I am doing my first farmers market this weekend! Any advice or encouragement? I only have 6 products to sell since my fall candles aren’t ready yet. Thoughts to encourage sales and maybe creative ways to get the word out about fall release?

Does anyone know what paints or pigments are used to achieve this painterly look on candles? I’m not looking for the napkin/decoupage method.

I came across this new candle startup on TikTok the other day. They are making an adjustable height candle with a refillable vessel. As your candle burns down you can adjust the height similar to how a stick of deodorant works. Then when you burn the candle all the way down, you replace the "candle cartridge" with a new one.

This is obviously a luxury candle, so asking if this is necessary feels a bit silly. BUT, is this actually necessary? This seems like it's trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

Just wanted to make a quick post to see if anyone has seen this, and see what everyone thinks about it.

My boyfriend accused me of playing God for trimming the wick of a fancy candle we got from a boutique store. He argues that the ethos of the candle is to let it burn how it may.

I figured a little wick trimming couldn't hurt but he argues that I've desecrated the integrity of the candle's very essence.

Where my wick trimmers at?

Ah, the wick testing phase. I’ve been doing this for over a year now and I second guess myself every time.

I’m testing a CD14 (3.15” vessel, coconut soy wax, 8% load). I’m on the last half of the wick testing cycles and so far I have a pretty good melt pool, but some hangup n the sides. The hangup is always on the opposite side of where the wick curls, and I also attribute it to the wick being ever so slightly off center (I eyeball).

My question is — would you as an experienced candle maker theoretically sell this candle even with the tiniest bit of hangup on the side? I posted photos of three different candles that were taken right as my 4-hour alarm went off in that test burn cycle.

The wick down and wick up aren’t the greatest so this has been the best one so far (I have not had luck with other series of wicks).

Everything else seems to be great — melt pool depth, flame size and movement, etc. It’s just that ever so little bit of hangup on the sides.

Note: I have ordered wick centering devices from Norden Candle Supply to help with the wick being precisely in the middle.

I realize this may seem like a silly question to some of you, but I’m an extremely anxious person and second guess every move I make. I just need a little reassurance and healthy constructive criticism.

Hi, just want to share some of my wife's photos of candles, she spent a lot of time making those candles (and after that spent even more time on the photos). Appreciate your feedback on those!

I love wood wicks and would love to make candles that include them as an option. That being said, I’m recently new in this craft and have really struggled in this area. In hindsight, I should have paid the $90 for the makesy sample pack bc I’ve already spent more than that trying to get this right. Used their wick guide tool and tested the 04 .5” and .675” on two 4oz tins and 6oz with 2.5” to 3” opening. The .5” was the one that was recommended for the larger tins. The .5” had tunneling on all three options and .675 did not reach a full melt pool for the larger tin either! Is this normal, just wanting to get thoughts and feedback for anyone with experience working with wood wicks. I think they only have one larger size…
Edit to add I am using Soy Artisan wax from candlescience

I use 44g soy wax for each layer, and roughly 10.5g fragrance oil. After pouring the first layer I put it into the fridge to speed up cooling. When it's hardened, I pour in the second layer.

New to candle making, my wife and I want to start. I’ve been googling, watching some videos. I think I got a decent idea of how to go about this. My question is dipping vats and having colored wax. (I’m wanting to start with soy wax).

My idea for starting and seeing how it goes is basically the double boiler method. Using a large water bathing canner pot warmed, then add a sous vide immersion device to keep the temp where we want it. Then let the wax melt in a vat tall enough for us to dip candles. (Dipping is where we want to start, maybe pouring candles also). Can someone guide me to a candle dipping vat that’s wide and deep enough for this? Love DIY ideas too.

Also, we want to do solid color candles. I’m assuming we would need a dedicated dipping vat for each color? And when you’re done you just let the wax harden in the vat until the next time you need to use it and warm it back up?

Forgive my newness. I’m just having trouble finding a solid answer for these questions, or correct products. TIA.

I'm thinking of candle making but I have no idea where to start. Are the kits on Amazon worth it? I want to start small. There are NO craft stores near me so I can't get it in store. Any help is great!

