More tips on gel candle making

By Administrator on January 24th, 2008
Posted in candle making |

If you’ve read the previous two posts here about making gel candles, you should have a basic grasp of the general principals involved. One thing that you should always remember though, is that the gel wax is not a true solid like paraffin or soy wax and therefore needs to be handled a little differently. Gel candles must always be stored upright and level — otherwise the gel will"creep" and you’re likely to end up with lopsided candles with buried wicks.

It is possible to layer different colors of gel wax in a candle; however, unless you separate the layers with fine mica, the layers will bleed into each other over time. Your lovely green and red striped Christmas candle will become a rather uninspiring yucky brown!

You can make some very pretty gel candles by simply pouring a layer of colored gel into a glass baking pan and letting it cool. Once cool, cut it into smallish cubes with a pair of scissors. Secure a wick in your candle container and pile the gel cubes around it, making sure that plenty of the cubes are in contact with the wick. Voila! You have a candle. Please note though that due to the above mentioned properties of gel wax, if this candle should sit around for a long time, the gel cubes will eventually fuse back together again and the candle will lose its unique look. Some candles, like our Martini candles will leave a large amount of unburned gel wax around the rim of the glass. This can be cut up and placed back in the glass around a new piece of wick to extend the life of the candle.

Should you decide to offer your candles for sale, make sure that you include a warning label or tag. You can buy these pre-made from many of the candle supply vendors or print up your own. We would also advise you to cover the candles with plastic wrap or shrink wrap to keep out dust, bugs, and, believe it or not, fingers! When we first started selling our candles at craft fairs, it seemed that every child who came by (and even some supposed adults) just had to try poking the gel wax.