So I've Tried Candle-Making...

You have probably witnessed my baking on Facebook and in the 'Feast' tab. You have probably seen my book reviews and from time to time, my movie reviews. You have witnessed my poor attempts at poetry and my weirdly fragmented fictions. Now, witness my strangest side-quest: candle-making. I'm not sure why I took this up but it's warming and there's nice smells going on - like when I bake. So you can probably tell why I like doing these things. I've still got some stuff planned for 2026 and this is probably going to be one of them. Just short articles here and there, no real schedule, talking about how I made a particular candle. I want to desperately continue with this and hopefully, somewhere down the line I want to start selling them. I don't know how I'm going to go about that yet but you've heard it here first.

I love the smell of eucalyptus and when I buy candles it is one of the smells I definitely look for. I've always used scented oils and things, so digging those out proved no problem. I also have lots of half-used candles lying around and some boxed candlewax too. So I thought I would try my hand at making a candle. You probably saw my poor attempt at doing that the other day but, it did work - I put two wicks in it and it came out quite solid. Today, I've made another attempt to do that with green candlewax and eucalyptus oil. One thing I've read about making candles is that if you're using older wax from discarded candles, then you probably want to mix in a bit of new wax too in order to make sure the wax is quite smooth.

Another tip and trick I've read about is mixing the wax whilst it's hot and liquidy in the pot. You should aim to mix it a bit instead of just having it all melt and pouring it into the jar. Mixing it can make it nice and smooth and it also starts to give off its smell - so you can definitely judge how strong the scent of the candle is.

I'm going to try and work with waxes that don't give off too much smoke so that it doesn't blacken the walls (which is a huge issue when dealing with normal wax). This can include using soy wax and possibly making smaller candles. I have clearly not made a very small candle here.

The question I always had for myself is: what leads me to want to make candles? It just seems like a very strange activity that doesn't really fit with my personality. But I do love candles. One of the reasons would be that candles are very expensive and there's a lot of wasted wax after the wick has burned down. Another is that yes, I love burning candles at any given opportunity so why wouldn't I want to make them? One more reason could be the whole smells thing. But I think more than anything it is the control you can have over what it smells like, what it looks like and how much of everything there is - something that I liken to baking. I love having that control over smells and flavours - finding combinations that just go together.

I'm not sure where this is going to go yet but I hope that people are supportive. This is a bit of a new thing for me and I'm still reading about it a bit. I just hope I don't give myself analysis paralysis and stop doing it out of frustration - that sometimes happens.