Learn How To Make Soy Candles at Home

How to make soy candles at home. Simple instructions for amazing results. It's Candle Making Time!

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Best Fragrance Oils For Soy Candles

December 1, 2018 by SoyCandleMakingTime 169 Comments

Best fragrance oils for soy candles

Get started now with a basic soy candle making recipe!


Fragrance is the essence of scented soy candles, so obviously everyone that makes soy candles wants to make their candles the best scented out there! There are so many different fragrances and fragrance oil suppliers that it can be difficult to know which fragrances throw well in soy wax and which suppliers carry the best fragrances.

Hot scent throw is what every candle maker strives for. A candle can have an awesome cold throw, but then when you burn it for awhile it may do poorly with the hot throw.

This is why it’s so important to buy the right fragrance oils. There’s nothing worse than spending a bunch of money on candle fragrance oils and then finding out they do not have a good hot scent throw!

The thing with soy candles is that not all oils throw well in soy wax, so you need to make sure you buy fragrance oils that are made for soy wax or known to throw well in soy.

So I am going to list oils from a few different companies that sell wholesale candle making supplies . These companies are ones that I know sell fragrance oils that give a good hot throw in soy candle wax. These are oils that I have used and highly recommend. I have by no means tried all the fragrance oils that these suppliers carry, so that’ll be up to you if you want to try some other kinds. Many candle making suppliers carry 1oz samples of their oils, so it is wise to start with that and do some testing your soy candles before deciding on buying more in bulk.

And remember, just because a fragrance oil from one company throws awesome, that does not mean the same fragrance oil from a different company will do the same! Candle fragrance oils will vary from company to company (though some may use the same manufacturer, so might have some of the same fragrances).

When I was searching for a good coffee fragrance, I bought samples from 4 different places and none of them smelled the same. I thought that the coffee scent from Candlesoylutions in the list below was the truest black coffee fragrance (I do use the max amount of that one since it is harder to get any coffee scent to throw strong)

And to answer the question “Can I make candles with perfume?” No, most perfumes contain alcohol, and even if they don’t,  fragrance oils for candles are specifically made to use in candle wax.

List of Best Fragrance Oils for Soy Candles

Unless otherwise stated, these are all fragrances I have personally used.

Candle Science

Apple Harvest (recommended by group members)

Citron and Mandarin (recommended by group members)

Coffee (recommended by group members)

Coriander and Tonka

Grapefruit Mangosteen (recommended by group members)

Orange Chili pepper (recommended by group members)

Peach Nectar (recommended by group members)

Sunwashed Linen   (recommended by group members)

Very Vanilla (recommended by group members)

CandleSoylutions

Almost Paradise

Apple Pie

Apple Spice

Apple Strudel

Birthday Cake

Black Coffee (light throw)

Buttered Rum

Carrot Cake

Cherry Almond

Chocolate

Cinnamon

Cinnamon Spice

Clean Cotton

Clove

Clove Pomander

Cucumber Melon

Evergreen

Frankincense

Fresh Linen

Grape

Honeysuckle

Leather

Lemon

Lemon Cheesecake

Lemongrass

Lilac

Lilac Blossoms

Lime

Love Spell

Mistletoe

Nutmeg

Ocean

Orange Spice

Pumpkin Pie

Raspberry

Strawberry

Sugar Cookie

Sunflower (I used to have a perfume like this. On of my all time favorite fragrances!)

Toasted Hazelnut

Vanilla

White Cake

Wild Cherry

Candle Cocoon

Blatantly blueberry (recommended by group members)

Brandied Pear (recommended by group members)

Brewed Jasmine

Coffee pumpkin (recommended by group members)

Cranberry Compote

Crushed Strawberry and Rhubarb

Daydream Believer

Dewdrop

Ginger Chiffon (recommended by group members)

Malayan Mango (recommended by group members)

Masala Chai (recommended by group members)

Melon,Fig and Apricot

Peony White Tea (recommended by group members)

Raspberry Cordial

Solace

Vanilla Voodoo (recommended by group members)

Winter Woodlands Whisper

Brambleberry

Apple Pie

Blueberry

Espresso

Pumpkin Crunch

Relaxing (recommended by group members)

Rosehip Jasmine (recommended by group members)

Natures Garden

Christmas Cabin

Fresh Cut Grass

Leather Jacket

Oatmeal, Milk and Honey (More of a lighter fragrance, but it does smell good when burning)

Northstar Country Candle Supply

Baby Powder (medium scent, smells just like baby powder)

Midsummer Night (like the Yankee scent and very strong!)

