Recycling Old Candles

inishindie

We have a lot of candles this year. Candles give off a lovely warm glow and add a bit of cosiness to the long winter evenings. Most of them burn fairly well for the first few times bit they can get very messy and irregularly shaped, which makes them a bit dangerous to burn. This year we decided to recycle them into new candles and the result has been very successful. When soap bars get too small to use they can be compressed together to make a new bar, candles can be re-used in much the same way but instead of pressing them together we melted the wax. The whole affair proved to be a bit messier than we thought, but this shouldn’t put you off. We found an old saucepan and popped in all of the old candles then put them on the Parkray to melt slowly. We then used an old Pringles tube as a mould and used old string from a yo-yo as the wick that was held in place by a pencil resting on the top of the tube. I was very careful to tell the children to be careful, as hot wax is both dangerous and messy. As I was doing this I managed to spill the liquid on the cooker and also as I poured out the wax into the mould I spilled it all over the kitchen table. The washing up bowl has a ring of wax around it that I can’t get off and I have wax splats on my jumper and trousers. But I don’t care because we have this great big, tube shaped, red candle taking pride of place on the mantelpiece!

Marksie

thats how i started making candles and now its a sideline business.

ONe thing
never ever directly heat candlewax, it can catch fire.
ALWAYS use a double boiler system (bain marie)

THe standards string can smoke quite a bit.

You can get braided wicking online cheaply enough and you can also use all sorts of containers..yogurt pots for one off moulds.

If you metl wax of one colour, pour it into an old tray and when firm, cut into chunks.
PLace in the wicked mould and then pour wax of another colour over. Nice effect.

If you want to colour, then use crayons.

MsFifers

I presume it would be safe to add essential oils to the melted wax for fragranced candles?

Any idea how much to add?

Marksie

MsFifers wrote: »

I presume it would be safe to add essential oils to the melted wax for fragranced candles?

Any idea how much to add?

Yes it would :-) I am actually looking at that for making container candles myself and was talking to the aromatherapy guy at the RDS.
he was very forthcoming actually and didnt see me as competition.
He said a concentration of 1.5 to 3% would give the best throw but that depended on the quality of the oil and the wax used.

If you are recycling old ones you may not get the best burn at all so may waste a lot of aromatherapy oils.

Could i suggest lighting the candle and once the melt pool is going, add a few drops of oil to that, taking care not to let it near the flame?

gerky

Sorry I'm kinda piggybacking here,

Marksie do you mind me asking is this hard to get in to.
Did you do a course or just pick it up as you went along.

Marksie

Just googled on the basics and someone bought me a whole kit to play with.
Then practiced and got a book or two from the library. The knowledge of wicking and additives etc. was very useful

It sorta developed as i got better.

I ebayed for moulds and the like and came up with ideas.

I have been asked to give demos but insurance over here preculdes me showing people how to. Plus it takes a long time to melt and pour.

Its one of the issues that rankles, and i think a lot of craft people say the same, in that i spent 3 months perfecting a particular style of candle, making sure that everything burns right and the finish is good and someone says oh i can get those cheaper at dunnes or that they are too expensive.

*shrug* Rant over.

It depends what you want to do. Theer is no one who supplies in ireland and craft shops are really expensive in the small stuff.

So I have to buy in from europe and the states. It in the end is much cheaper and there is a wider selection.

Its hard to get decent photos but i posted some on this thread:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=53318677&postcount=137

Gives you some idea of what can be achieved with a bit of thought work. PLUS there are great silicone moulds out there whihc give a very intricate design indeed.

gerky

Thanks for the information Marksie.

netanyahu

those candles are gorgeous Marksie, especially love the purple ones in the first picture! The horoscope ones quite tickle my fancy also . Nice work!

peeps

they look lovely.
you should check out etsy.com , its a great site for crafters to sell their stuff online, its mostly americans but its catching on over here too.

Marksie

tnxs :-)

Aard

Wow Mark, those candles are great!


I have a little question. You mentioned people saying that they can get them cheaper in Dunnes, but have you found that people are willing to spend more on a product which has been handmade, as opposed to the mass-produced generic candle? And is it easy to get a business going where there is that bit of a 'luxury' element that requires higher prices? Thanks for any info you've got.

Marksie

Aard wrote: »

Wow Mark, those candles are great!


I have a little question. You mentioned people saying that they can get them cheaper in Dunnes, but have you found that people are willing to spend more on a product which has been handmade, as opposed to the mass-produced generic candle? And is it easy to get a business going where there is that bit of a 'luxury' element that requires higher prices? Thanks for any info you've got.

It seems to be dependent on location. The rds was great people were appreciative.
But some of the local fairs it was a case of them really haggling and complaining over 2 or 3 euro and would say not worth it.
The oval ones were going for a tenner, but one guy was bitching and carping that they were only worth two for a tenner.
In the end the person helping me turned and said thats the difference between brown thomas and penneys, godbye lol.