I never thought I could find such a great way to make extra money in my own basement! Making and selling candles has really taken a lot of the stress out of paying bills.
Kally - Arizona
Carley - New York
Gel Candle Making 103
After you’ve selected the glassware containers,
melted and molded the gel, inserted the gel candle
wicks, and added the fragrances—the next few steps are
the final additions before your amazing gel candle batch
is ready to sell!
Add Your Color
After you’ve melted down your gel candles and added the
fragrance—you’ll wan to add the color. Before we start,
however, one important rule of thumb is (as in mixing
paints) you have to remember that you can always add
color, but you can’t ever take color out! Know
too, you will need to add your color quickly before your
gel cools. If your gel cools too quickly, all you need
to do is heat it back up and keep going. When it comes
to the actual coloring or dye, you can use either liquid
dye or a color dye block. If you’re using liquid dye,
know that a little goes a long way! If desired, you may
dribble a little bit of colored gel onto wax paper to
get a better idea of the color your have created before
you pour the gel into your container.
Embedding
After you’ve successfully added the color your
next step (if you choose it) is embedding. Embeds
are objects that are put into a gel candles to make them
unique. Basically, you can use any non-flammable object
as an embed in your gel candle. Some of the most common
embeds to choose from include:
- Glass figurines
- Marbles
- Seashells
- Pewter
- Glitter
- Wax embeds
One thing to note is that it’s easy to get carried away with embeds, and the key is to always leave enough gel for the candle to burn properly. One exception to this, however, are embeds that are actually made out of the candle wax—like fruit slice embeds. Depending on your personal taste, your specialty, and your target consumer—your best bet is to go off of what you’re good at, and then start experimenting with new methods to boost your chops up in other areas of embedding.
Decrease Bubbles In Your Gel Candles
As you may already know, the process of making gel
candles intrinsically causes bubbles naturally in the
candle; however, most candle makers want to decrease the
volume of bubbles because it affects the candles ability
to burn optimally. Though, bubbles look great in
seascapes and champagne candles but too many bubbles are
undesirable at times. Some ways to combat the natural
occurrence of bubbles (or too many bubbles) is:
- Stir slowly
- Pour slowly
- Pour at a higher temperatures