Pearberry (not a really strong scent, but you can smell it and it smells nice)

Peak Candle Supply

Enchanted Apple (recommended by group members)

The Flaming Candle Company

Avocado Mint (recommended by group members)

Chili Pepper (recommended by group members)

Love Spell (recommended by group members)

Sweet Orange (recommended by group members)

There may have been some fragrance oils that I missed and there are definitely more that I will be testing, so check back as I will update this list as I test more candle fragrance oils.

If you know of some other best fragrance oils for soy candles, please feel free to share in the comments!

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Filed Under: Candle Fragrance, Frequently Asked Question, Soy Candle Making Supplies Tagged With: fragrance

Can I use Essential Oils in Soy Candles-Is it Safe?

June 1, 2018 by SoyCandleMakingTime 14 Comments

Using Essential Oils in Soy Candles

Essential oils are the big thing right now. I don’t say it like that to down play them. I do believe they have their place in aromatherapy and other applications, but over the years you see trends come and go. Not to say that using essential oils should go.

Certain essential oils have some great benefits (I love Tea Tree oil!) and can be a great addition to a natural lifestyle, but caution should always be taken when using them. I am not an expert whatsoever, but I have researched enough to know that essential oils, though natural, are not always safe. I’ve read stories of people having bad reactions. Some of these stories were people using the essential oils improperly, but some of the stories were people using them in a way that they had been told was ok by a company or sales rep. Some people may be allergic to certain oils, while another person is not. You can even get sensitized to some oils after using it for a period of time.

My point is, I see this huge push for essential oil use. Some people want to have everything natural, even candles, using more natural waxes and using essential oils in candles. They don’t realize, however that just because something is “natural” doesn’t make it safe or effective to use and that it also depends on the form that you use it in.

I see these MLM companies pushing their products and making all sorts of claims, even going as far as to say that it’s ok to ingest essential oils, which, from what I’ve been researching, is not necessarily ok, especially on an ongoing basis. I think we need to view essential oils more like we view traditional medicine and take the same cautions and do the research on how to use them for certain things. They are highly concentrated and very strong. Some can burn your skin if used without a carrier oil. They enter your blood stream through your skin. We need to be careful with these claims of “natural”. Natural doesn’t always mean safe or effective.

One more thing to add. I think we need to remember that, yes, essential oils have been used for thousands of years, but how were they used? They didn’t have a commercial market for them like we do today. Usually it was the wealthy that were able to buy precious oils, and other oils were used medicinally meaning they didn’t use them all the time. They used them as we do traditional medicine today, only when needed. It would’ve cost too much to use them often anyway back then so I believe they used them sparingly. There are a lot of things that our ancestors did that they thought helped, health wise, that as time has gone on, people realized was not the right way to do things. (like bleeding people…..) So why are we so insistent that essential oils are some sort of great natural miracle. Has anyone talked to people throughout time to see how they were helped by them, or what some of the side effects were? Could some of it be superstition? Just something to think about.

We need to quit taking all these “natural” things and making them out to be miracle cures. They are not cure-alls.  Yes, some essential oils are great for natural anti fungal and anti bacterial. Those are proven and you can see the results pretty quickly (I’ve used Tea Tree oil for fungal infections, bug bites, etc…). Some are excellent for helping clear your nose up when you have congestion just by smelling them. But then we get into the other claims that don’t have much clear proof to back them up. Some oils like lavender may promote calmness, but I believe that is mainly a placebo effect. I’ve used lavender essential oil recently for about a month straight,at bed time, diffused, and have not noticed any difference in relaxation and sleep.  It smells good, don’t get me wrong, and sometimes just the smell of something can promote relaxation or energy, but that doesn’t mean there is any chemical reaction taking place in our body because of the makeup of the essential oil. I get that same peaceful or enjoyable feeling when I burn a beautiful smelling candle  or wax melt that uses fragrance oil.

Now, back to the point of this post and off my soap box for just a moment.

Can you use essential oils in soy candles?

Using Essential Oils in Soy Candles

You can…. but should you? There have been many, many candle makers that have tried using essential oils in soy candles in place of fragrance oils that are specifically made for burning in candles. The one thing I hear in our Facebook group of nearly 8,000 members, is that essential oils just do not give off much scent and they are too expensive for the amount of oil you need to use for candle making. I have tried a few essential oils in my soy candles in the past and the only one that burned with an ok hot throw, was Lemongrass. Thankfully lemongrass essential oil is a lower cost oil, but it is still more expensive to use than a fragrance oil.

