How To Make Candles Using A Double Boiler
You don’t need fancy equipment to make candles. All you need is a double boiler, which you can make yourself!
Candle making has been around for a long time. Starting as a need for light, the craft has evolved to provide home fragrance and decor.
Like many skills, learning the basics is easy, but mastery takes time.
If you want to learn how to make candles, or are interested in starting a candle business, follow along with this method and study this article to pick up the fundamentals.
Candle Making Basics
The heart of candle making is blending together wax and fragrance in a container, then lighting it with a wick once it cools and hardens.
Technically, the term for “cooling” is “curing”, and you can read more about that here if you’re interested.
Every candle requires some or all of these supplies:
- Wax
- Fragrance Oil
- Wick
- Container or mold
And in order to make a candle, you’ll also need some or all of the following “equipment” (this term is used loosely):
- Heat source (we’ll use a double boiler below)
- Pour pot/mixing container
- Stirring device
- Temporary wick holder
- Something to stick the wick to the container
- Heat gun
Once you have all those items secured, you can pretty much make any candle you want.
The most common candle type is a container candle, which is where the wax blend lives inside some sort of vessel.
Container candles are very easy to make, as there are thousands, if not HUNDREDS of thousands of different containers you can use.
Anything from a soda can to a mason jar can hold a candle, with only a few guidelines for safety.
Remember, candles get pretty hot! You don’t want to use anything that could start on fire.
If you’re buying a candle making kit or gathering a few supplies from your local craft store, you’re probably going to end up with paraffin wax or soy wax.
Both of them are good options, and you can read about their differences here.
We’ll use soy wax in the tutorial below.
At a very high level, candle making is a five step process:
- Measure out supplies
- Melt wax over heat source
- Prepare containers with wicks
- Add fragrance oil and color to the melted wax (at specified temperature)
- Pour wax blend into the prepared containers (at a specified temperature)
Since this is a basic walkthrough, we won’t cover more advanced topics of candle making. If you’re interested in reading more, check out the Learn More section below.
What Is A Double Boiler?
A double boiler melts something inside a container that’s sitting in a boiling pot of water:
Most double boilers are largely made of three main components:
- Heat source, such as a stove top or a hot plate
- Pot of boiling water (thus the “boiling” aspect)
- Pitcher or measuring glass inside the pot
For candle making, a pour pot or measuring glass sits inside a larger pot filled with water, placed over a stove top or hot plate.
As long as the container holding your wax can resist the temperature of boiling water (roughly 212°F or 100°C), almost anything can be used.
One of the most common items used by candle makers is an aluminum pour pot which can hold enough wax to make two to six small candles.
Pros
- Since a double boiler rarely rises above the boiling point of water, your risk of scorching the wax is much lower.
- Very easy to set up – can be created in minutes in your kitchen.
- Inexpensive because you don’t need any special supplies. Most people have a spare measuring glass and a large pot.
Cons
There are a few drawbacks to this method, including:
- Limited batch size, since the pot or measuring glass can only hold so much.
- Much slower to melt the wax with this since water can take a long time to boil and only rises to 212°F (100°C).
- Limited control of temperature since you’re only boiling the water or cooling it off – no steady “hold temperature” ability.
Basic Candle Recipe
The recipe below will create a SINGLE candle about the size of a mason jar which holds 16 ounces of water, or about 454 grams of water.
If you want to find out how many supplies you need for your specific container , read the following articles:
Want to make a candle in a different size? Read more about measuring the right amount of wax and fragrance for any size container here.
Equipment & Supplies
Before starting, gather the following equipment and supplies. Almost everything can be found at your local craft store in the candle making section or online at various candle supply stores.
You can use any wax or fragrance oil you like, including essential oils! Colors are optional, but only use an oil-soluble dye for color (sold near candle supplies in craft stores and online).
Recipe makes a single candle for a container that holds about 16 oz in water weight.
