I start getting better at it (and able to afford more FOs as I blew my budget on other things, LOL), then I'll start working on throws. I do like the information given here though about the % as I was a bit confused on that myself! Always good to know how much I'm adding in and to potentially give an accurate count! :yay:

I guess that's also why a couple of my friends call my candles the Sneaky Scents. You can smell them on the candles, but the HT isn't all that extensive. :laugh2:

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I do add some FO, but very little (usually about 2% PP) as to just make the candle smell nice

While I applaud your conservatism, here's the deal: without enough FO, you may as well not add any 'cause you are simply wasting your money (thus the Sneaky Scents nickname). Testing simply for appearance without paying attention to the HT & CT you ultimately desire will leave you with having to retest everything again when you up the FO load (it makes a difference with respect to wicking).

If you are going to make unscented candles, then leave it out altogether. If you are going to make scented candles, then test with a reasonable amount of FO. There IS a happy medium!! Some folks are not content with a pleasing throw - they want a HT that'll fill the Superdome within an hour of lighting a votive!!!!!*faint* That's not my idea of a good time, but to each their own! :laugh2:

You'll find that some FOs are so strong you will want to cut back on them; other, more delicate fragrances will need extra time to "cure" or develop their scent potential in the wax. :)

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Hello everyone,

I am new to this forum, but, I thought I would through my two cents into the discussion.

I have been making my own candles for a little over a year off and on. I decided to use 100% soy wax. I read a lot about the fragrance load of candles and decided that like a lot of the info on the internet fragrance load was inaccurate. Being an engineer/scientist "general rules of thumb" do not empress me. I got myself some cheap chemistry glass ware from an online store and began to experiment. I work in metric so all my numbers are metric and in percent by weight.

I have read that the max fragrance load for soy wax was between 1.0 and 1.5 oz. per lb. That converts to between 6.3 and 9.4 percent by weight. Using a gram scale I found that most of my fragrance weighted between .95 and 1.0 grams per ml. I started out at 8 percent fragrance load. My glass container holds 378 grams of wax so I added 31 ml of fragrance (rounded to the next higher ml). My experimental results to date are as follows.

At eight percent fragrance by weight the candle smelled great cold and the hot throw was excellent. The problem was that the wick when sized for the container did not give me a pool of liquid wax that went to the sides of the container and the candle did not burn well. I increased the wick size three steps larger on the next few and the candle still did not burn well, the pool was not right, the solidified wax changed consistency, and looked funny toward the end. I concluded that as the candle burned the concentration of fragrance to volume of wax was increasing and overloading the wax that was left. I have just made two new candles with 4.3% of fragrance. They still smell nice cold and I will be trying them out soon.

I keep a journal of my candles so that I can see what works and what does not work.

Thanks,

Keith

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I would agree that the rules of thumb are very rough, and that the fragrance loading recommendations from the manufacturers are not entirely meaningful.

A few of your calculations and procedures seem questionable though.

The industry convention for FO concentration is percent by candle weight. Therefore 1 oz weight FO + 16 oz wax and 1.5 oz weight FO + 16 oz wax create 17 oz and 17.5 oz mixtures, respectively. Therefore the percent range of FO concentration would be 5.88% to 8.57%.

I'm also not sure why you are going back and forth between weight and volume. While volume of FO might be relevant in certain respects, we normally deal with the weight of the ingredients. So why not simply weigh the FO rather than measuring it in mL?

Finally, I would point out that you only seem to be dealing with one FO. Your results will be different with each one. Wax/fragrance compatibility is a routine issue we deal with. Each FO has a different effect on the consistency and melting properties of a particular type of wax, a different tendency to migrate within or out of the wax, different burn qualities, and different scent throw qualities.

So it's not even that recommendations and rules of thumb are inaccurate. There actually are no accurate numbers in general. In the end, candle design is an empirical process.

Edited by topofmurrayhill
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Weight may be the standard, but given that FOs are close to 1g per ml, I accept the small error in exchange for how much easier it is to pour to a certain line on a graduated cylinder than to pour, weigh, and repeat.

"There actually are no accurate numbers in general. In the end, candle design is an empirical process."

IOW, the waxes to some degree and especially the oils are so poorly characterized by the mfgr that we all have to do our own research.

FWIW, I use a little shy of the max fragrance specified for the wax. i.e., about 8% for most soys and 4630, and 2.5% for 1343 and 1274, 5% for palm, pillar blend paraffin, and votive blends.

However... I've had very poor results, with few exceptions, with HT across soy, palm, and paraffin in votives, pillars, and 4-8oz containers. A 3% 1343 2" pillar with LX-16 and a fluorescent dye and CS's Holly Berry is one exception, and an 8% GB464 3" jar with ECO-10 and CS's Asian Amber is the other.

