Candles

My (Almost) First Time Making Candles

Mar 16, 2026

Jon Holland

Estimated reading time: 5 min

It was a combination of curiosity and desire to better understand a large subset of our customers that led me to decide to try my hand at candle making. I enjoy learning about new things and was keen to give it a go. I was wary, though, as during a Christmas craft after-school club I had a rather messy experience making a solitary candle. A clumsy mistake resulted in me having to go in early and spend my breakfast and lunch times the next day cleaning wax off a workbench and stainless-steel sink. This was many years ago. For a pop-culture time reference it was around the time that Kylie and Jason’s characters in Neighbours were married. I remember this as Christmas craft club activities were paused for a time so that everyone could huddle around a television to watch. Christmas was on the horizon once more and I had decided to make some festive candles.

Not exactly sure where to start, I watched some introductory YouTube videos. Here I learnt about some of the basic equipment that I might need. As this was an experiment, I didn’t want to buy too much, but I did opt for a stainless-steel pouring jug, in which to melt the wax, and a heat-resistant thermometer.

The next stage was to buy some wax and some fragrance. After much online browsing I decided to buy a starter kit containing a bag of wax, some festive fragrance, colouring, pre-tabbed wicks, and some glass candle jars. I also had some candle tins from Tinware Direct.

Beginning the Melt

To melt the wax, one uses what is known as a double boiler setup. To avoid the wax overheating, burning or doing something worse, the wax is placed inside the pouring jug, and the jug is then placed inside a pan of simmering water. I just used one of my standard cooking saucepans.

I began by melting a small amount of wax. The starter kit instructions told me what temperature to bring it up to, at what temperature to mix in my extras, and what temperature was good for pouring it out. I added some “that should do” drops of fragrance and colouring to the liquid wax and gave it a stir and waited for the temperature to cool enough for pouring. You are supposed to carefully weigh and measure things. As a first attempt, with no concern for consistency, I didn’t do this.

Whilst waiting I prepared one of my wicks. I applied a small amount of melted wax to the underside of a wick tab. Wick tabs are metal discs used to hold the wick to the bottom of the container, with the idea being that the wax would affix the wick tab to the centre of the bottom of the jars and tins. In the videos that I watched, many candle makers used a drop of glue from a glue gun to stick the wick tabs to their candle containers. I don’t own a glue gun so went for this alternative method that I had seen suggested.

My wick stood proudly upright (almost) in my container and it was soon time to pour my small test amount of wax to make my first candle.

Ready to Pour

Everything had gone pretty smoothly, but my first problem discovery was about to occur. As I poured the runny wax into my container two things started to happen. Firstly, the once seemingly rigid wicks started to become softer, showing a desire to lean over. Secondly, the wax I had used to adhere the tab to the container began to remelt. What I hadn’t bought, and were not included in my starter kit, were wick centring tools. These lay across the top of the container and have holes in to hold the wick upright and in the middle of the candle. Whilst I did not have any, I had seen them on video and raided my kitchen drawers for anything that might do as a substitute.

As the evening went on, an eclectic mix of lollypop sticks, pens, cocktail sticks and some curious-use yellow fork things were tested, balanced precariously with a mixture of good fortune and care, and used to save the day. As the wax hardened it was possible to remove some of the items.

I had managed to successfully make one candle; now for more. Confident in my newfound skills as a master candle maker I added lots of wax to my jug and then, as it melted, I added some more. I was going to make a few candles at the same time.

I had made the rather rash and, it would soon come to light, erroneous assumption that melted wax would take up less space that solid wax. As my rather large volume of wax melted in my jug, it became increasingly full, with plenty more yet to melt. It turns out that the volume of melted wax can be around 15% greater than that of solid wax. Cups and measuring jugs were rushed in to remove some wax and melted wax to avert another Christmas craft club candle disaster. I just managed to prevent a hot wax flood, and I do mean just...

With my candle making status reset to amateur, I successfully managed to colour, scent and pour around three and a half candles. I salvaged the hastily removed wax, melted and mixed it, topped up the half candle and created one more complete candle. All topped with my custom “nobody walk anywhere near them” wick holders.

The Result

A pleasing success, all in all. My first small collection of orange, festive scented candles. Some in metal candle tins, and others in glass. One of my orange candles was taken along as part of a photoshoot. The others were given as gifts or sit as small trophies in my lounge.

What with the emergency flood rescue vessels, I had more to clean than I had anticipated but much better than my last attempt all those years ago. Overall, it was a very enjoyable time and learning experience, and I do plan on making some more.