The other problem with using essential oils in candles is that essential oils are volatile, meaning they vaporize very easily (which is great when diffusing). However, this also means that they are not as stable as fragrance oils, and when burned in a candle, the essential oil loses it’s aromatherapy properties making it useless for that purpose. Some essential oils can even become toxic when burned, which, of course, defeats the purpose of why one would want to use essential oils in their candles in the first place.

Where’s the Proof?

I’ve been doing some digging to find sources that confirm this and found that heat does break down essential oil properties which is why it is best to use them in a cool mist or other type of non, or very low heat diffuser. Below I’ve listed some links to a few sources that confirm this.

This first link is to the DoTerra website. I do not promote DoTerra. They are an MLM company, which in itself is not necessarily bad, BUT, I believe their oils to be very expensive considering there are many other non-MLM companies our there that sell quality essential oils without the high markup because of having to pay distributors. I do no believe them to have some “special” secret to making their essential oils that somehow makes them far superior to any other company that sells them for less. Expensive does not always equal better quality. It just may be better marketing…. Anyway, I do like that they explain a little bit about how temperature affects essential oils though. www.doterra.com/US/en/brochures-magazines-doterra-living-winter-2015-2016-ask-dr-hill

Here’s another one from Young Living. I have the same sentiments about this company as I do DoTerra. They are MLM as well, and have their oils marked up quite high because of it. I’m sure I will get some backlash in the comments about my statements of these two companies but so be it. I hate seeing people I know spending a ridiculous amount of money on essential oils (or other products) that I know they could get for half the cost from many other sources that have been around longer than these two companies! BUT, again, Young Living also states that heat does break down essential oils, making them less effective or not at all: www.youngliving.com/blog/essential-oil-storage-the-basics/

Ok, here is one more source. This one is quite technical, but I was able to pick out that essential oils do degrade when exposed to heat. Some may tolerate higher temperatures than others, but from my research in a few other places, they don’t do well once the temp gets to around 80 degrees F and above. This means that if you need to heat your wax over that temperature (most soy candle waxes need to be heated to at least 100 degrees F just to get to the melting point), it will begin to break down the essential oils as soon as you add it to the candle wax, not to mention the heat once you begin burning the candle.

From Wiley Online Library. Here’s the link to the full study on essential oil stability onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1541-4337.12006  “Ambient temperature crucially influences essential oil stability in several respects: Generally, chemical reactions accelerate with increasing heat due to the temperature‐dependence of the reaction rate as expressed by the Arrhenius equation (Atkins 2002). Based thereon, the van’t Hoff law states that a temperature rise of 10 °C approximately doubles chemical reaction rates, a relation that can be consulted to predict stability at different temperatures (Glasl 1975). Hence, both autoxidation as well as decomposition of hydroperoxides advances with increasing temperature, even more so since heat is likely to contribute to the initial formation of free radicals (Choe and Min 2006)”

Sorry to be a Party Pooper…

While it may be very tempting to use essential oils in your soy candles so you can market your candles as all natural or use the “made with essential oils” or “aromatherapy benefits” label, I do not recommend it. There are many great fragrance oils that are specifically made for burning in candles and are phthalate free. If you need to find a good fragrance oil supplier, check out our “Best Fragrance Oils for Soy Candles” article and be sure to sign up to our newsletter to get a complete suppliers list!

I am open to your views on this topic as long as they are stated respectfully. If you have evidence for or contrary to what I have shared above, please respectfully share in the comments. As I said before, I am not an expert on essential oils. I have only done what research I could to find whether they are truly beneficial for use in soy candles.

To begin making your own soy candles, check out our basic soy candle making recipe to get you started!

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Filed Under: Candle Fragrance, Frequently Asked Question Tagged With: essential oils

What are The Benefits of Soy Candles

March 29, 2018 by SoyCandleMakingTime 4 Comments

Benefits of soy candles-soy vs paraffin

What’s so great about soy candles? Why are they different than the regular candles (paraffin) you find in stores? I mean, paraffin candles are cheaper and some even smell just about as good. Are there real benefits of soy candles?

You bet there are!

Soy vs Paraffin Candles

Using soy wax candles is a great way to help our environment and our farmers!

Unlike paraffin wax, natural soy wax comes from right here in the USA from our own soybean farmers.

So in addition to using a completely natural soy wax that is safe for you, is a renewable, sustainable resource, and gives us a little less dependence on crude oil, it also helps our own US economy by helping our farmers.

