Candles are a staple for homes and you find them sold everywhere from Target to Etsy. You might be wondering, how difficult is it to make your own candle at home? I also once upon time wondered about that.
I had couple friends from Hawaii who started their candle business from home. Go check them out, they made beautiful candles: Artful Scents and Moon and Candle. My friend who started Artful Scents would always share her experiences selling them at First Friday in Kihei, Maui or my other friend who started Moon and Candle would share her pretty candle photography shots and I always thought, they look like they are having LOTS of fun.
I started out my candle journey from one of the candlemaking kits that was sold on Amazon. I had bought it back in November 2019, but actually didn’t use it til I was stuck at home during the lockdowns of April 2020 while living in Honolulu. After my first attempt at melting the soy wax and mixing in the fragrance oil in a small metal pourer in boiling pan of water and then pouring it into a small candle jar … I knew I was hooked with candle making from that point on.
Fast forward to the day I launched Mind Mana Creations on August 8, 2020 to presently … candlemaking IS lots of fun!
The candle kit I bought from Amazon no longer exists, but in this post, I wanted to go over some of the candlemaking kits and evaluate them on the overall “value” of what you get.
Generally, candlemaking kits range from the cheaply priced $25 upwards of $50 for more expensive kind.
The candlemaking kits cost overall will really depend on the quality of the wax, types of tools, and choices of fragrance oils and/or color wax that would be included. Luckily, there’s plenty of choices to browse and choose from on Amazon. There’s no right or wrong candlemaking kit to choose, just go with your intuition and what’s comfortable with your budget.
Since I exclusively make candles with soy wax, the below candlemaking kits all use soy wax. You are more than welcome to browse other candlemaking kits that use other forms of wax, including paraffin wax (which possibly makes the kit cost cheaper).
Basic Candle Making Kit (Starter Kit)
At the lower price point, you’ll find candlemaking kits priced anywhere between $15 to $25.
These candlemaking kits generally provide you with:
- stainless steel pourer,
- between half a pound to a pound of soy wax,
- standard candle wicks,
- basic candle jar,
- candle adhesive sticker, and
- candle wick centering device.
Having the above 6 is what I call the “starter kit” for candlemaking. You really only need those to make a plain white candle.
One basic starter candlemaking kit I recommend is this one below:
And an even more simpler kit that’s very budget friendly is this one below:
Other Items and Tips to Keep in Mind
One important item you’ll want to keep in mind in getting is a small pot or pan. This is so the stainless steel pourer can be heated by the boiling water to melt the soy wax.
If not included, you’ll also want a mixer of some sort that you wouldn’t be using anymore for cooking or eating. Usually any long handle kitchen utensil or cooking utensil suffices to be used to stir the melted wax.
Lastly, have some paper towels or wiping towel around to wipe any soy wax that doesn’t end up going into the candle jar. You’ll also want the paper towels to wipe your pourer and other utensils down while the wax hasn’t cooled down.
Any unused wax – be sure to pour into trash can or jar. Do NOT pour wax into your kitchen sink or toilet as it may clog your drains when the wax hardens and cools!
Intermediate Candle Making Kit
Moving on, the next set of candle making kits will start including the following items:
- color wax blocks or color wax flakes
- choices of fragrance oils or essential oils
- various choices of candle jar and candle vessels.
Interestingly, the price jump between the Basic to Intermediate Candle Making Kits jump about $20 more – so for this category, you’ll usually find price range from $35 to $50 for the kits.
Below are my recommendations of kits in this price range:
Premium Candle Making Kit
And lastly, moving into this category, the contents within these premium candle making kit usually have the same kinds of items from the intermediate kits, but the one difference is that the “quality” of the items are a little bit better. They may also include wick trimmers or ready made labels, and candle vessels of higher quality.
The price ranges from these candle making kits are usually $60 or more.
Candle making kits I recommend in here include these:
Have you bought a candle making kit from Amazon? What do you recommend?
Leave your comments down below!
In a future post, I’ll also go through a list of best candle making kits from small business owners.
