Step by Step Guide to DIY Candles with Essential Oils and Fragrance Oils

The warm glow of a candle has numerous benefits for someone looking for a cosy or intimate atmosphere. Lighting up a candle at home will create softness to the room and make you feel more welcoming and relaxing. You can either get a candle from a store, or you can customize your own style candle at home by adding your desired fragrance, shape and color. Not only DIY candle can be a warm gift for family and friends, but also a great activity that spend time with your family in the weekend.

What You’ll Need

You can buy most of the materials and tools from grocery store. The most important ingredients are wax and fragrant. We recommend soy wax since it's vegan, environmental friendly and it causes least black smoke as it burns. As in fragrance, you can choose whichever fits your mood of the day. We do recommend you to choose the stronger fragrant so it has a wider coverage and last a longer period of time. 

Materials:

• soy wax flakes
• essential oils/fragrance oils
• candle wicks
• colorant (optional)

Tools:

• melting pot
• large pot (for double boiler)
• candle containers (hear-proof, e.g. glass, ceramic and metal)
• mixing spoon (for stirring)
• digital thermometer
• masking tape
• tweezers
• wick holder (e.g. wood wick, cotton core wick, paper core wick, clothespin)

Instructions

Step 1: Place Candle Wick

First things first, make sure to place a dab of masking tape at the bottom of the wick. Use a tweezer to press it to the bottom of the container. Then, centre the wick straight and set the wick holder aside to keep the wick upright.

Step 2: Melt the Wax

Pouring the wax flakes into the melting pot. Fill a large pot halfway with water and bring to the stove. Then, put the melting pot directly into the water to make a double boiler like melting chocolate. Turn the heat to medium and stir frequently. This can take a few minutes to get going depending on your batch, stay patient! If you want to make a colourful candle, add your preferred colorant in this step. Stir with a mixing spoon until evenly coloured. Then, place the melted wax liquid cool down naturally.

Step 3: Add Fragrance to Candle

When your candle wax is melted, use digital thermometer to measure the melting wax temperature until it cools down to 65 degrees (149 Fahrenheit degree). Choose oils based on your preference and the density of the oil. Essential oils like some herbal oils, provide aromatherapy such as calming, relaxing, uplifting. Particularly, those have a lighter density thus, may burn off too quickly. Fragrance oil, on the contrary, is non-volatile with higher density so that the scent is stronger and stays longer. We recommend using fragrance oils instead of essential oils for a stronger and long-lasting smell of the candle. Add 5-10% drops of your favourite scent oils before your wax has been removed from the heat, then blend until evenly.

Step 4: Pour the candles

Before you pour the wax into your container, let it cool for a few minutes. Pour the wax when it starts to loop slightly opaque. Then, pour the melting wax slowly to avoid creating air bubbles into your container.

Step 5: Cut the Wick

Trim your candle wick should be less than half an inch long (around 4mm).

Some Things to Remember

1. Using a double boiler can make the wax melting evenly. Also, it prevents the temperature directly from the stove is too high to control.
2. Make sure to add fragrance oils until the wax cools down to below 65 degrees (149 F) to avoid flavour evaporating at a high temperature.
3. When pouring the wax into container, be careful not to pour the wax on the wick.
4. Do not move the container until the melting wax is solid.
5. Make sure to trim the wick around 1/4 inch (4mm) before each burn to avoid high flame and black smoke.

If you are looking for fragrance oil to kick start your DIY candle projects, check out these popular sets on our websites. If you are into handcrafts you may also enjoy our hand sanitizer DIY tutorial. Follow us and stay tuned, we will have more interesting DIY projects.