Soy Wax Candle Making

Yesterday Linda, her sister-in-law Tracey, Phillipa and I attended a soy wax candle making workshop at our local family community centre. Kym came along to play crèche nanny for us, which was super lovely of her. The course was run by another girl in our playgroup session, Kylie.

Jugs of wax waiting to be melted

The first thing we had to do was measure and melt our wax. This took AGES. Infact, the melting took probably as long as the rest of the process altogether.

Linda sticking her wick into her jar

The "first round" of candles we made were a gorgeous lidded jar and a maxi light (as opposed to a tea light.. it will apparently burn for around 12 hours).  While we waited for the wax to melt, Kylie showed us how to stick our wicks into our jars, and showed us our colour and fragrance options.

My prepared jars and my essential oil blend (from home)

Kylie demonstrating how to check the temperature

 There were two ways to add colour: liquid concentrate and solid colour blocks that you grate/shave in. Linda went with the liquid concentrate and boy was it concentrated! She used a single drop and she had the most gorgeous, vibrant magenta while Phillipa and I shaved a tiny amount of solid colour into ours and got lovely pastel shades. As for fragrance, Linda chose "Dragon's Blood", Phillipa used a combination of Citronella & Sweet Orange essential oils and I had brought an essential oil blend that my MIL makes called "Peace" which has Patchouli, Lime and Peru Balsam.

Phillipa's first candles

Linda's first candles (She had a bit of extra leftover wax and needed more containers!)

Phillipa shaving colour into her wax

The "second round" candle we made was a frosted square open topped jar. Linda went with a vibrant teal colour, and I think Egyptian Musk fragrance. Phillipa and I both used ultramarine solid colour, with Phillipa going with Grapefruit & Lime fragrance while I went with Sweet Orange essential oil. Funnily enough, all three of us had very similar coloured candles... completely unplanned I might add!

Waiting for my last lot of wax to melt, jar & essential oils prepped.

Some of the other girls (including Linda & Tracey) arranged to purchase supplies to take home so that they could reinforce what they'd learnt at the workshop, but I opted to make another candle at the workshop because we had some extra time. I used the rest of my "Peace" blend, topped up with some Sweet Orange essential oil, but no colour in a gorgeous square lidded jar.

Linda's completed candles

Phillipa's completed candles

My completed candles (minus one maxi light that I gave to Kym)

 As a special thank you for minding the kids I gave Kym one of the maxi lights I made. Overall, we had a great time.. so much so that we're thinking of getting Kylie to bring some supplies up to playgroup before the school holidays so that we can have a holiday playdate to make some more candles as Christmas presents (and some for us, of course!).

And as an added bonus, the soy wax candles made our hands, the car and our houses smell lovely! Now I just need to arrange a romantic, candle lit dinner with my husband as an excuse to light one.