RobsCreations

After the  Choco soap  experience, I've decided to try cocoa butter in candles (75% w/w of soy wax and 25% w/w cocoa butter). I thought the color would look amazing and very natural, and the scent of cocoa butter delicate and pleasant. I have tried, for glass jars of the same size, a cotton wick or a wood wick. Couple of remarks : 1) the wax/butter mix takes forever to cool down (very low melting point of cocoa butter) 2) Lot of frosting and shrinking (see pics below) I let the candles set for several days and then proceeded with the burning test . Here you can see pictures taken at 1, 30, 90 minutes after burning. To be honest, the candles burned very slowly and I couldn't smell the chocolate scent of cocoa butter. The wood wick behaved better than the cotton wick, nevertheless none of the two burned large enough to form a full burning pool after several hours (a lot of tunneling!!!). Take home message : I don't think it's...

Finally, temperature lowered and I managed to prepare a  set of candles  for this fall . Candles  are  great  for any  occasion ! Halloween🎃, Xmas🎄, B-days🎂, romantic dinners🥂 or relaxing nights🌃.  You can keep 'em for yourself or give them to family and friends as gifts! If you've never made candles before, but you're eager to try,  here you have 10 basic steps to follow. This is  not  a  comprehensive  guide and does  not  pretend to be  a  candle-making  course . 1)  weigh the wax  Do you want to know more about  waxes ? Follow this  LINK   2)  Melt it in a double boiler (bain-marie). Stir every now and then...    ⚠ Do not boil the wax ⚠  Never   ever  place the container with the wax directly on the stove! 3)   A t this point, y ou can add some color HERE , you have a post on candle dyes. ...

I had a very late request for Xmas candles 😓 ⏳⌚ 😓 , but the good thing is that I had been given 100% of freedom on the choice of colors, decorations, fragrance, container 😃🎉🎇 This year, I've been so into glass recycling that I've been using jam jars for almost all my container candles. I particularly love the jars from the French brand La Bonne Maman ( see HERE ) because they are big , easy to work with (you don't have to struggle to stick the wick holder to the bottom of the container) and original ! They have a screwable lid that helps to preserve the candle fragrance and protect the decorations on top. Last, but not least, they can be washed in the dishwasher and you can recycle them as many times as you want. For these candles I've used soy wax ( Click for an overview of waxes ), cinnamon fragrance  (which I've also used in other projects such as in  HERE  and  HERE ), a lead-free cotton-wick, and tiny decorations made of soy wax ...

...well, it depends on the wax! I've been making candles for 3 years now and I have experienced several problems myself before finding the right temperature to end up with flawless nice candles. If you decide to make candles: take your time, use a thermometer and check the temperature of your melted wax before pouring, always ! It happened to me several times that, because I was in a rush, I poured the wax soon after I have melted it and I ended up with really ugly candles! If you pour at high temperature you may end up with fragrance loss (evaporation), frosting (this is a frequent problem with soy wax), massive shrinking (not good for container candles), cracking on top. If you pour at a very  low temperature you can have jump lines , wax can start to solidify in the container and so on... Full post on  FROSTING HERE . In my experience, buying certified frosting-resistant soy wax only partially limits the problem... Two golden ru...

I tried to make swirls many many times... of course without succeeding! I don't know whether this time I can be satisfied with the result, but at least I prepared some nice candles that a french friend described as 'des morceaux  de ciel' (literally 'bits of sky' ). How to do this? Once I've seen a video (or maybe it was a blog/webpage) in which someone was using the following technique but with many colours all at the same time. 1) Melt and pour plain (no colours, some fragrance if you fancy it) soy wax in your containers 2) when the wax is firm, make some holes with the help of a wooden  skewer  or anything pointy. Holes should be as close as possible to the container's walls, and should be running along 3/4 of the candle. 3) drop some candle-specific liquid colour in the holes  4) heat  the container's wall  with a heat gun or a hair dryer. This will partially melt the wax allowing the colour to blend in. ...

Why fast protocol? Because I've melted the soy wax in the microwave, instead of a double boiler, saving a lot of time and electricity. I wrote a post about the use of microwave in candle-making at the beginning of this year  HERE , but let me anyway remind you few basic things: - NO tin containers in the microwave. Go for pyrex or any other microwave-compatible glassware; - 10-20 seconds bursts at full blast will be more than enough to melt a small amount of soy wax;  - If you still have unmelted soy wax flakes DO NOT repeatedly heat the wax, just stir it for a minute: flakes will disappear very easily and you won't risk to overheat the wax and the container; - the microwave trick works well if you're dealing with small batches of wax; - for soy wax is great. I don't use it for melting paraffin because paraffin takes longer to melt I don't want to risk overheating glass container and wax; These candles are made of soy wax and minuscule pellets o...

...I haven't been making any candle since before Xmas time... but yesterday I was definitely inspired! The name of these candles comes from an ice cream I used to eat when I was a kid: Twister ! I absolutely wanted to try the cute ice cream mould I received, as a surprise gift together with my order, from  WhysperFairy Molds . The cone looks real isn't it? As always, it is all soy wax with a bit of painting...

First post of the year (I really hope this won't trigger polemics)! Ahahahhaa! Before Xmas holidays I've been spending a lot of time making candles (mainly with soy wax) with the obvious consequence of generating a lot of chaos all around the flat and being obliged to do a lot of post-crafting cleaning. In addition, I have used a lot of current (with an obvious corresponding increase in the electricity bill!). Yes you got it right, current! I always melt my waxes in a double boiler and I have an electric stove! For my husband's sake I have slowed down with candle making but I always fancy to prepare some candles for us or for close friends and I started wondering whether it would have worked using the microwave to melt small amounts of soy wax... I knew it would have been possible to melt soy wax in a microwave, but I honestly never did it before because I don't like to overheat wax (which is never a good thing). Important reminders: - NO tin containers in th...

Some time ago I bought this nice silicon moulds... I have already posted the Pannacotta candles with their tiny adorable fruits decorations, but I haven't shown you yet the results obtained with the Xmas-themed mould !    Here you can see a zoom in picture of the decorations I've made (a bit out of focus! hihihihi). They're made of soy wax and have been painted at a later stage. I've been preparing a lot of candles for customers and/or friend lately, but I also wanted to create a special Xmas edition for me and my beloved ones! Ladies and Gentlemen here you have the Xmas tree candles! This one below is a version without whipped top!