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Candles light the fire in our soul. From using them as light, to decorating our fireplaces, they are part of our story. Candle making has been a necessary skill for a long time.
The backbone of successful candles is good note taking. Taking notes is known to have enormous benefits, but this article is focused on note-taking as a tool for your toolbox. That is, knowing what, how, and why to record certain aspects of the process. Take however much or little of this advice where it makes sense. Notes & records serve a variety of hobby or business needs.
If you’re learning this amazing trade, you’ve come to the right place to build skills necessary for success.
What To Record
Making candles is just like a food recipe. There are ingredients, temperatures, times, and techniques. “Hobby candles”, made for fun or only once, don’t really need the formal structure in record keeping and note-taking that a small business needs (unless you’re an intense type-a personality).
The following principles apply to learning the candle trade and developing formulas for your system. The System matters too, but we’ll talk about that later.
The bare minimum records your notes should include:
- Fragrance amount & type
- Dye amount & type
- Wax amount & type
- Room temperature
- Max wax temperature
- Temperature fragrance is added (“FO Temp”)
- Pour temperature
- Candle design
…which covers the basic lifecycle to create a candle. You can chart this in whatever format makes the most sense pretty easily. It’s important to note that records should reflect the actual numbers used to produce the candle, (however embarrassing they may be if you planned on a totally different measurement going in!). The truth of how accurate we are will inform us leagues more than the comfortable lies we are tempted to tell ourselves More advanced notes may include:
- Relative humidity
- Vessel temperatures
- Detailed curing conditions
You can be as detailed or digital if you want (anyone a spreadsheet lover?). Though some Makers are bougie and may insist on handwritten records.
Each of these records tells a story.
Fragrance Selection
Fragrance load is important for the obvious reason that it makes your scented candle worthwhile. If you aren’t scenting the candle, this step doesn’t apply (duh). There is a lot to a fragrance, but your record keeping doesn’t have to be tremendously detailed to be useful.
Many candle problems can be traced directly to fragrance selection. Issues with mixture quality, overload/underload, or just a lack of performance in the wax all come back to FO.
Record the following:
- Fragrance name
- Fragrance manufacturer/supplier
- Batch weight planned/used
- Math used to determine weight. Can be helpful if you’re trying new ways to calculate your weight.
- Purchase date/lot number of fragrance (extra credit!)
Dye Selection
If you’re building vibrant colored candles (or just don’t appreciate the natural milky color of some waxes), knowing how much dye to bleed in allows you to adjust later (unless you’re perfect).
Pro Tip: Scoop a small amount of melted wax (mixed with dye) from your melting pot and put it in the freezer for 5-10 minutes to see what color it’ll be when it hardens in the candle! If you scoop too much you’ll change the balance of dye:wax and this won’t be a good test anymore – use with caution.
Record the following:
- Dye name
- Dye manufacturer/supplier
- Planned amount (usually in total drops or drops/pound)
- Be consistent – is your “drops per pound” comparing just the weight of the wax? Or does the pound equal the wax plus the fragrance?
- Purchase date/lot number of dye (extra credit!)
Wax Selection
Recording everything about your wax allows you to know if your batching strategy is yielding enough wax for your application. Pretty much a check if your math matches up with your results.
Record the following:
- Wax type
- Wax manufacturer/supplier
- Planned amount
- You can also include the math used to determine this.
- Final amount
- To compare to your planned amount and see if your technique for measuring is accurate or not.
- Purchase date/lot number of wax
- There can be a lot of variances in batches from manufacturers. If your candles start coming out sideways, a change in the wax lot may be one of the reasons.
- The same wax from the same supplier can be inconsistent from lot to lot. Storage, moisture content, age, and a variety of other components can impact your candles.
Temperatures
Your temperature management plan impacts almost every characteristic of the final candle – hot throw, cold throw, appearance, performance, and more. Many candle makers spend a lot of time tuning these for a specific formula!
Record the following:
- Max wax temperature
- A key part of candle making is changing wax from a solid to a liquid to mix a bunch of fragrance and dye inside the wax before it changes back to a solid.
- This temperature ensures you exceed the melt point of the wax and prepare the molecular structure for healthy blending with any additives (such as color and scents).
- Combination points (temp you add fragrance & dye)
- Dye can be added at almost any point after the wax is melted down, though it’s recommended to add it before the fragrance is added and after the max temperature has been reached.
