How to Fragrance Paraffin Wax

Sometimes a fragrance appears to bind to the wax. There may be no fragrance pooling in the bottom of your pot of melted wax.  The candle may even have a beautiful finish once poured.

However, after a week or two, you will notice fine pin pricks of “sweat” on the surface of the candle.   If you have poured the paraffin wax into a container, you may notice fragrance sweating out & pooling at the bottom of the container.

What does this tell you?

The fragrance and the wax are not soul mates. This is never going to be a happy union and will ultimately end in divorce.     As a candle maker you can do some fancy footwork but the fact remains that these two are not a match made in heaven.

If the fragrance oil is not compatible with wax, the fragrance will not bind very well with the candle wax. If it really, really doesn’t bind you will notice the fragrance pooling at the bottom of your pot of melted wax. If this happens you know that there’s no happy future for this particular combination of wax and fragrance.

General misinformation about adding fragrance to paraffin wax

“Adding fragrance to your wax at lower temperatures can result in the fragrance not binding properly with the wax. This would negatively impact the scent throw, and in a worst-case-scenario, cause the fragrance to leach out of the wax and pool on the top or bottom of your candle.”   This quote  was taken from a candle making guru who lives far, far away in the Wonderland of Interweb Wisdom.

No ….. just no. The above is an all too pervasive example of misinformation circulated among candle makers.   Lower temperatures will not give you better results with an unsuitable fragrance.  If your fragrance pools or leaches out it is a clear indication that this fragrance IS NOT SUITED TO PARAFFIN WAX and that you will not get good results.

How much fragrance should you add?

Candle Deli’s fragrance oils are very concentrated.  Therefore a 2 – 3% fragrance level should be sufficient.   You can increase fragrance level by up to 7% (by weight) if you would like a heavily aromatic candle.

How much is 2% by weight?

“By weight” means that your formulation, a.k.a. candle recipe, is expressed in mass (kg or g) rather than volume (L or ml).

Your total formulation = 100%

Fragrance = 2%

Wax = 98%

Let’s say that you want to fragrance 1kg wax.   1kg wax = 1000g

98% of 1000g = 980g

2% of 1000g = 20g

20g of fragrance is more or less 1 tablespoon of fragrance oil, i.e.  15ml.