Candle Ingredients Part 1
There are really only 2 ingredients necessary to make a candle: wax and a wick!
At some point however, as you evolve in your craft of candle making, you may want to add color and scent.
For now let’s just go over these two basic candle ingredients.
Wax is the most essential ingredient in the entire candle making process. There are different types of waxes and you’ll probably start with the most common one: the paraffin wax.
Paraffin-bases waxes comes in a variety of blends. A huge benefit is that it produces an odorless smoke.
Paraffin wax melts between 104-160 °F (40-71 °C) depending on the quality. Stearin is a current additive to paraffin wax.
Beeswax is a natural wax and comes in blocks or sheets. The color varies from yellow to white. Beeswax possesses a honey fragrance. You can mix it with paraffin wax to produce candles with a longer burning time.
Beeswax comes with its own problems: it is more difficult to get beeswax candles out of the mold and it doesn’t mix well with fragrance additives.
Soy wax is a recent introduction into the world of candle making. It is made from hydrogenated soybean oil. Like beeswax, it is a natural product and it is less expensive than beeswax. Also it burns slower than paraffin, produces less soot and distributes the scent additives easier.
Gel wax is merely clear gel. It is fun to work with as it makes possible stunningly beautiful candles that can be individually tailored (for example as gifts for friends and family).
This is a more advanced (and potentially dangerous) material to work with however, as the melting behavior is not obvious and you need to put the gel wax directly over a heat source because of the high melting point.
The wick is the second essential element of a candle. Although a wick seems an innocent basic thing, you will soon experience that wick selection involves a lot of variables (wax type, candle size, fragrance additive, etc.) that it soon becomes an art in itself. As you become more proficient at choosing wicks, you’ll soon become a wick expert.
Cotton core wicks have a rigid inner core. This helps the wick standing straight while burning. Cotton core wicks are good for working with soy and paraffin wax candles.
Square braid wicks contains a core or rigid zinc, enabling the wick to stay straight up in the melted wax. Zinc core wicks are recommended for use in paraffin and gel wax candles.
When using wicks it is good practice to prime them (unless they come primed in the package). Priming is simply the process of coating the wick with one or two layers of molten wax before use.
