When making scented candles consider the wide variety of scents. If you go into any craft store you’ll easily get overwhelmed with the selection of scents. Some you may be familiar with and others will sound and smell foreign.
Most scented candle creations pretty much start out the same way. First the wax that you’ve selected is prepared. Wax is melted into a device called a double boiler or or you can just use a metal bowl placed over boiling hot water. The top of the boiler contains the unmelted wax. After it is melted you place your wick inside the chosen mold and pour the hot wax in. Let the wax sit until cool. This usually takes about six hours so don’t remove the wax from the mold until then. To make it easy to remove the wax from your mold you may want to try using some non-stick cooking spray or throw your mold into the freezer for a hour or so.
Once you have the basics covered from above you can now focus on picking that perfect scent. When shopping around for a scent keep in mind that oil-based scents work best since wax consists mostly of oil and you’ve all heard the saying oil and water do not mix so avoid the water-based scents.
You want to make sure you add your scent as soon as the wax is removed from the heat. For soy wax you want to add a little over an ounce of fragrance per pound of wax. When using paraffin wax, you will need one ounce per pound of wax. With gel waxes you’ll have to check the density of the wax you are working with since the scent you add will depend on this.
Choosing a fragrance can be a daunting task but your local craft store will be able to help you narrow your choices. Typical candle scents are apple, pine, floral, cloves and even baby powder.
Once you start to look at scents for your candles just start off slowly and take your time to do it right. Experiment with different types of waxes and scents to see which works best for you. When you take the time to do it right you’ll have something that’s unique to you and people will start to take note.