Why use or make beeswax candle?
Beewax candle is the oldest kind of candle making material known to men. It has been used since ancient times and in many religious functions because it is the purest form of wax.
Beewax is all natural wax with almost no chemicals.
It is environmentally friendly, safe and non-toxic. When it burns, there is little smoke. It also burns very clean and is biodegradable.
When it comes to making beeswax candles, no essential oils is necessary as the candle has a slight natural honey scent. Of course, if you'd like a different scent, you can always add in the essential oils of your choice. We find vanilla scent goes well with Beeswax.
Beewax is a lot more expensive than paraffin wax, soy wax or palm wax. And here's why...
It takes thousands of bees to collect 3kg of honey that will produce only 500g of wax
However...beewax has high melting point (in fact it is the highest among all known waxes). This means that beeswax candles also burn 3 to 5 times longer than other waxes with very little drip.
Making candles is super easy. Here we will show you how to make beewax candles.
All you need are:
Beewax
Mold Release Spray
Candle wick
Candle mold
and a little clay
Here we have two types of candle molds. Taper mold is the one that is long and thin, the kind we see at a romantic dinner table. And the other mold is a fat and short egg mold.
First we place 250g of beeswax into a metal bowl. Next we fill a pot with water and place the beeswax bowl into the middle of the pot with water. This is called double boiling.
The wax will melt rather quick s double boiling prevents the wax from burning.
Next, preparing the mold.
Spray mold with a Mold Release Agent. This eases the demolding process and avoids the wax from sticking to the sides of the molds.
The egg mold is a 2-part mold that comes with a handy hole to string the wick through. We tied one end of the wick to a chopstick to help keep the wick straight.
For the other end of the wick, we secured it with some industrial styling clay.
The bottom of the tapered candle mold looks like this.
Here's what the top of the taper mold looks like. Using a prewaxed wick makes the stringing a lot easier specially for tapered candle molds.
Once the wax has melted, just pour the wax into the prepared molds. Be careful not to spill as the wax is very hot and the cleaning up can be frustrating.
See how the chopstick keeps the wick upright in the photo above?
Leakages may happen especially with two part molds like the egg mold here. Just wait for the wax to cool and simply peel it off the table top. Working on a silicon mat or newspaper helps.
To avoid future leaks, just seal the joining of the mold with clay.
Here we wrapped tissue paper around the joining to stop the leakage.
Egg mold done. Now we pour the wax into the taper mold which fills up rather quickly.
This is a photo of the top of the tapered candle mold after pouring. The wax cools almost instantly.
Allow candles to cool for 2 to 3 hours. Pop it into the fridge to quicken the process.
Once the candle cools completely, we removed the bottom of the tapered candle mold. Because of the mold release, the removal is easy.
By applying a slight pressure to the top of the candle, we are able to remove the entire candle from the long mold. Of course the Mold Release Spray helped a lot too.
If removal is still difficult, pop the entire thing into the freezer for 5 minutes and the mold should come off easily.
Here we have two complete candles which can be used almost immediately!
Candle molds come in many different sizes and can be used with palm wax, paraffin wax, stearic wax and wax blends.
Egg shaped candles are just perfect for Easter don't you agree?
For further enquiries on DIY candle making or candle moulds, write to us at enquiry@craftiviti.com
Or visit our outlet to have a look or purchase online here.
