How to Make Safe Candles Yourself

Candles are a wonderful enhancement to ambiance and mood, yet they can contribute to air pollution, sometimes significantly if synthetic perfumes are used. I feel as if my daughter and I traversed this terrain and learned how to make our own stunningly beautiful candles using sustainable, less toxic ingredients.

Here’s how we managed to make beautiful non-toxic, soot-free candles. It was easy and a lot of fun!

Here are five tips from us:

1. One of the highest goals of making your own less-toxic candles is to make them free of petroleum products, such as paraffin and synthetic fragrance.

2. You can now buy vegetable wax (usually soy) in craft stores such as Michaels. One brand offers microwaveable soy wax and the process was very, very easy. No fuss, no mess.

3. Beeswax is another pure wax choice, although expensive. I personally just love the smell of pure beeswax candles, and we make candles with 100 percent of this wax for very special occasions. Beeswax needs to be melted in a double boiler.

4. For myself, I prefer unscented candles, but my daughter is looking to add scent to her candles, and many of you might like aromatherapy.

We used only perfectly pure essential oils bought at natural food stores, and only about 5 drops for 2 cups of dried wax flakes. Add the essential oils after the wax has melted and has been removed from the heat source. Stir thoroughly.

Many so-called aromatherapy candles are very soft due to overuse of fragrance, and often these candles cause serious problems with candle soot. Making your own helps you control how much fragrance/essential oil you include.

5. Use wicks without lead. We chose wicks without any metal inside, but there are now lead-free wicks available in craft stores. Wanting to be safe not sorry, we bought metal-free wicks. They have been fine.

Read more: Crafts & Design, Crafts & Hobbies, candles, non-toxic, soot, wicks

Inspired by a beautiful photographic spread on how to make your own sand candles in last August's "Martha Stewart Living," my daughter and I took candle-making ingredients on our vacation to the coast of Maine, for a rainy-day project. We also took an inspiring new book from Storey Books, called "The Handmade Candle," by Alison Jenkins.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Sonia M.

9:50AM PDT on May 12, 2013

Good article,thanks for sharing

May 12
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Nils Anders L.

4:58AM PDT on Apr 24, 2013

April 24
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Manuela C.

1:59PM PST on Jan 24, 2013

thanks

January 24
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Val M.

1:40AM PST on Jan 24, 2013

Thanks

Laura M.

11:27AM PST on Dec 21, 2012

Awesome, I want to start making my own candles and this is valuable info :) Thanks

December 21
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Nimue P.

7:19PM PDT on Mar 30, 2012

Cheers :)

March 30
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Kelly B.

8:17AM PST on Jan 19, 2012

hemp makes a great wick.

January 19
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Maija S.

10:56AM PST on Jan 14, 2012

Thank you for the information that I can probably find vegetable wax for candles cheaper than bees wax! I thought this venture was about to cost me a fortune!