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SCENT HAS BEEN AN IMPORTANT ELEMENT THROUGHOUT THE LONG HISTORY OF CANDLE MAKING.

HEAT RELEASES fragrance. That’s obvious when you stand in the herb garden on a warm afternoon and breathe deeply, or wander through the kitchen when herbs are simmering in a pot on the stove and the aroma is tantalizing. ­Another way to enjoy the relationship between herbs and warmth and fragrance is to bring your herbs close to a flame by incorporating them into candles.

The mood created by candlelight is enhanced beautifully by the gentle hint of scent that an herbal candle sends forth. Whether it accompanies the cup of tea you sip at the end of a hectic day or confers an intimate ambience at the dinner table, a candle can soften the edges of your day. You’ll find many uses for handcrafted candles that use herbs for both scent and decoration, and they make thoughtful gifts. Fortunately, they’re easy and fun to make.

Refer to the instructions on page 64 for “How to Make a Candle”. Herbs and flowers can be used to dye the wax with rich and subtle earthy colors as described in Jo Lohmolder’s “Naturally Colored Candles” (October/ November 1989). This time, however, we used herbs and essential oils to embellish and scent candles, and we opted for an easier dye method or left the wax undyed, letting it dry to white with a glossy, translucent finish. Here are a few ideas to get you started on herbal candle making.

Scent

Scent has been an important element throughout the long history of candle making. Scented candles were often associated with religious ceremonies, and when the Roman emperor Constantine the Great built the first church of Christendom, he ordered that scented wax candles be kept burning there continually. Perfumed ­candles set into glass fixtures were a hallmark of upper-class homes in eighteenth-century Georgian England. The New World provided its own variations on the scented candle, intro­ducing an excellent candle-making material, bayberry. Today, a simple, fragrant candle in a soft, natural color and a graceful shape is still beautiful and functional.

Adding scent to a candle can be accomplished in several ways. Because everyone reacts differently to scent, do experiment to find the degree of fragrance that pleases you most. For the strongest scent, use more than one of the following techniques.

• Infuse fresh herbs in melted wax. Heat the wax to pouring temperature (180°F for most candle waxes), and add strongly scented herbs such as rosemary, lavender, or lemon verbena. Maintain this temperature for about 45 minutes, then strain the wax, which will give off a mild fragrance. Never leave any wax unattended on a stove or other cooker.

• Soak the wick in a small amount of essential oil before placing it in the mold. This will give the candle a very mild fragrance when lit.

• Add a small amount of essential oil to the wax just before it is poured: a few drops for a small candle, no more than 1/4 teaspoon for one pound of wax. Stir well to distribute the oil throughout the wax so that it will not leave spots of discoloration, then immediately pour it into prepared molds.

Using one or more of these methods will produce a scent that is seldom overpowering, even for people who are sensitive to fragrance. Commercial candle scents tend to be much stronger. If you use one of these, start with about half the amount recommended on the package to ensure that the fragrance of your finished candle isn’t overpowering or distracting.

Fragrance is ephemeral. If you’ve added scent to the wax itself or infused it with fresh herbs, the fragrance on the candle surface that is exposed to air will dissipate, but the scent within the wax will be released when the candle burns. Storing a scented candle in a closed container will prolong its fragrance. An easy way to scent any ­finished candle, handmade, store-bought, or one that has lost its scent over time, is to light it, then add a drop or two of essential oil to the pool of wax that forms close to the wick. The flame will diffuse the fragrance.

Give some thought to matching the scent to an appropriate color so that the effect isn’t jarring. People don’t expect a vanilla scent, for example, from a green candle. When choosing a fragrance, take into account the scent of the wax itself. Paraffin, the most common candle wax, is odorless, but beeswax has a pleasant honey scent. Herbs blend beautifully with beeswax used alone or combined with paraffin; if you choose to scent it further, use oils that complement its natural fragrance and its pale amber color.

PERFUMED ­CANDLES SET INTO GLASS FIXTURES WERE A HALLMARK OF UPPER-CLASS HOMES IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY GEORGIAN ENGLAND.

Design

Herbal leaf shapes and flower forms offer an abundance of decorating possibilities. Herbs can go on, in, and around candles in many creative ways, and experimentation is the fun part. If you don’t like what you end up with, melt it down, strain the wax if necessary, and start again.

Embed a dried leaf or sprig inside a candle so that it shows through the wax with interestingly subtle, sometimes eerie effects. Using dried material (a few seconds in the microwave is all it takes) is important to prevent mildew. Place the leaves close to the candle’s surface so that they may be seen but not close enough to the wick that they can catch fire. Use the following method to anchor them in place.

