I've tried my hand at making candles and have decided to scale up the operation so that I can make some for family and friends. I realised some time ago that the candles that you can buy at the shops are generally quite pricey despite only being very simple. Also, they might only stock certain colours / fragrances and typically, the ones you want are the most expensive. C'est la vie right?
Surprise
Wrong!! You can circumvent this problem by simply making your own candles. I made some prototype candles using 50% used, cleaned and filtered cooking fat and 50% wax for stability. I added some fragrance and their colour is a good clean cream / off-white ivory colour and they look great. Not only does it give you something to add to your interior decor but it also gives a useful outlet for cooking fats and oils which avoids putting them down the sink and helps avoids slow drainage problems.
Cleaning
I made the candles after I had saved the fat from cooking meats for about 2 months. This got me about 1 litre of fats which had settled into many layers. I heated this up with the microwave to melt it. I then poured it into a plastic bottle and added very hot water. The purpose of the water is to wash the fat. Just as washing dirty clothes with water serves to give clean laundry, washing fat with water cleans it, taking both the little burnt bits and the smell of the food with it, giving clean, non-scented fat.
The beauty of this method is that the darkened, dirty water sits below the fat which becomes creamy white after a few washes. The dirty water and solids at the bottom of the bottle can be removed by inverting the bottle before opening the lid and letting the water out. Washing three times generally gets the fat as clean as it's going to get.
Create your ideal candle
This leads you on to the next step: mixing with wax then creating your candles. To do this, add your fat to a pan (it should be a semi-viscous liquid now, after taking the washing water away and cleaning it up). Then add your wax of choice (this can come from any wax source, old candles or new candle wax works just as well). Be sure to cut up the wax before adding to pan to aid the speed of the melting process. Once the wax is melted into the fat and the solution is totally liquid, take the pan off the heat and leave to one side for a moment. Now is the time to add any scents (essential oils work best ~5ml per 100g) or dyes (you may want to get 'real' candle dyes as other
pigments may create harmful when burned.
Construct your candle
Now take an clean old glass jar (an old Ragu jar washed out with warm soapy water to remove the stickers will do) and using superglue, glue a piece of string or a sliver of cotton material to the bottom of your jar. This will be your candle wick. Tie the end of the wick to a pen/ pencil
and make sure the wick is central in the jar ( if the flame diverts toward the side of the jar, it could cause the glass to crack. Now carefully pour your wax/fats into the jar.
Leave your set up as it is in a cool place and don't disturb it. The wax will set in the jar and all you have to do it trim your wick to about one centimetre in length and then you have a nice new candle.
