Candle Ingredient Selection: How to Create the Perfect Candle

The art of candle making involves countless ingredient combinations at your disposal, meant to design your ideal scented candle. As a candle maker, you hold the power to curate a fragrance that perfectly aligns with your brand's essence. Let's break down the process of selecting the essential components of candle creation: the vessel, wax, wick, and fragrance.

Vessels, Pick One 

When first starting a candle business, the best way to simplify your process is to pick one vessel. There are thousands of styles, but the primary deciding factors are safety, size, style, and price. Ask yourself: Can I use this type of vessel for safe candle burning? Do I want to use smaller vessels or larger jars for my first set of candles? Keep in mind, surface area affects the hot throw, which determines how far you can smell the fragrance when it’s burning. Glass, tin, ceramic, or cement? Straight-sided or uniquely shaped? The possibilities are endless, so try to pick one to start with. Are you looking to make a more affordable candle or a luxury one? Choose wisely as your vessel can be one of the costliest components of your overall cost of goods.

Wax

After you pick a vessel, the next thing to determine is wax. Are you aiming for traditionally strong performance? Then you may want to pick paraffin or a paraffin blend. If you prefer trendier, more “natural” ingredients, then soy, coconut, olive oil, or beeswax might be your choice. Wax type will have a significant impact on hot throw and price point—two aspects your potential customers care about the most. 

Also note that different waxes have different cure times (how long before oils have fully bonded to the wax). I recommend starting with small quantities of a few wax types (around 5 pounds each) and experimenting with the same fragrance oils in the same vessel, only changing the wax. This allows you to test throw and have the ease of working with each wax type. 

Wicks

Test, test, test. Wick testing is the hardest part of candle making. It can take months to find the right wick/wax/fragrance combo. Each fragrance blend can perform differently with the same wick. Try to stick to one type of wick to start—cotton, zinc, or wood—but then you will have to test various sizes within that type. Be patient and know that this is the biggest struggle for even experienced candle makers.

Fragrance

To me, this is the most fun component. I love blending oils and creating truly unique fragrances. Think about whether you want to use all-natural essential oils or synthetic fragrance oils. If you want to keep it simple, buy a sample pack of oils from one of the many candle supply companies out there, and choose one that you love. Buy it in a larger quantity (8-16 oz) and start experimenting with wick combinations after you have nailed down the wax type.

Once you’ve done all this experimenting, after a few weeks (or more likely months), you will find your one perfect candle. Then you can start the process all over again for your next scent! If you have any starter tips I missed, feel free to leave comments below.