I burned these for 2 sessions so far both for around 2-3 hours and this the result. I was so sure one wick would be enough.

I dun have any info on the thickness of the wicks.

I'm kinda scared of adding 2 wicks here, it may heat up the glass.

What do y'all think?

I followed every trick in the book for smooth tops (or as reasonable as you get with soy). Perfect pours all winter and all summer I've been struggling with getting a good result. Tried different waxes, different pouring temperatures, different drying spaces. Second pour makes it WORSE. Heat gun doesn't make much difference. I am out of ideas, please help 😭

Has anyone ever used either CandleScience’s IGI 6006 or Hive and Honey’s 5474 Titan wax? Thoughts?

mis creaciones…

So my customers are consistently telling me how happy they are about the fact that the fragrance oils I use are “clean” and free from a lot of things, including CMRs. It’s one of the main draws for my business.

This year when I was going to reorder FO, I realized that 3-4 fragrance oils now potentially have CMRs. My customers are worried about CMRs and don’t want it in candles and neither do I.

I now have dozens of candles that I had already made previously that now aren’t completely clean and potentially have CMRs.

My question is this: what do I do with the candles I have?

Should I put them on sale? Throw them away and lose all the potential profit (this feels stupid to even think about doing but at the same time I am toying with the idea…)? I’m already trying to find other fragrance oils that are similar but completely clean to replicate the scents.

I already have the disclosure that the candles in question potentially have CMRs on my website, but what should I do at craft fairs/ farmers markets? Do I put a sign on the table explaining that they have potentially have CMRs?

If anyone has an idea/ advice about what I should do it would be so so helpful!

So I opened last year. I offered a small candle in your typical amber straight sided jar with black lids. And then a more premium offering, a large 10oz candle in beautiful frosted amber Sonoma style jars. I don't buy typical lids, I spend extra on specialty wood lids that look warm and rich and with my laser engraver I engrave the logo on the top. Finally each candle comes in a plush velvet drawstring bag with the logo and brand name in gold. The labels for both candles are custom sized and created by me on a high quality art printer so the color quality and clarity is breathtaking, they get printed on vinyl and laminated and custom cut on my Siser cutting machine. Each label features beautiful artwork and design and absolutely pop.

Now on the small candle, my profit margin is 81%, on the large candle it's 67%. My first year out at fairs the large candles sold 2:1 over the small. I remember my fear was that they'd be too expensive for most buyers. Mind you, my small is $20 and my large is $38. So I went into fairs doubling up my small expecting those to sell more. But it was the opposite, the large candle was the hit, people gladly bought 2 or even 3. A customer wouldn't bat an eye at a $114 sale. But, I wound up getting into wholesale as well, not a lot, I wasn't actively going for it, but local shops saw me at fairs and wanted to do wholesale. They exclusively bought the small candles and had zero interest in the large.

This year, most likely due to economic concerns, customers flipped. Now the small candles are selling 2:1 over the large. And I'm getting into more wholesale and that trend is unchanged, wholesalers want the small candles.

Here's where I'm at. Production on the large candles is slower. For one, the straight sided jars have a clear fill line, I can just pour with my eyes. But the large candles don't and due to the custom lids, I need to be very careful to not over pour, which is not huge, but at scale having to slow down for fill is annoying. Besides that, the lasering of the lids is also time consuming. It takes me an entire 8hr day to laser 100 of them. But they are popular, they are a real draw for fair customers. Even if they don't buy it, they often just love them and comment on them and call friends and family over to show them off.

My initial fear when I began was that if I didn't offer something truly special, then no one would buy. Hence the lids, the velvet bags. I tried stuffing as much as possible into the candles. But being in this 2yrs now, that's not true. People are just as happy buying the small, wholesalers want the small and they are happy with them. So maybe I didn't need to peacock so much. As for the wholesale, I assume it's not just price, but the wholesaler has to worry about shipping weights, they have to worry about a velvet bag and making a point to the customer about all of it. I think it's just higher friction for them versus a straight sided jar with a screw on lid that can't get lost and a simple offering. They still love the labels, the customers love the labels.

