The Art and Science of Essential Oil Candles — a maker’s perspective on working with living ingredients.
I have come to think of making essential oil candles as an endeavour similar to winemaking — half way between an art and a science. Both are made with living, ever changing ingredients, that require careful attunement. No two vintages are ever exactly the same, and the result is something worth savouring.
There are a couple of reasons why essential oils are rarely used among commercial candle makers.
Expense is one, of course, and the other is their ever changing characteristics, or, as I think of it, their ‘aliveness’.
Because essential oils come directly from nature, they can be affected by the weather during that year’s growing and harvesting season, as well as the manner in which they are processed and stored before they get to my studio.
To understand why this matters, we need a very quick lesson in candle making:
A great candle is a combination of: excellent burn quality, scent and scent throw.
This is achieved by the perfect marriage of:
The correct type of wax (there are so many)
The correct wick (size and type)
The correct oil blend (or fragrance)
The correct jar (size and shape)
And when I say perfect, I mean perfect. Change any one of those elements, even a tiny bit, and you will get a candle that burns too fast or two slow, or doesn’t fill the air with scent or smells bad when it does. It is a very delicate equilibrium that takes a long time to get right.
So it’s not just a matter of ‘melt wax, add scent, pour into anything with a wick’ …
as those 15 second instagram reels may lead us to believe.
Because of all this variability there exist large companies where one can purchase all four elements in one go — wax, wicks, scent and jars — all pre-tested, with instructions on how to combine them. Kind of like the Ikea furniture of candle making. The result is a low-stress solution for the candle brand who wishes to go right ahead with labelling, marketing, and supplying retail stores. It is also why so many of the candles out there all have a ‘sameness’ about them.
Having no interest in this option, I, an insane person — by my own choice and under no coercion — source my wax, oils, wicks, and jars from all different suppliers.
I do this in order to create something special, and because I would derive no joy from doing it the easy way.
This means that nothing is guaranteed to be the same as it was last time.
One or more oils, having come from a particularly hot summer, or a different pressing facility, may decide now that it no longer wishes to burn nicely with the same size wick as last time, but would prefer a thicker wick in order to perform as desired.
And this is where winemaking comes in. One of my most important studio jobs is re-testing every oil blend for burn quality and aroma each time I make a new batch. Similar to how artisan or single vineyard winemakers don’t just plough right ahead with bottling their wine each season. They fiddle around with it. They observe it, get to know it. They make decisions based on all their previous experience.
With seven oil blends, and four formats of each (180ml, travel size, three wick and tealights, all taking different wick sizes) — that’s twenty eight varieties to re-test a few times a year. And with at least five oils in each blend, that’s over thirty potential culprits to investigate if something has gone awry.
I have learned, and adapted to, many of their quirks
But they can still surprise (and confound) me. The main way they can still catch me out is on burn quality. Occasionally I will discover that a blend is not burning as nicely as I would like. Either the wicks are struggling and the flame is too small, or (less often) the candle is burning too quickly.
Some candles are happy to be stored for over a year, some get fussy when they’ve been in the jar for only six months.
It upsets me whenever I discover a flaw in my work. It has kept me awake at night — the thought that somewhere out there, a candle you were looking forward to lighting might be disappointing or underwhelming.
So I do everything in my power to make sure the candle you receive is the one you are expecting. Over five years, and thousands of candles, I’ve learned a great deal about how these living ingredients behave, and I continue to tweak, refine, test, and adapt as they change.
I do all this because
The result, when it all comes together, is so far superior to any chemical scent (no matter how well behaved and stable that chemical version may be). Essential oil candles have depth, softness, and a sense of place. They can become your welcome evening companion or your grey day mood-lifter. (And they’re not poisonous, which is always nice).
The many kind emails, repeat orders, and thoughtful reviews I receive tell me that this difference is noticed, and valued. All my studio-tinkering, post-it note scribbling, record-keeping, flame-watching and formula-tweaking is appreciated by people who are searching for something real.
This appreciation keeps me going. It makes me very happy to make things for people who value living ingredients, and the (moderately unhinged) people who work with them.
Care tips specific to essential oil candles:
Because these candles are made with living ingredients, they are best enjoyed while they’re fresh.
I recommend lighting your candle within a couple of months of purchase, rather than keeping it “for best”. Essential oil candles don’t improve with age in the way wine does — they’re closer to bread, or cheese. Made to be used and enjoyed. If you’ve chosen an essential oil candle, you’ve already chosen something a little different: a candle with character, variation, and warmth. The best way to honour that choice is simply to light it.
If your candle ever doesn’t burn as it should, please get in touch with me. I want you to enjoy it fully, and will be happy to help.
