Making Candles and Soaps For Dummies

Kelly Ewing

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780764574085
• eBook ISBN: 9781118054345
• Edition: 1

Make floating candles, herbal soaps, and even a home spa

Discover the secrets of color, shape, and scent the fun and easy way?

Whether you're a beginner or seasoned craftperson, this fun book offers everything you need to make beautiful, professional-looking candles and soaps at home. You get practical tips on dyeing and scenting wax, using unusual molds, adding embellishments to candles, working with soap ingredients, and even turning your hobby into a business!

Discover How To:

• Stock a safe & efficient work area
• Work with all types of wax
• Add color and scent to your projects
• Make melt-and-pour soaps
• Turn a hobby into a business

Part I

Getting Started in Candle Making

In this part . . .

If you’re new to making candles, then you’ll enjoy this part. You find out what equipment can help you make attractive candles, as well as the safety issues you need to keep in mind. You discover the different types of wax and how to create a perfect wick and wax combination. You also can try creating simple projects, such as taper candles, beeswax candles, and my personal favorite, container candles.

Chapter 1

Stocking a Safe and Efficient Work Area

In This Chapter

Assembling your equipment and supplies

Preparing your workspace

Making candles safely

M aking candles can be a relaxing and rewarding hobby. Nothing quite compares to the feelings of pride and pleasure that come from looking at a beautiful, burning candle and knowing that you created it with your own two hands.

Because today’s supplies and materials make creating attractive candles easy, you don’t need to purchase them. And because candle making isn’t an expensive hobby, you can decorate your home with candles, as well as give them as gifts. (See Chapter 9 for more information.)

I get you started off on the right foot in this chapter by explaining what you need, from basic equipment to everyday supplies. I also tell you how to prepare your workspace so that you have minimal cleanup and how to safely melt wax and transform it into candles.

Stocking Up on the Basics: Equipment and Supplies

Making candles doesn’t have to be expensive. You can use many items that you already have at home, or you can buy them cheaply at garage sales. If you do need to buy anything at a store, you can almost always find coupons for it in your Sunday newspaper. If you don’t have what you need on hand and don’t want to drive to stores, you can also order what you need via the Internet. (For suppliers, see Appendix A.)

I suggest getting only the barebones equipment when you start out. As you venture into the hobby more, you get a better feel for the types of candles you want to make and the equipment you need.

To help you get started, the following sections walk you through the basic equipment and supplies required to make candles.

Lining up your equipment

What you’re basically doing in candle making is melting solid wax over your heat source. So the first item you need is some type of heat source. Your stove, of course, is perfect for this function, but some people use a small camping stove. In fact, it doesn’t matter whether your stove is gas or electric.

Don’t use a microwave to melt your wax because the temperature is too hard to control, and you can easily overheat the wax.

Finding your (melting) pot

After you have a heating source, you need something to melt your wax in, a melting pot, if you will. Wax heats up quickly and can explode if it gets too hot, which is why you almost always must use an indirect method of melting it. In other words, don’t melt your wax in a pot directly on your burner. Instead, you need some type of double boiler system (see Figure 1-1). A double boiler is basically a large pot with a smaller pot inside.

Figure 1-1: You need a double boiler or some type of impro-visation to melt your wax. A small pot, mounted on a trivet inside a larger pot, works just fine.

If you don’t have a double boiler (preferably metal), don’t think that you have to rush out and buy one. I personally don’t have a double boiler. You can use a small pot placed inside a larger pot to get the same effect (refer to Figure 1-1). The small pot needs to be propped up in some way so that it doesn’t rest on the bottom of the larger pot. You can use a trivet, a three-legged stand that slightly lifts your pot or, if you don’t have one, several small tin cans resting on the bottom of the larger pot. You want the top, smaller pot to be at least 1/2 inch above the base of the larger pot. I didn’t have any pots that I wanted to melt wax in, so I just bought some cheap ones at a garage sale.

You probably are pouring your wax from the top pot into your molds (unless you’re dipping your candles). A mold is simply a hollow object into which you pour your melted wax; as the wax cools, it hardens and takes on the shape of your mold. Craft stores have metal melting containers with a handy little pour spout. As I became more involved with this hobby, I purchased one of those containers, which made cleanup and pouring a whole lot easier.

Collecting the necessities

When you have your heating source and double boiler out of the way, you’re ready to get some other necessary items, including a

Mold. Your first candles probably are ones you make in a mold. The type of material your mold is made of doesn’t matter. In fact, you have many mold options, from store-bought ones, to mold...

Table of contents

• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I : Getting Started in Candle Making
• Chapter 1: Stocking a Safe and Efficient Work Area
• Chapter 2: Working with Wax
• Chapter 3: Achieving the Look You Want for Your Candles Again and Again
• Chapter 4: Finding the Perfect Wick
• Chapter 5: Creating Simple Projects
• Part II : Jazzing Up Your Candles
• Chapter 6: Adding Color and Scent
• Chapter 7: Decorating Your Candles with Flair
• Chapter 8: Making More Advanced Projects
• Chapter 9: Displaying Your Handiwork
• Chapter 10: Handling Common Candle Problems
• Part III : Tackling Soap-Making Basics
• Chapter 11: Preparing to Make Soap
• Chapter 12: Grasping Soap-Making’s Basic Techniques
• Chapter 13: Delving into Additives
• Chapter 14: Creating Basic Soap Projects
• Part IV : Fancying Up Your Soap
• Chapter 15: Creating Scent-sations: Adding Color and Scent
• Chapter 16: Going Beyond Basic Soap
• Chapter 17: Creating a Home Spa
• Chapter 18: Solving Soap-Making Dilemmas
• Part V : Moving On in the Candle- and Soap-Making World
• Chapter 19: Experimenting with Aromatherapy
• Chapter 20: Turning a Hobby into a Business
• Part VI : The Part of Tens
• Chapter 21: Ten Easy Holiday Decorating Ideas
• Chapter 22: Ten or So Great Gift Ideas for Family and Friends
• Chapter 23: Ten Super Projects for Kids
• Chapter 24: Ten Musts for Attending a Craft Show
• Part VII : Appendixes
• Appendix A: Candle-Making, Soap-Making, and Aromatherapy Suppliers
• Appendix B: Additional Resources for Avid Candlemakers and Soapmakers
• : Color Insert