I don't know if IGI and GB's waxes are lousy, if CS and Peak can't make strong fragrances, or what. Burning OK I can get, but not strong throw. Of course, most commercial candles really aren't any better. A few scents of Yank jar will scent a room but with most of them, unless they're brand new, I find you have to be rather near them to smell anything.

The myth of the room scenting votive keeps me thinking I'm doing something wrong. Read the ad copy on Candelicious's site and feel even worse... are pre-blends and reputable dealers' fragrances really just not that good?

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So why not simply weigh the FO rather than measuring it in mL?

Top makes an excellent point here overlooked by many folks. When one is weighing wax for pouring, it is so much easier and efficient to simply put the pouring pot on the scale, tare, then add FO, tare again and add the melted wax. No residue gets wasted in a separate measuring container. :)

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Good idea if you're using that kind of workflow. Especially for testing, though, I'm melting 1-2 lbs of wax in the pouring pot, and using a scale with 3g precision. I have another scale with a low max. load that can do .1g, but only use that for vybar (.5%).

All that's not to say getting a scale that can handle several pounds _and_ have .5g or lower precision wouldn't be a better way to go.

(FWIW, just had some success with throw. 4630 with 10% CS Vanilla lace, 3" jar, LX-12. LX-10 next time to try to get less mushrooming, but this jar is thoroughly scenting a good sized room.)

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(FWIW, just had some success with throw. 4630 with 10% CS Vanilla lace, 3" jar, LX-12. LX-10 next time to try to get less mushrooming, but this jar is thoroughly scenting a good sized room.)

Trust me, LX-10 is never going to work. You probably need to go up rather than down. Better yet, get some HTP wicks. And back off on the fragrance oil. 10% of a vanilla type fragrance is a whopping scent load for any wax. I'm starting to wonder if you have a sense of smell. ;)

Mushrooms don't mean you have to wick down. It might mean down; it might mean up. It might mean less fragrance oil. It mean a different type of wick. It might mean an FO just doesn't burn well. Etcetera.

Edited by topofmurrayhill
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I may not have the best sense of smell, know you were joking, but I'm actually considering that ;) Have a few friends who can help out with that though.

I'll try an HTP-73 or 62 and 6%, see how it compares.

I went with 10% since

1. Bayberry (CS) at 8% lost all its scent. Probably that fragrance just isn't good in that wax.

2. Candleicious talked about using 12%, so I thought I'd find out if truly maxing out the capacity of the wax helped any. Frankly, I'd rather find good throw with more reasonable amounts of FO than try to get a wax to hold that much.

Thought the LX-10 might be worth a try as the LX-12 also smokes a bit on relights, and gets a full melt in about an hour, whereas I was thinking about two would be better. I found the HTPs to be, if anything, worse than the LX in 3" tins, but as I still have 8 wicks left, might as well give them a few more tries.

Got the idea mushrooms meant over-wicked from:

http://www1.stimpson.com/~stimpson/WicksUnlimited.pdf and

http://www.onestopcandle.com/candle/ctroublemush.php

But, like everything in this hobby, "it's a guideline" seems to apply.

I think there's also a guideline that says if you have mushrooms, use less (or a different) FO. ;)

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  • 7 months later...
Maybe this would make it simple.

Paraffin pillars - 1/2 to 1 oz per lb of wax (start with 3/4 oz).

Paraffin containers - 3/4 to 1 1/4 oz per lb of wax (start with 1 oz).

Soy candles - 1 to 1 1/2 oz per lb of wax (start with 1 1/4 oz).

Those numbers aren't hard and fast, but good to get you started.

One fragrance oil could easily be twice as strong as another, or even more. You can increase the amount for a weaker one or use less of a stronger one, as long as you stay within the guidelines for the kind of candle you're making. If it doesn't smell good or burn well with the amount you need, don't use that fragrance. They don't all work well in every type of candle.

Sometimes you hear people talking about percentages. 3% is about 1/2 oz per lb. 6% is about 1 oz per lb. 9% is about 1 1/2 oz per lb.

Thank you. I made some more this past weekend and only used 1/2 ounce with soy wax and most of them are perfect. The only one I did use 1 ounce on doesn't seem to be strong enough (go figure) so now I know. Thanks! I'm learning alot just be experimenting which is what you have to do I guess.

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This is great info, I have been wondering if I am adding enough scent to my candles . . . and it looks like I have been.

But let me though this into the mix here...

I wait till my 7 pounds 0f melted wax cools to about 180 degrees and add all of my scent at one time.

Do you think it evaporats as it sits in the warmer or not?

Thanks

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