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This is a description of how I make candles in small batches at home. I haven‘t tried any other methods, and I haven‘t shopped for supplies using any other vendors. I find that this produces good-to-very-good results, is not very expensive, doesn‘t require a lot of thinking or math, and makes it easy to manage a small inventory of supplies. I‘m making candles for myself, so I‘m not really concerned about perfect looking wax or anything like that.

Most links in this post take you to CandleScience. They are not affiliate links. The number of times I‘ve ordered from them is in the single digits, but like I said I‘ve never purchased candle making supplies anywhere else, so I don‘t know which things are their brand or use their naming, and which are generic. I don‘t know if they are the Amazon of candle making or one of hundreds of sites where you can order this stuff. I know almost nothing about candle making other than what you‘re about to read.

I make all my candles using 16 oz. Wide Mouth Ball® Mason Jars. They come in 12 packs, and if you wait for them to go on sale at places like Walmart, they should cost somewhere around $1 per jar. They are also pretty easy to find at thrift stores.

I use Golden Brands 464 Soy Wax.

I use ECO 10 6” Pretabbed Wicks, which I find almost always gives a complete burn (no wax remaining on the jar), but they also don‘t burn too quickly. (Different wicks generate different amounts of heat, which affects how quickly the candles burn. The goal is to use a wick that generate enough heat to melt the wax across the entire diameter of the candle‘s container, but not so much heat that the candle burns unnecessarily fast.) These jars and wicks seem like a good match.

I don‘t do anything to color the candle wax.

CandleScience sells fragrance oils in 4 oz. and 16 oz. bottles (and other, giant sizes that I have no use for). (These are measured by weight; they are not in fluid ounces. Different oils have different densities, and thus different volumes.) I make candles using a 1 pound of wax to 1 ounce of oil ratio.

A 4 oz. bottle of oil and 4 pounds of wax will almost always fill five mason jars to an appropriate level (i.e., not to the rim, so that you can put the lid on even when the candle is brand new and the wick needs some space). I almost always work in these five candle batches, unless I‘m doing a particularly big batch, in which case I may do an 8 pound double batch.

For scents that I really like, I will buy the 16 oz. bottles, and weigh out 4 oz. as needed, because the 16 oz. bottles are a bit cheaper.

Process

Start by gluing the wicks to the jars using hot melt glue. This is probably the hardest part of the process. You need to use enough glue to get them to stick, but you don‘t want to use so much glue that when the candle gets low the heat from the wick melts the glue and the wick comes unstuck. This just takes a bit of practice, but I‘d describe the correct amount of glue as half a pea. You also have to just eyeball getting the wick in the center of the jar.

Next, measure out 4 lb of wax into a container. This is not the container you‘ll use to melt the wax.

Transfer wax from that container to fill up a pouring pitcher and put that on the stove (on high). As the wax melts, room will open up in the pitcher, and you can add more of the 4 lbs that was measured out. You will be able to get all 4 lbs into the pitcher once it‘s all melted.

The wax can get very hot very fast once it‘s all melted. I‘d say once you have about 3 or 3.5 lbs of the wax in the pitcher, you can lower the temp on the burner a lot. Once all 4 lbs of wax are in the pitcher, you‘ll start checking the temperature. (I use a cheap infrared thermometer).

The temperature of the wax will likely be above 82° C at this point. Wait until it cools down to 82° C and then add the 4 oz. of fragrance oil and stir the oil into the wax. (Adding the oil when the wax is too hot can ruin the fragrances in the oil.) I generally use disposable chop sticks for that. The video I originally watched about how to make candles said that you have to stir vigorously for many minutes to sufficiently incorporate the oil and wax. I don‘t know how true that is, but there‘s usually not a lot else to do at this point, so I do tend to stir quit a bit and for quit a while. As you do this more, you‘ll get better at not overshooting 82°. Waiting for things to cool can be the slowest part of this process.

My notes also say that the wax should be poured into the jars when it cools to 55° C. I have never been able to find any explanation of why it can‘t be poured early at a higher temp, so I have generally been pouring before that. By the time I‘m done stirring, the wax temp should be around 65° or so, and I‘ll pour.

You‘ll need something to hold the wicks centered in the jar as the wax cools. I make small strips of cardboard (about 1 inch by 4 inches) and cut a narrow V-shaped notch in them. If you lay the strip across the mouth of the jar, push the cardboard down a bit, and then jam the wick in the notch, as the cardboard tries to unbend itself it will pull the wick taut and you can position the cardboard to center the wick. I know they sell real things to do this, but I don‘t have any and this method seems to work fine. The cardboard can be reused many times.

I wash the pitcher in the sink with dish soap and rinse it very well.

2024 Prices

If you were to buy only enough supplies to make a couple batches of candles, you‘d be looking at, roughly,

  • ~$30 for 10 lbs of wax
  • ~$2 for 12 wicks
  • ~$20 for two 4 oz. bottles of fragrance
  • ~$13 for jars
  • ~$10 shipping

That would get you 10 candles for just under $7 per candle, plus 2 lbs of wax and a few wicks leftover.

I tend to buy larger quantities of things that I can use over time, which is a little bit cheaper:

  • ~$110 for 45 lbs of wax
  • ~$10 for 100 wicks
  • ~$25 for each 16 oz. bottle of fragrance
  • ~$13 for 12 jars
  • ~$40 shipping

45 lbs of wax will make about 55 candles, with each one costing around $6.