- The temperature fragrance is added to the wax blend is subject to a lot of opinions. Experts around the entire candle making industry will vary in this approach, from comparison to the flash points, to right before pouring. Whatever you do, record this temperature because it is something frequently tuned for better performance and curing in the candles.
- Pouring/dipping temperature
- This can make or break a candle. Also subject to a lot of criticism and industry opinions. Recording this liberates you from the noise of “what you’re supposed to do” because you’ll find what works for the System you use.
- Ambient temperatures
- Room temperature – affects rate which wax will solidify on top compared to the middle and initial cooling rate prior to pouring.
- Humidity – affects the moisture in the air which candles can be sensitive to.
- Vessel temperature – affects the rate which wax will solidify on the edges compared to the middle.
Candle Design
Everything you’re doing is supposed to become a candle when you’re done. It doesn’t hurt to record information about how the wax blend is being applied.
Many times candles fail because the wick was improperly sized. Everything else may have come together perfectly, but your combustion balance is out of whack. The number one rule of candle making is test, and the second most important rule is test again. Many people rely too much on the wick selection charts, but great candle making is founded on fantastic record keeping and a robust testing strategy.
Record the following (as applicable):
- Vessel or candle mold selection
- Wick(s) chosen
- Type & manufacturer
- Method for attachment (glue, stickers, wax)
- Size(s)
The “System”
The System refers to the characteristics of the workstation. How things are measured, what the underlying assumptions are, the tools being used, etc. It’s good to know this because small changes to the way we work can impact the final product.
Consider the anecdotal difference in changing one thing of the process: the stirring apparatus. All things equal, if the only difference between a perfect Candle A and a crappy Candle B is the change from a wooden spoon to a metal skewer, that might be the reason the candle was bad!
The difference between 185 degrees of wax in a presto pot versus 185 degrees of wax in a double boiler isn’t much (if anything), but it’s not unlikely to have candle differences attributed to a different thermometer or candle curing area.
It can be a pain to record, so do what works best for you.
Record the following:
- Identification
- A method for tracking the candles created to the records kept
- A common method is to create a batch id number and place it on the final candle to trace it back to notes
- Melting apparatus (i.e., double boiler or presto pot)
- Stirring apparatus
- Thermometer type (infrared, traditional thermometer, etc)
- Curing conditions (more below)
- location
- temperature
- controlled cure time
- final cure time
Why Records Matter
Think of this work as a laboratory – every condition to produce a candle needs to be repeatable if you ever want another candle like it (or never want a candle like it again).
You cannot improve what you cannot measure.
Every component of the process, up to and including the full burn, is a knob to tune to get the results you want. Consistent and accurate notes allow you to build an improvable and scalable candle making System. Your needs may vary depending on the context – a hobby crafter doesn’t need the intricate details a small, growing business might need.
If you’re managing a product line of any sort, notes are critical to the integrity of your brand. They capture the essence of your business. You want to provide customers with a consistent threshold of excellence built on a firm foundation of standards and processes.
A stable product line driven by a formula allows you to establish quality assurance and manufacturing best practices (which have been around for a long time for a reason). Notes are just the first scribbles towards a candles identity.
Candle making is more than a craft. It requires an understanding of Chemistry, Physics, and Thermodynamics. Not to imply other craft’s are lesser, but just to emphasize the impact science has on every candle.
Candle making is also an art. Candles have evolved from a pragmatic source of light to a beautiful piece of home decor. Lighting the wick signals the beginning of a dance between art and science to fill a home with elegance in scent and sight. The candle maker is responsible for making this happen. For delivering this special moment.
Notes allow us to repeat the successes and learn from the mistakes. They inform the greatest and the least of us how something ought to be done (or ought NOT to be done).
The notes create a formula. They tell the Genesis of a new candle. The steps to create life. The choreography for the inevitable clash of science and art for a fragrant fugue.
~ Articles To Read Next ~
How To Choose A Wick | How to build a testing strategy to choose a wick for your candle.
How Do Candles Work? | How oxygen, fuel, and heat work together to serve humble little lights. This is the best explanation of how candles work on the internet.
How Does Fragrance Work? | Scent is so tightly connected to our emotions and memories, but how does it work? Read more about the black magic of how fragrances work.
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