Making Candles

 I finally got around to making candles again. I love to reuse the wax I accumulate, and I buy new scents to add to them each time. I have small plastic bowls that, once filled, hold enough wax to make the perfect candle. Melted, I pour that wax into a baker's quarter sheet, and when it's trying to solidify, I roll that up around a wick. 

A while back, my son gave me a bunch of white candles. You know the kind. You can easily find them on the shelf. They were 3 or 4 inches across and a couple were maybe 8 or 10 inches tall and the rest were like 4 inches tall. They burned just fine, but I worried about the drip because I didn't have a dish that would fit them. At any rate, I decided to just melt them down and the next time I made candles, I'd turn them into the kind of candle I like. 

That day finally arrived.

So I started by counting my little bricks of wax and cutting 31 wicks, then I thought I'd start with that pretty white wax. Now that was a mess. 

As it turns out, those candles were dripless candles, and dripless candles have an additive that makes them melt at a higher temperature. I had to look that up. That also meant that the wax was more brittle. I tried mixing it at half and half with some of my older wax, but that wasn't good enough. I had almost given up on that white wax, but I've been using I/3 white wax along with 1 whole old wax brick. It's been harder to roll that candle because there's more wax and it will cool on the bottom and top and still be mush in the middle. I've managed. The first couple candles are kind of ugly, but they're still usable. 

My older wax was starting to look a little muddy, but now, with some white mixed in, they're a nicer color. So far I have 3 greens, 2 light reds, 2 bronze, and a brown. 

Since each candle is the volume of 1.3, the resulting candle is thicker and barely fits in my candle holder. hahaha Also, I have 9 finished, and 10 more to go. That will leave some of that harder wax left over for the next round of candle-making. 

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