Beeswax Candle Making Supplies
Making your own candles is an enjoyable activity and you’ll love having beautiful, natural candles light up your home! With just a few inexpensive tools, you can make candles anytime. Here are some basic beeswax candle making supplies you’ll want to have on hand!
We have been beekeeping for several years now here in Alaska. We mainly began keeping bees so that we could have our own homegrown, raw honey. And that is definitely the sweetest reward!
However, bees provide more than just honey! Beekeeping is an enjoyable hobby where we can work together as a family. We love watching our bees fly around all summer and we have learned an incredible amount about these amazing creatures.
Another perk, of course, is the wax! I am always collecting small amounts of wax when I can from our bees and my favorite way to use it is by making natural beeswax candles.
I love having our own beeswax candles lit and glowing on the dark winter nights in our log home. They also make wonderful gifts! And the process of making them with my girls is also a lot of fun. It’s a great indoor activity during the winter or on a rainy day.
Here are my basic beeswax candle making supplies that I use when making my favorite candles.
Beeswax
To make your own beeswax candles you’ll need to have a good source for wax. I am fortunate to be able to collect wax from our bees. I then separate it from the honey, if needed, and clean it so that it’s ready to be used.
If you don’t have bees of your own, consider contacting a local beekeeper. They might be willing to sell some of their wax to you.
Your local health food store might also have beeswax for sale. If not, you can always order it online from a reputable source. Just be sure you are getting pure, natural wax without wax additives.
The type of wax you choose will vary with personal preference. You can buy wax in small blocks, beads, or even beeswax sheets. To melt wax for making taper candles, you will want chunks of wax or beads.
You can usually choose between white beeswax or yellow beeswax. Because we collect wax from our bees, I combine it all and the varying colors from white to yellow to brown mix and I end up with a light brown wax. This doesn’t bother me as I love the look of our natural, homemade candles.
Wick
You will need to have a wick for your candles and there are several options that you can choose from. Most craft stores sell candle wicks but it’s important to have the right type of wick for your candles to burn efficiently.
Thanks to the recommendation of a friend, I stick to only using what has become my favorite candle wick. I order it online from Swans Candles. Their #4 square braid cotton wick is the perfect wick for a well-burning candle. I buy it in 75 foot increments so that I always have several yards of wicking whenever I want to make some candles.
Basic Beeswax Candle Making Supplies
Here are the tools that I use when making candles:
Electric Burner-I don’t want to risk accidentally dripping melted wax onto our range so I keep an electric burner to use when making candles. I use it for other projects such as removing comb wax when extracting honey and simmering lids when pressure canning outside so it gets a lot of use and was worth the small investment.
Small Saucepan-I keep an inexpensive, stainless steel saucepan to use with my candle making projects. This way I won’t damage any of my nice pots and pans that I cook with and don’t have to worry about meticulously cleaning off all of the wax.
Double Boiler– I use a special double boiler that a fellow beekeeper friend generously allows me to borrow to make tapered beeswax candles. I place it on top of our woodstove which heats the water and melts the wax. It’s large enough to dip long pieces of wick to make tall taper candles. You can read the full instructions for how to do it in this post. You can make your own double boiler with larger pots if you want to make tall candles.
Small Food Can-I keep a small food can (from beans or canned tomato sauce, etc.) to make my own double boiler when making small, taper birthday candles. One of my favorite projects, they are so unique on top of a special birthday cake! I put the wax inside the can and set the can inside the small saucepan full of water. It sits on the electric burner and as the water heats, it melts the wax. Then I can dip the wick in the hot wax to make tiny candles!
Molds for Pillar Candles– I like to make pillar candles as well and these just require a simple plastic tube mold. For these, you will want to have wick tabs to hold the wick down on the bottom and then clip a clothespin to the top to rest on the edge of the mold and hold the wick up.
Optional Candle Making Supplies
When shopping for candle making supplies, you will be overwhelmed with all of the options. The supplies listed above are all I need to make beautiful, natural beeswax candles.
But you might enjoy trying other variations. You can get candle kits, candle dyes, fragrance oils, candle jars, special molds, and more. Just be careful and remember that these extra products add up fast and aren’t always necessary or desirable for simple, natural beeswax candles.
We enjoy the natural scent of pure beeswax but if you want to scent your candles, stick to pure essential oils.
Making your own, homemade, natural beeswax candles is an enjoyable activity and easy to do with just a few inexpensive supplies. Create beautiful candles to light up your home or to give as a special gift!
What a charming post! I particularly love that you make your own birthday candles!! What a great idea. I’m inspired to try making my own candles now. Great post.
Thank you so much Rebekah! I’m sure you will really enjoy making your own candles…I love it!
I love this post so much. I wish I had bees wax readily available to me! I know of several people in the area that keep bees so I really should see if I can purchase some. I am enchanted by the idea of making my own dip candles. They’re so beautiful.
Thank you, Julie! You should definitely ask, you might be able to find a beekeeper who will sell you some wax! Check your health food store as well! They’re a lot of fun to make:)