Highly Scented Candles

How to Make a Candle with Multiple Wicks

Making a multiple wick candle is really just an extension of making a candle with a single wick. It would be most advisable to make several single wick candles before attempting one with multiple wicks, however.

The first step is to prepare your work space and get ready to melt the wax. Keeping things organized is very important because you will be dealing with hot melted wax that could be almost 200 degrees F (102 degrees C), so obviously this can be the source of many problems if the candle maker is not careful. Place wax paper around

your work space and by all means keep wax off your heating element.

Next you will be melting your wax to the prescribed temperature for the type of wax you are using. This would normally be done in a double boiler, and of course you will need a candle thermometer to measure the temperature of the wax.

You can now prepare your wicks. Let’s assume that you will be making a candle with five wicks. With that many wicks your candle will probably have a fairly large diameter, probably over 3 inches. If that is the case you will need large sized wicks. Once your mold is prepared properly, apply wick sticker to the bottom of the wick tabs. If you have an odd number of wicks you can place one wick in the middle of the mold bottom and then place the others toward the outside of the candle, equidistant from the center wick and the outside edge of the mold. So in this case with five wicks we’ll have one in the center and the other four will essentially be the corners of a square with the center wick in the middle of that square. Take several pencils and balance them on top of the candle mold. The ends of the wicks will then be tied to the pencils. In this case you will have three pencils. One will be over the center of the candle with the center wick tied around it, and the other two pencils will be on either side of the center, and each one will have two wicks tied to it. Make sure the wicks are taut.

You can now proceed in a normal fashion to finish your multi-wick candle. Add color as desired to your melted wax when it is at the correct temperature. Mix well, and then add any fragrance you might want to put into the candle. This normally means one to three drops of an essential oil that you have chosen to use. It is important to add the essential oil to the wax towards the end of the process so that there is as little evaporation of the oil as possible. When the wax is at the proper temperature it should be poured into a metal pouring pot prior to pouring into the mold. Using a pouring pot will make the process safer since there will be less chance of spilling hot wax. After the candle cools it should be turned upside down to get it out of the mold. If the mold was prepared properly, it should come out fairly easily. If it still doesn’t want to separate from the mold it can be placed in a freezer for 5-10 minutes after which it should separate easily. You now have a 5 wick candle, and all that is left in the process is to trim each wick to about a quarter of an inch and finally clean up your work area.