How to Make Beeswax Candles

hi this is Bob and Pam with Blue Ridge honey company today we'd like to show you how we make our candles we sell quite a few of them Pamela makes them she's good at it so I'm gonna let her explain the process so we're gonna start out today by going over our supply list you will of course need your candle molds and your beeswax something to melt it in we use a wax melter here with our large production at home you'll probably want to use a turkey roaster or a double boiler both work that good and then we have our mold release spray and then we have our wicks now our wicks are always going to be square braided for the beeswax the high temperature or a melting point has to have the square braided wicks so we have a two and we have a six and they call we usually call them number two and number six but when we order them sometimes they have them on the item number as like two /oo or 6 /o so just be aware of that when you go to order some we have rubber bands we have needlenose pliers you'll see why they come in handy later we have wire cutters you can also use cuticle cutters a pair of scissors our wicking needle we have our craft sticks and bobby pins parchment paper to line to paint the table with it's great for releasing the wax if you make any kind of messes and we also have our flower cloth these are large cloths you can cut them in two squares here to put over your pouring pot this is what the inside of the candle wax melter looks like before we turn it on in the morning it usually takes around an hour so to heat up enough to start pouring candles for checking the wax temperature we use a food grade thermometer like the kind you might use for checking meat or poultry temperature we like the temperature to be around 165 degrees if the wax is too hot it will create sink holes in your candles and tiny bubbles throughout the candle pouring the wax too hot can also damage your molds if the wax is too cold it will create sink holes and you just will not have a my candle this is our big wax melter we use to melt down and filter comb cappings which we turn into blocks that we use to make our candles now we are gonna go over a demonstration of how we put our wicks in our molds and this is where the needle nose pliers come in handy so we are gonna start we're going to show you how we set it up on our bench here and it's something you can do it's a great idea if you have like if you're making them in your kitchen you can put the wicks up on your cabinets so that you know you have your wick pulled tight so it's great so you know this way and I'll show you another way as well so you're going to insert the wick into the wicking needle and into the mold then you will want it want to take these pliers and pull the wick through when you pull it through you want to make sure that you pull it through where you have enough for your wick on the other side and usually one about a quarter inch of Wick sticking out and then we are going to just hold this here while we put these rubber bands around it when you put these rubber bands around they are actually what seals the the mold so that we don't have any cracks in our mold when we make our candle and when you do this you want to be sure to line see you have the creases here you if you leave it like that you will have that in your candle and it will not be attractive so you want to make sure to line the mold up where you have you don't have any lines in it it will be you know a great candle when you get finished so then we will set it down and pull our wick up and wrap it around or if you're in your kitchen you will tape it to your kitchen cabinet or whatever you have to pull your wicks okay this way we will show you how to do it if you don't want to pull it up to your cabinet there's an easier way and this is where the craft sticks and the bobby pins come in handy okay usually if you have this this to wick we're doing anything under three inches in diameter and the six would go anything above three inches see this is three inches on the biggest part of the candle so you will want to size six week we will get that here we want a little extra on both sides some for your wicks I'm for where you're going to hold it with your bobby pin so you're going to kind of measure and put a little extra on each side [Applause] I'm gonna find your hole in your mold and pull this through again you want to line it up where you have like a quarter-inch sticking out on the bottom you have plenty of sticking out here so you something about the larger candles with a lot of detail you don't want to put them too tight or it could mess up the design of your mold so you want to make sure it's tight enough to seal it but not so tight that it miss shapes it I'm going to put that all the way up okay so if I don't want to put it on the stick or on the kitchen cabinet what I'm gonna do is I'm going to take these craft sticks and set it on the top of my mold I don't want it over the where I pour the wax in because that will make it complicated to pour but it may also put lines in your candles when you go to release them so we're going to put it on the sides of each hole and this allows it to rise up where your bobby pin is not sticking down you know where your candle your wax is going to pour too so it rate it rises it up so you have enough room in between where it will not leave that mark so you're gonna put your bobby pin on slide it tight make sure that inside the mold it's really tight and lined up in the center and you also have enough room to pour here so that's another way you can pour them at home now that the molds are set up it is time to set up our pouring cup and pour our wax and start pouring our candles so to start off we have our flour sack cloths you can get these profile pack for like five or five fifty at Walmart they're rather large this is only half of one where I've been using it so there are large cloths and they go a long way when you cut it those squares out of them and then use them over and over there really a money saver so we already have our one of our squares cut out and some people some people will take their cloth and just kind of lay it over the pouring cup and pour their wax me personally I like to take my square and make it secure I just feel better about it being that way and [Music] then we're gonna pour our wax we have checked it already at it is at the right temperature in between 155 degrees to 165 degrees and we're gonna do it this way with our melt our wax melter but if you're at home doing the turkey roaster you actually will have to dip we have a dipping Cup to pour into your pouring cup but when you will have the same effect it's a good thing about this pouring cup is we can get a lot in one one canister and we can so we can pour several large candles with doing the quantity that we need to it makes it easier for us as a large measuring cup cup will work out great for at home in the kitchen here you can see where we the wax has went through the flour cloth and we has caught a little bit of the debris even though we filter our wax the debris can still get through from time to time or you know it could be in your container so you want to make sure to always check that or have the cloth to catch the debris now we are