Choosing a Candle

I want to give you a few tips on choosing the right candle for you & I have a FREE Candle Care Guide to help you extend the life and quality of any candle!

Did you know that there is more to choosing a candle than just deciding which fragrance is your favorite? I'll admit that I didn't; not until five years ago.

I have always been a candle junkie. It's not a stretch to say that I spent at least $250 every couple of months stocking up at my favorite store in the mall. It wasn't a cheap habit, but I have always wanted to be surrounded by pleasant smells. We won't even go into how much money I used to spend on bath and body products!

When I made my first batch of candles right before I got married in 2013, I chose soy wax because it was the easiest & most affordable option available to me at the time. I chose my fragrances because they came in a sample pack on Amazon! I didn't put much thought into what I was using because I only intended to make about a dozen candles and then I would be done.

A year later when I found myself deciding to make candles as a side business I started to do my research. Suffice it to say I was shocked at what I learned about the candles I had been burning all my life! All you have to do is google "the dangers of paraffin wax" to find out just how many chemicals and air pollutants I was willingly bringing into my home!

This post isn't about the scary stuff though. You can easily find all of that on your own. Through research I did develop some opinions about what I believe constitutes a quality candle & I'd like to share that with you today!

Stick with Soy or Beeswax

I have no trouble admitting that most of the research I've done shows that Beeswax is the best wax for the most eco-friendly, clean air candles. However, beeswax is difficult if not impossible to fragrance. The consistency of the wax makes it harder to work with, and the high burn temperature means that even if you do add a fragrance that works with the natural smell of the wax, it will burn off at a higher rate. If you are looking for a decorative pillar candle or candles sticks, then go with beeswax.

If, like me, you burn candles for their fragrance then choose a company that uses Natural Soy Wax. No Color Dyes or Paraffin Additives - those will negate the benefits of a clean burning soy candle. Soy Wax has a low burn temperature which not only reduces the amount of smoke emitted, it also provides for a longer lasting fragrance. Soy Wax will also hold more fragrance than many other non-paraffin alternatives. It is easy to clean in the event of a spill, and less likely to burn your skin if you get the hot wax on your skin.

Cotton or Wooden Wicks

Another concern with many mass-produced candles is the wick content. Many candle wicks are manufactured with lead and other components to slow the burning process (think sparkler cores). These can emit harmful chemicals into the air while burning. Prolonged use can contribute to a host of issues such as allergies, asthma & who knows. 

Cotton wicks burn very cleanly and do not emit nearly the same amount of smoke and carcinogenic as the cheaper alternatives. Wooden Wicks are also a much better alternative!

Fragrance Oils

As a lover of essential oils, I'd like to tell you that is the best option for candle fragrance, but it is not. If you want to use essential oils to fragrance your home, diffuse them. Essential Oils are extremely volatile compounds that evaporate easily, especially where heat is concerned. The cost of a candle scented with pure essential oils will be significant. If you find an 8oz candle that has a strong fragrance for less than $35, I don't care what the label says. It can't possibly be pure essential oil. Many synthetic fragrances do not disclose all of their ingredients for proprietary reasons. If you have questions about the oils used to fragrance a candle, e-mail the distributor or maker. I use Premium Fragrance Oils. These oils are phthalate free and infused with essential oils. It is the best quality I have found and is still affordable for use in large candles. 

Even still, I encourage you to do research and draw your own conclusions if you ever have any concern about the products you are bringing into your home!

Containers

This one hits a little closer to home for me. Obviously we are striving to reduce the glass in our landfills by recycling Wine Bottles as candle containers. Even if you are choosing a different candle though, consider the container itself. When you are finished with your candle what will you do with it? Is it a container you can reuse? Would it make a nice flower vase or maybe a cosmetic container? Is it a canning jar style that you can use for food storage?

Cleaning your containers take a few minutes, but I think it's worth it! In fact, I'll be doing a video soon in the MADE Community group about how to clean your candle containers easily for reuse!

I hope you found this article helpful! No matter what brand of candle you choose, there are some universally handy tips for extending the life and quality of your candles. Grab my FREE Candle Care Guide HERE. 

MADE

Have you ever sat in a room in your house and thought to yourself, 'This room just isn't working for me. It doesn't seem like anything fits.' But when you start trying to figure out what to move, you find you like it all?