You’ll also find that soy candles burn up to twice as long as paraffin candles. For example, my soy tealights burn from 7-8 hours! Compare that to a normal paraffin tealight that only burns for 4 hours at most (believe me, I’ve tested!). This is because soy wax has a much lower melting point and in turn, burns cooler than paraffin wax.

So even though soy candles might be more expensive, they burn up to twice as long as regular candles so it actually evens out and you really aren’t spending much more for a better quality candle.

With soy candles, you will also get little to no soot when burned properly and soy wax is much easier to clean up if spilled! Just take a little soap and water and possibly a hair dryer and- Whala! No more hard, dried paraffin wax that may take scissors to cut it out of the carpet!(I won’t guarantee the dye won’t stain if there is dye in the candle)

There are other kinds of natural candles too that are great for our environment. Soy wax candles are the least expensive among the natural wax candles, but there’s Beeswax candles ,Palm Wax candles and Coconut Wax candles that I’ve heard great things about also, as well as mixing these waxes with soy!

Check out my first time making beeswax candles here!

So when it comes to the benefits of soy candles vs regular candles? I’ll take the soy please 🙂

As always, any questions, just leave me a comment or contact me 🙂

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Filed Under: Frequently Asked Question

How to Melt Soy Wax for Candle Making

March 6, 2018 by SoyCandleMakingTime 3 Comments

Melting Soy Wax Double Boiler

What’s the best way for melting soy wax? In a double boiler setup or in the microwave?

Soy wax is so versatile that you can melt it in the microwave, use a double boiler setup or a Presto Pot. Melting in the microwave is ok, but it is much harder to gauge the temperature. You don’t want to get the wax too hot, so you’ll need to keep checking it with a candy thermometer.

I like to melt soy wax in a double boiler setup using a pour pot and setting it in a pan that has about an inch of water in it. This the way the wax heats evenly and you can keep the candy thermometer in it and keep an eye on the temperature. Some do not recommend melting soy wax using a gas stove because of the open flame, but I’ve had many people in our soy candle making group say that it is perfectly fine. Just be sure to use caution no matter what type of stove you use.

If you are only making one soy candle, then the microwave may be fine. If you are melting more soy wax than that or are making candles to sell, then you should be using the double boiler method or Presto Pot.

Now for the wonderful  Presto Pot.  This is excellent for melting soy wax for larger batches of candles, and it is used by many professional chandlers. Soy wax works great in these because it is easy to clean out with hot water and soap.  You’ll need to add a spigot to the Presto Pot in order to use it for melting soy wax for candle making. Then you can just melt unscented, uncolored wax in the pot (Do not use fragrance oil and dye in the Presto Pot), and then pour the amount of wax you need through the spigot, into your pour pot. Then you can add fragrance oil and dye to the melted wax in the pour pot.

You can get a Presto Pot on Amazon, or at your local Walmart, Target or other similar store.

Here is a link to instructions on adding a spigot to your Presto Pot, courtesy of Peak Candle Supplies:

www.candletech.com/candle-making/tips-and-tricks/do-it-yourself-wax-melter/

What’s your favorite way to melt your soy wax? Leave a comment below!

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Filed Under: Frequently Asked Question Tagged With: wax

How to Fix Sink Holes in My Soy Wax Candles?

September 15, 2017 by SoyCandleMakingTime 4 Comments

Those pesky sink holes! Maybe you get them a lot, if so, I will be posting an article very soon on what to do to minimize or eliminate that issue. Sometimes though, we do everything right, and still there’s that odd candle or two (or more….) that gets a sink hole!

In this video, I broke out my hair dryer (I never use it for my hair lol I prefer to air dry!), and that works fine, but an even better tool to have is a heat gun (you can get them on Amazon here). You can also just save some wax from your candles and use the extra to fill in some tops once they are cooled.

So….no need to get too upset about the sink holes in your wax! It’s a pretty simple fix and you don’t need to totally remake the candles 😉

In the video, you can also see that pour temp plays a big role in whether you get sink holes or not. The candle on the left was poured at 150 degrees F, and the candle on the right was poured at 125 degrees. It is going to depend on what soy wax you are using too. I used Ecosoya CB Advanced and you can see that it does better poured at a hotter temperature, while some soy waxes do better poured at a cooler temp.

Hope this helps! Happy Candle Making!

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Filed Under: Frequently Asked Question Tagged With: Troubleshooting, Videos

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