EQUIPMENT
- 4 lb aluminum pour pot or 4-cup measuring glass
- Kitchen scale
- Wooden spoon or small spatula
- One small disposable cup or small glass container (not used for food or drink)
- 1 clothespin
- Hot plate or stove top
- Thermometer (IR, glass, or candy works)
- Heat gun (optional)
- Scissors
SUPPLIES
- 12.86 oz (365 grams) candle wax
- 0.90 oz (26 grams) fragrance oil or essential oil
- One 6″ pre-tabbed wick
- One wick sticker or some hot glue
- 16 oz glass mason jar
Candle Making Instructions
Step 1: Measure out wax and fragrance oil
First use your kitchen scale and measure out the following:
- 12.86 oz (365 grams) wax
- 0.90 oz (26 grams) fragrance oil or essential oil
Make sure you weigh supplies with ounces and NOT fluid ounces (fl oz). They are different, and all supplies need to be measured by weight. Read more about why here.
Measure wax directly into your aluminum pitcher or measuring glass. Fragrance oil goes into a disposable cup or separate glass. Do not combine the wax and fragrance.
Step 2: Prepare double boiler
Fill the pot with water about three quarters full and place over heat. Place your aluminum pitcher or measuring glass (filled with wax) into the water and turn the heat up to bring the water to a boil.
Step 3: Prepare container(s)
While the wax is melting, use a wick sticker or some hot glue to affix the wick tab to the bottom-center of the container.
To ensure the wick stays in the middle while pouring, use clothespins to hold it in the center. Your wick doesn’t have to be perfectly centered in this step – we’ll adjust it again after pouring the wax.
If the wick sticks up a lot, don’t worry about that either. After the wax initially cools we’ll remove the clothespins and cut the wick down with a scissors.
Step 4: Remove wax from heat
As soon as some of the wax begins to melt, occasionally stir the un-melted components to encourage melting.
Do not aggressively stir because this can introduce air into the blend which may impact the final candle quality.
Monitor the temperature and remove the pitcher or measuring glass from the water once the blend reaches 185°F – 190°F (85°C – 88°C)
Make sure to stir the blend briefly before taking any temperatures to ensure an even distribution of heat.
While taking off the heat, you can carefully wipe the water off the bottom, but it’s not harmful to leave it there either. Place pitcher or measuring glass on a slightly heat resistant surface – a trivet works well if you have one.
Step 5: Add fragrance oil and color - stir for two minutes
While the wax is around 185°F, add your measured amount of fragrance oil to the blend.
If you’re adding color:
Dye: Add 3 – 5 drops of liquid dye. Make sure the dye is oil soluble (if it’s made for candles, it is oil soluble).
Color Blocks: Add 1/2 to 1 small block of color to the blend. If the supplier instructions are different, follow those instead.
The most important aspect of adding color is that there are no rules. Coloring your candles is an art with no real rules. More dye typically darkens the color.
Also keep in mind that different waxes take on color in different ways. Soy wax is milky, and will appear more muted or pastel-like compared to paraffin, which closely matches the color.
Think of it this way: paraffin is mostly clear whereas soy is a shade of white. Adding your color to clear leaves you with the color, but adding white to a color typically results in a different shade altogether!
After adding your color and fragrance, stir for two minutes to ensure the oil is well-dispersed in the blend.
Step 6: Pour wax into container
Now for the fun part! Pour your wax blend into the container at a steady rate – not too fast and not too slow. Try not to introduce too much air into the blend.
If you’re pouring more than one candle then pour roughly 75% of the candle in each and then top them off in the same order. This practice ensures you don’t accidentally over-fill one candle and inadvertently under-fill another.
Step 7: Cure candle
What most people don’t tell you about candle making is that the cooling wax needs some time to work best.
This period of time between when you poured the candle and when you first light it is called curing. Read more about curing here.
Curing allows the fragrance oil to disperse evenly in the wax blend and allows the wax to substantially harden beyond what the naked eye can see.
Generally speaking, each wax has a different recommended cure time:
- Paraffin = 72 hours
- Soy = 7 to 14 days
- Palm = 5 days
- Coconut = 5 to 10 days
- Beeswax = 7 to 10 days
Note: these cure times are merely rough recommendations. Your mileage may vary depending on your candle design.
Step 8: Enjoy!
Learn More
Candle making is a deep subject with a lot you can learn!
Using a double boiler is merely one of several options for melting down wax. You can also use a Presto Pot (deep fryer), a turkey roaster, a hot plate, or even a dedicated wax melter (yes, they do make those).
The following resources can help you learn more:
What temperature should you add fragrance oil to your candle?
How To Make Wax Melts