going to use the spray this is amol relief spray you want to give a light coat in each of your molds just to make sure that all of your details will turn out really good and then the mode won't stick to your kids or wax I like just spray it in rows as I go if you're doing a few you won't might want to just give it a spray with each one that you pour now it is time to start pouring when you pour you want to pour - towards the center of the wick you don't want it on the edge it will leave a light on your candle and you don't want to pour too too fast it could cause bubbles in your candle as well as being too hot will cause sinkholes and bubbles so just steadily pour towards the center of your mold we came to the edge and stopped you do not want these to cool too fast that could also cause it to do the sinkholes now that we finish pouring the candles we are going to let them set for for about 30 to 45 minutes and come back and check on them to start the release process now we are going to release the candles and they have cooled for a little bit some of them we will not be able to release or take completely out of the mold just due to them being bigger and having more wax in them and pouring them later then we just did earlier these are the ones we started with and to release the mold you're actually going to remove the rubber bands from from the mold and you're also going to trim these bottom wicks and remember you're pouring them the top is actually at the bottom and the bottom is on the top we are going to trim it all the way to the edge of the candle you try to get as small or as close to the surface as you can and then we are going to pull the rubber bands and then you want to it will automatically be loose but if it's kind of sticking make sure you kind of pull it apart and release it from the mold and these we have the votives I took two out already you would remove this sticks that we had there then you would remove the bobby pins and then these votives are actually easier to pull right out from the bottom you have them here so after you have those out we are going to trim these wicks you can see where I didn't get this one trimmed enough so it's all crooked and not balanced so we can go back and trim it more another thing is sometimes when you have the mistakes in your candles you will want to use a hot plate to kind of smooth them over to make sure they will sit level here is another and this is all the process of releasing the candles see where it comes apart you can see where this one is actually so white and in the color and you can tell how these are already turning you know more of the natural color when it's cool the beeswax is cool and hardened so it's like when they're like this you can actually pull them out when they're like this that's a good sign that you should leave it as a mold to cool longer this one is actually ready now with it being smaller and the mold is so loose you can actually pull it out and pull it out of the mold you will gently you'll pull it apart and gently just bring it up and you have your candle and actually see you can see this one I had a little bit too much of the wig so you want to trim that one to about a quarter of an inch if you have your wait too long or too short it will not burn properly but there you have your candle we will come back in about a half an hour and start releasing and pulling the other candles from their molds you can see all the candles that we've made today they are have all been taken out of the molds except for these for you these were large and they were still too warm when I was taking them out so a trick I have learned is to get just a simple clothespin and to set it between you know increases or your splits in your molds that allows more air to get to them so they can cool a little bit faster because they were they were cool up here but down inside the mold they were still too warm to take out so this I've just learned this trick to help cool him a little bit faster and earlier we mentioned about the candles that weren't level and I'm sure you could you've noticed these this one laying over and this one kind of crooked so we have our hot plate here and here I have actually made up parts where folded parchment paper so that it pins the wax inside of it after it dries you can see how easy it is to take off and you can throw it back into your melter and reuse it so you have none wasted speaking of waste you can actually see this is my trash pile from our wigs this is the only bit of trash that I had out of the whole bench that we set up and you're asked if you if you're wondering what this is this is actually the wick you have we had them tied up you can see here when we start running out of the wick all we do is tie another one on here so we keep dragging it down and so the only thing you have is just this last bit in this tie and that's what these are and so it's wonderful the way we've designed this bench to allow us to be efficient with our materials and so now I will show you how we level our candles okay you can see how some of these candles are not dirt see how wobbly that is and how this one is laying down because it actually will not stand up if you have this problem at home use your hot plate you can actually just run the candle you can see which way it's leaning more so you want to kind of push it towards there so you want to run it along this hot plate and just kind of let it melt that side down and make your candle level and a level candle does make a difference in burning the can burning it we are going to do that and push it down on the parchment paper lift it up you have a level bottom and you can also see that it is sitting flat and is like you need it this one's a little bit worse so we're going to run it along there you have your flat your level candle now that we've finished here we are actually going to take them to the store and packaging them there and place them on the shelf now that the candles are finished we've brought them up front to be packaged and to package them we actually we use these packaging bags one we get from Uline when we get from hamper house in Atlanta we also always put these labels on them with some interesting information in the middle and always a warning label on the back and the string that we used to tie them off is their raffia you can actually purchase this at Walmart and that it wraps easily around the candle see you can see the little ones we have tied off at the top the bigger ones we tie around the middle and that is all for our candle making I hope that this video has helped you make candles at home

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Rating: 4.8667974 out of 5

Keywords: how to make beeswax candles, beeswax candle making, beeswax candles, making beeswax candles at home, making beeswax candles, beeswax candle supplies, beeswax, beeswax candle molds, diy candle making, how to make candles, what temperature to pour beeswax candles, candle wicks, candle molds, how to filter beeswax, candle making equipment, candle making business, candle making at home for beginners, making candles to sell, candle making, beeswax candle, making candles, bees wax

Id: CrZwvJ3QCOw

Length: 18min 57sec (1137 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 31 2018