Pour melted wax into the mold. When the outside has set to a thickness of about 1/8 inch, pour the liquid wax back into the container you’re using for the hot wax, leaving just a shell of hardened wax in the mold. Position the leaves where you want them. With a knife or ice pick, cut chunks from wax of the same color and pile them in the center of the mold against the leaves to hold them in place. Fill the mold with melted wax to the desired depth. Using chunks of wax different in color from that of the shell will cause dark or light spots that will show through to the outside. If you have melted all of your wax to color it, you’ll need to let some of it reharden so that you can make chunks of it.

Emboss a leaf or flower onto the surface of a candle after it has cooled and been removed from the mold. Herbs and flowers for this purpose need to be pressed and dried for a few days in a flower press or substitute, such as a thick phone book. Arrange the pressed leaves on your work surface, then dab them with a bit of white glue or hot wax and position them on the candle, pressing them onto the surface until the glue dries or the wax hardens and they are held firmly in place. Coat the design with a thin layer of wax to hold the herbs in place permanently and to keep them from being scuffed or broken. There are various ways to do this.

The simplest way is to paint hot wax onto the candle surface until the herbs are completely coated. To produce a flatter, smoother surface, you can dip the entire candle by its wick for a few seconds in melted wax up to its upper edge. Don’t fill the wax container to the top because as you dip the candle it will displace its volume in wax and the level will rise; experiment to find out how much wax it takes, and use a double boiler so that any overflow will go into the water.

If you don’t have enough leftover wax to dip the entire candle, try putting a smaller amount of wax into a container of hot water; the wax will float to the surface. Dip the candle into the wax-covered water. The candle will pick up the surface wax as you pull it out slowly. Watch for water bubbles, and smooth them out or redip if necessary.

Adding crushed dried herbs to the wax just before you pour will give the finished candle an interesting mottled look. Use loose dried leaves of an herb such as rosemary, matching the herb to an essential oil added to the wax for scent. The crushed herbs or leaves will tend to drift toward the bottom of the candle, creating a lovely effect, particularly with homemade molds such as milk cartons in which the mold and finished candle have the same orientation.

how to make a candle

Materials
Candle wax
Stearic acid (optional)
Molds
Cloth
Nonstick cooking spray
Crayons or wax color buds
Essential oils or candle scent (optional)
Wicking of a size appropriate to your molds
Candy thermometer
Electric deep fryer or slow cooker or a double boiler (coffee can for wax, set into a larger pan of water)
Ice pick or knitting needle

About the materials: Candle waxes are available with different melting points and optimum pouring temperatures; follow the directions that come with the wax you buy. The pouring temperature for most paraffin is between 170° and 190°F. Stearic acid acts as a hardening agent, which is important for dipped tapers but less so for molded candles; adding up to 2 tablespoons per pound of wax will produce a candle that drips less.

Metal and plastic candle molds are relatively inexpensive, but you may also use containers that you find around the house, such as milk cartons and bowls. Secondhand candle molds can often be found at garage sales and flea markets, but avoid metal molds that have dents that would make removing the candle impossible. Crayons are a good, intense source of color for candles, as are the color buds available at craft stores. To judge what your final color will be, drop a teaspoon of the melted wax into a saucepan of cold water. It will set immediately. The color of the sample will be slightly lighter and less opaque than that of the finished candle.

Wax that comes into contact with an open flame can flash into fire. Using a double boiler (or improvising one from a coffee can in a saucepan of water) to eliminate this danger is a standard precaution, but we received another sensible recommendation from Jean Miles, of Candlecraft Designs, a professional candle maker in Fort Collins, Colorado: buy a used electric deep fryer or slow cooker at a garage sale or flea market. Jean uses hers for candles she makes at home and for candle-making demonstrations. Because the heating element is enclosed, there is less risk of wax catching fire. Choose an appliance that has a variable heating control, she says, not just a high-low setting. But whether you use a double boiler or an electric fryer, you still need a thermometer to determine when the wax reaches pouring temperature.

Instructions: Prepare each mold by wiping the inside with a cloth that has been sprayed with nonstick cooking spray; this will ensure that the candle comes out of the mold easily. (If you are using containers such as milk cartons that can be peeled off, skip this step.) Place the wicking securely in the mold. If using a milk carton, coat the wicking with wax so that it dries straight, then wrap the end around a pencil laid across the top of the carton and let the wick hang down in the center of the candle.

Melt the wax (and stearic acid and crayon or wax color buds, if desired) and stir. Bring it to the recommended pouring temperature, add scent if desired, and stir again. Pour the wax into the mold to the desired height. As the wax cools, the top (which becomes the bottom of the finished candle when you use a commercial mold) will shrink and develop a hollow. With an ice pick or knitting needle, poke through the surface a few times to eliminate any air pockets, then fill the depression with more wax. You may need to repeat this step several times, depending on the size of your candle, to level off the top.

Leave the candle in the mold for twelve to twenty-four hours to cool and harden completely before removing it.