This is exactly what was happening with me, only it wasn't a room in my house. For a while now I've been feeling like my business just wasn't working for me. I felt like I was pushing products that I loved, but that didn't fit together. I started to consider choosing one brand (jewelry or candles) but then decided that I loved them both too much to choose!

So after some soul searching and on the advice of some trusted mentors, I decided to get back to the heart of my business. MADE by Danielle is my new brand that encompasses all of my creative products & classes. Crafty Wino Candles aren't going anywhere & Wired Essentials jewelry is still everything you expect it to be. But my focus is coming back to the heart of the matter. All of these things are handmade by yours truly. I love to play with new ideas from time to time & I want to share that with you! 

I want to get back to blogging about the crafty products I take on (in my spare time 😆). I want to show you the awesome finds I come across and even share some of my friends' work with you from time to time.

The website and social media channels have a new look, but the handmade quality that you've come to expect from me isn't going to change. You'll notice over the next few weeks that I'm rolling out a couple of new things; FREE Workshops in the MADE Community Group on Facebook, MADE by You - more in-person classes and home parties and even more! 

If you aren't already in the Facebook Group I would love for you to join us! Head on over to community.danielleskaminski.com to join!

Recycling Bottles

As we unloaded the car last week after our family beach trip our loaded arms clinked with bags of empty wine bottles. I've told Jason before that our garbage men probably think we have a serious drinking problem! Even with all the recycling that happens with The Crafty Wino, we still have to throw away about a box of broken or unusable wine bottles each week.

I've had so many people ask about how I make my candles. I don't pretend it was an original idea. The Crafty Wino started as a fun project to use up what was left from our wedding decor and make a little cash. I did a lot of pinterest research and discovered, from a purely financial stand point, it was less expensive to make my own candles than it was to continue supporting my shopping habit at larger candle stores.

It turns out I'm not the only person who loves a good candle & I quickly reached a point in this business where I could have gotten away from recycled glass and started pouring candles in purchased jars or tins. In fact, it was incredibly tempting. You see while pouring candles in recycled glass was less expensive than shopping for them, it is exponentially more time consuming. The demand for soy candles with amazing scents is there, so why not increase production by cutting out this step? The candles would burn just as clean and smell just as good.

While I was toying with the idea of expanding to different containers, the recycling centers in the Upstate of SC stopped taking glass. A handful of people had started bringing me their bottles regularly & I knew that if I multiplied that by all of the wine drinkers in the upstate the sudden increase of glass in the landfills was going to be crazy! Suddenly the extra work seemed worth it. These candles serve a small purpose now. I've made more contacts so the supply of bottles is growing significantly, but it's still a lot of work.

I get asked all the time how long is takes to make a candle from start to finish. The answer? Three Days. Of course, I can produce 30-50 at once if I have the bottles, but it is not a simple process. The first day is all about delabeling the bottles. That's all I can do that day, because the next step is sensitive to temperature and the bottles need to be at room temperature for 24 hours for the best results. The next three steps can be done in a single day, but it would be a long one, so I usually spread it over two. I use a scoring tool to mark where I want the bottle to separate, then use a hot water bath and cold water bath to separate the bottles one at a time. Depending on how many bottles are in a batch this can take a couple of hours. Once that is done I use a glass grinder to smooth down the edge of the containers. This makes a mess and so all of the bottles have to be cleaned and dried again. Now I can wick and pour the candles. Because I pour in small batches this process takes a lot longer - but it smells the best! They generally take about 4 or 5 hours to set up so I can label them & trim the wicks. 

In the beginning I was only reusing my own containers but I quickly realized how much easier it was to simply wash a container for pouring! So now I give a discount to customers who return their finished candles! It saves me a lot of work if all I have to do is clean and pour & it's just another way to continue keeping that bottle out of the landfill! Now that the word has gotten out and my bottle contributors are growing in number I'm adding more retail locations and even added an online shop for my candles! Shipping is available in the contiguous United States.

Since this area of my business has grown so much I'm more aware than ever of my own habits and I'm making a concentrated effort to recycle more. What do you do to be eco-friendly? I'd love to hear more ideas from you guys about what we can be doing to contribute to cleaning up the earth!

Wanna become a bottle contributor? E-mail me! I do regular pick-ups in the Greenville/Spartanburg area and I'm in the Columbia area about once a month. I send out special discounts and coupons to my contributors periodically and I'd love to add you to that list!