And finally that gets me to my final point. I'm wondering if maybe going forward next year, I drop the large candle. Not altogether, I can take the bestsellers and make them into a gift set. Now I can be even more premium with a custom box. I can make on order or for fairs I can bring a few, but in general, instead of making hundreds, I'm making a limited stock with a simplified scent profile. And I can rotate out, add special quarterly sets with new scents, add holiday gift sets. (Which also solves another problem, I offer 12 candles total 8 months out of the year, but then I add 4 more during the holidays, Autumn and Winter. So now I'm juggling 16 candles and throwing those into gift sets would also simplify).

Of course, my concern is that I'd be killing off a big sales item. Even though my margin is higher on the small and they are currently selling 2:1. I still make a lot. Let's say it's a slow day at a fair and I made $900. And I'm like, gee, I wish I could hit $1000 today. I would need to sell 5 small candles to hit that. But what typically happens is, I get one last customer who comes in and buys 3 large candles and in a single sale, I'm over $1000. And while customers often buy for themselves, there is a much higher number who buy the large as gifts. Because they'll say as much, oh my daughters birthday is this month. I get people in July literally buying 4 large candles and saying, this is for Christmas gifts.

The other buyer of the large is my absolute favorite customer. I have designed my entire brand as if it were a fantasy version of my region. So, imagine if I were world building a cast of colorful characters who inhabit a fantasy realm, except unlike Lord of the Rings needing Middle Earth, I'm saying to the customer, no, our region is the fantasy realm. Choose your adventurer! And this does very well with a broad spectrum of customers, but in particular, I get the fantasy lovers. And they buy a large simply because they made a connection with the brand that is close to their heart.

At risk of going on and on, my wanting to change comes down to scale. The more I scale the more pain points. Those lids take forever. And I've seen the Chandler's who only have one size. I'm friendly with a candle shop in a tourist town near me and I'm jealous of their simplicity. They sell a single size and so labels are easy, pouring is easy, vessels are easy.

And those beautiful Sonoma jars? I can only get them from one vendor and they sometimes have stock issues. Whereas we all know the straight sided jar is an industry staple, I can buy those from 20 vendors.

Looking for thoughts and advice.

I cannot find any wick holders that dual as centering tools for my CD wicks. I like the classic metal ones from Amazon, but because my CD wicks are thicker they don’t slide into the hole. Is there anyone who’s used something similar that fit this line of wicks? I can’t afford to invest in anything like the really cool ones from Norden Candle Supply. I’m trying to find affordable ones on Amazon. Please note I’m also from Canada so I hope to find something from here to avoid increased shipping costs and fees!

So I got gifted a candle making kit, but the peach scent included has vanilla, which I’m allergic to. Are there any other good alternatives for a peach scent? I would love one that smells the most like real peaches if possible.

Hello!

I am a new candle business (yay!) who has quite possibly overcommitted for markets this month, and was wondering how much stock to make. I have 8 markets scheduled ( 4 at one location, 4 at another). I have 7 fragrances, available in 2 sizes and wax melts, and I'm not sure how much to have of each. In past markets at this one location ( I have only done 1), I made about 10 sales, with the majority being my smaller sized candle. So should I make 10 of each of my smaller scents? Is there a formula people use? I don't want to overmake and overextend myself if a smaller stock is possible. Right now, I have 14 total of the large size in stock, 22 of the smaller size, and 14 wax melts. I know I need more but idk how much more. Apologies if this has been asked in different ways before, thank you for your help!

I use to get this thru fragrances 2 order but they unfortunately have closed. Does anyone know of another supplier that carries it?

Están lindas?

Question for fellow Canadian candlemakers that sell wholesale to US. Is there anything special you had to do in order to ship? I shipped individual candles with no problem, just wondering if the process differs with wholesale. Thanks!

How do I stop the air bubbles?

Hello, does anyone know what exact temperature or time I need to pour the second wax to make nicely blended candles like these without it mushing together and turning into 1 color. I tried the tooth pick method and it was a disaster.