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Making a Jack - O - Lantern Candle
By admin | November 7, 2007
- In this tutorial I will show you how to creat this awesome Jack - O - Lantern candle.
This is by far my favorite candle. It uses all of the techniques we have already covered but adds a few new ideas that work great! The end result is a Jack-O-Lantern candle that is highly fragrant and creates quite a neat glow when lit!
The idea behind this candle is quite simple. We want the center of the candle to burn before the outside of the candle. In order to do this we must get our hands on an Ultra-Vac Transducing wax separator. These can be expensive usually costing around Five thousand dollars
Nah…. I am just kidding with you. We just use two different waxes. The inside wax will have a low melt temp while the outside shell will have a high melt temp.
As it burns down, the glow will shine through the eyes and face of the jack-o-lantern. I will also use one of my favorite scents! PUMPKIN SPICE! Words can’t describe how wonderful this scent is! It truly makes you think of Fall!
Supplies Needed For Making a Jack - O - Lantern candle
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Fire extinguisher
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An Accurate Digital gram scale
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Wooden skewers
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Microwave that is not used for food or a hairdryer.
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Wax ( two kinds of wax ) GI 4625 for the shell. Astor-Lite J50 for the center.
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Candle Scent
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Candle Dye
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Wax paper
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Gloves
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Hammer for breaking wax
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Eye protection
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Small plastic cups
Step 1. Getting our supplies together
First let’s measure our wax. We are using two waxes this time. The wax we are using for our outer shell is IGI 4625. The wax that we are using for the middle burning part is Astorlite J50. This wax is used for creating container candles but works extremely well in this example.
It is sold in slabs but it is soft. I use a butter knife to cut out sections, as I need them. See our section on waxes for more information. For the outside shell we need about 1 pound of wax. For the inside we need 5 ounces.
See our section on how to figure out how much wax you will need for your candle.
Step 2. Melting the wax for our outer shell
Now it’s time to melt the wax that we prepared in step 1.
We need to melt the wax for the outer shell. It has a melt temp of 140-150 degrees . It has a suggested pour temp of 185 degrees . It is important that we do not pour our wax at a temp that is too high, this will burn off our candle scent before the wax hardens and we could end up with an unscented candle and it could cause the surface of the candle to become deformed. Turn the burner on and bring the water in your double boiler to a slow boil. Add your wax to the top pan. Do not put the wax in the boiling water.
Important Tip!
The wax will turn from a solid white to a clear liquid. Wax expands as it is heated so make sure that your top pan or pour pan has plenty of room to allow for the wax to expand.
Once the wax has achieved a nice temp of 185 degrees , we bring the heat down on the double boiler.
Step 3. Adding candle dye
We have chosen a liquid candle dye because it is easy to use.
Beware, this dye is highly concentrated and will stain clothing and countertops. WEAR GLOVES!
We add our dye directly to our wax. For this candle we use five drops of orange and three to five drops of yellow. This will make a great pumpkin color.
We will mix the dye with a wooden skewer until it is distributed evenly.
Step 4. Adding candle scent
Most waxes will only hold one ounce of scent per pound of wax. We will use the one-ounce per pound formula for our candle. If we have one pound wax, we will use one ounce of scent.
Using an accurate scale we pour the desired amount of scent into a small plastic cup.
We measure the temp of our wax and make sure it is still at the desired pouring temp. We then add our scent directly to the melted wax.
Dispose of the plastic cup that you used to measure the scent. If you leave it on your workspace, the small amount of scent that is left in the bottom of the cup will eat through the plastic and could stain your workspace or burn your skin. Beware most candle scent is very concentrated and can burn or irritate your skin. Avoid direct contact with your skin and your eyes. We would recommend wearing gloves. ANY cinnamon based scent seems to be extremely easy to irritate the skin so be careful!
We stir the scent into our wax with the wooden skewer making sure it is distributed evenly.
Continue!
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Topics: Jack - O - Lantern |