Natural Candle Making

There’s something so captivating about staring into a flame and enjoying the ambience of soft candlelight and a calming scent. Candles make gorgeous gifts and are a favourite for most people. Learn how to make handy travel candles and delightful massage candles for loved ones in this latest installment of the DIY Gifting Guide. These candles are made from natural beeswax or vegan wax, with only natural fragrances and no paraffin.

What To Use As Candle Molds

Use pretty little glass jars or classic silver or black tins as your candle molds - these are light and easily portable and make great stocking fillers and gifts. For decor, use a reclaimed teacup, recycled vintage tin or any other upcycled container.

We stock a range of tins and glass jars - try the 50ml or 100ml silver tins for travel candles and the 200ml glass jars for the massage candles. Place in a little box or stick on a custom label and some ribbon for the perfect gift.

How To Work Out How Much Wax You'll Need

Working out how much wax you will need for your container is a matter of using a wax calculator (you can find one on the internet), or else you can fill the container with water and the weight of the water is roughly how much beeswax wax you will need.

For soy wax, you will need twice the volume of unmelted wax flakes as fits your containers. You can take the container/s you have chosen and fill with soy flakes and then repeat. For example if all your candle containers are the same size and you are making 4 candles you will you will need to melt about 8 container fulls of soy wax flakes.

DIY Candle Scents

For fragrances try citronella, spirit lifter blend, stress relief blend, lavender, lemongrass, ylang ylang, sweet orange, jasmine, sandalwood or any of your favourite essential oils. Use about 6-10% of fragrance, depending on your scent preference.

Basic Candle Recipe

• Beeswax or use the following vegan options: soy wax, candelilla wax or carnauba wax
• Approx 6 - 10% essential oil for fragrance
• Wicks
• Glass jar, tin or upcycled container

Method:

1. Melt the wax slowly.
2. Dip the stabiliser part of the wick in wax and fix it to the bottom of your jar.
3. Add your essential oil to the melted wax.
4. Hold the wick up (it may be handy to tie the string to a pencil and rest it across the mouth of the jar) and pour the wax into the jar.
5. Let it set overnight then trim the wick and you have a gorgeous handmade candle!

Try a spicy cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and sweet orange combination for your dinner table, or citronella and herbs to keep the bugs away from the braai.

Portable Citronella Candle

• 100g beeswax or use the following vegan options: soy wax, candelilla wax or carnauba wax
• 7 drops citronella 3 drops eucalyptus 4 drops lemongrass 5 drops basil 5 drops thyme 5 drops rosemary 5 drops peppermint
• Wicks
• Glass jar, tin or upcycled container

Method:

1. Melt the wax slowly.
2. Dip the stabiliser part of the wick in wax and fix it to the bottom of your jar.
3. Add your essential oils to the melted wax.
4. Hold the wick up (it may be handy to tie the string to a pencil and rest it across the mouth of the jar) and pour the wax into the jar.
5. Leave to set.