Making candles with dried lavender

Like me, can’t wait for summer? That’s a good time for making candles with dried lavender.

I made two candles from soy wax and lavender oil – in my case distilled myself. And with dried lavender flowers. Because I didn’t know what works best, I added two types of dried lavender; plain dried lavender flowers and pressed lavender flowers. The pressed lavender gives the most beautiful  candles with dried lavender.  I show you step by step how I made the candles.

I used glasses, in which the chocolate paste is sold in my supermarket. You can also use a jam jar or whatever you like for making candles. You need about twice as much soy wax as will fit in your glass or jar.

For making candles with dried lavender you will need:

– (Reused) glasses or jars

– Soya wax (for a glass that holds over 200ml (almost to the rim) I used 166 grams of soya wax)

– candle wick

– A holder or toothpick or large clothes peg to hold the wick in place

– Lavender essential oil (optional)

– Pressed lavender flowers or regular lavender flowers, but as you will see, these are not as pretty.

1.           Heat the soy wax au bain Marie.  Put water in the bottom pan and the wax in the top pan. If you keep stirring, the wax will dissolve quickly. It takes considerably longer for the melted wax to solidify again. And when it does, just put the pan of wax back into the pan of hot water. In short, there is no need to rush and little can go wrong. It is a relaxed job making candles.

2.           Add lavender oil (if you wish) for your candles with dried lavender once the wax has fully dissolved and cooled a little. You need to add quite a lot of essential oil. I add 5ml of lavender essential oil to 166g of soy wax. That’s enough wax to fill a 200ml or so glass almost to the brim.

3.           I bought candle wicks with an iron base. Put the foot into the liquid wax and then press it down onto the base. My candle making kit came with a holder to hold the wick in place in the middle, but a wooden stick, a cocktail stick or a (large) clothes peg will do just as well.

4.           I then added the dried lavender in two different ways:

The pressed lavender I put in the liquid soy wax and then carefully fished it out with a spoon. I then stuck the pressed lavender flowers to the inside of the glass.  That was much easier than I thought. The wax dries a little and sticks the pressed lavender well.

The ordinary dried lavender does not stick well to the glass. Therefore I poured a small layer of wax into the glass and put the lavender flowers into it one by one, as close to the glass as possible. Cut the lavender to size beforehand. It works best when the wax is a little less liquid, but not too hard. So you have to do that quickly.

5.           Pour the liquid wax with the essential oil into the glass and check if the wick stays in the middle. You can also adjust this afterwards because with this amount of wax it takes a while for it to harden.

6.           And this is the result after an hour or two when the wax has hardened completely. The result of the ordinary lavender flowers is a little disappointing to me. You can hardly see the shape of the lavender. The candle with dried pressed lavender however is beautiful!

Why soy wax?

Many candles are made from paraffin, which is petroleum or animal fat from slaughterhouse waste. This is not sustainable and when the candles are burned, soot is released which is not exactly healthy for the indoor climate. Soya wax comes from soya beans. This also has disadvantages. Think of the deforestation for soya plantations, for cattle feed. Did you know that for 1 kg of beef 25 kg of feed is needed?

So it is better to eat the soya yourself rather than meat. That is what I have always learned. Choose organic soya and now for your candle choose also organic soya wax.

Do you like making candles? Or would you rather buy them? You can do that too, as I recently started selling olive oil-based lavender candles. Different concept, at least as beautiful. This lavender candle is for sale in my shop.