Soy Massage Candle Recipes: Trouble-shooting

Trouble-shooting, or the most commong glitches you may encounter when trying out soy massage candle recipes, together with solutions and tips!

The soy massage candle recipes don’t smell strong enough.

The reason the essential oils are added right before pouring, is because they are heat-sensitive and evaporate if the wax is still too hot. Maybe the aromatherapy-blend was added too soon. Or maybe the recipe simply calls for more essential oils. Fragrance remains, after all, a matter of personal taste.

Note that due to the strength of essential oils, their presence in a product used on the body should not exceed 2 percent.

Also note that the scent may seem too subtle to smell strongly when the candle burns, but when spread out on the skin, you don’t want the smell to be overwhelming. Soy massage candle recipes are not meant to be used as a room fragrance.

The wick doesn’t stay in one place, where it’s supposed to be.

There are two ways of inserting the wick in the candle.

Some like to fix the wick with a drop of melted wax to the bottom of the jar. Others say you can add the wick after pouring the wax.

I prefer to have the wick in place steadily before pouring the wax mixture, as it is also best to pour the mixture when it is not entirely runny anymore, which gives you very little time to get the wick in place properly after the wax has been poured. If you use a nice, large droplet of wax (let it leak from the chop stick), and then let the mixture cool enough before pouring, the wick should stay in place. If it keeps moving, position it against a pencil, which you lay over the top of the jar.

What about the smell of cocoa butter or coconut oil in soy massage candle recipes?

If you use regular cocoa butter or coconut oil in soy massage candle recipes, the scent will remain present. Either you like it, or you don’t.

Make sure the smell of cocoa butter or coconut oil doesn’t conflict with the blend of essential oils. Some work very well together! The natural, chocolaty cocoa butter scent blends nicely with sweet, suave odors like vanilla. It also works marvellously well with citrus oils, like tangerine and orange. The smell of coconut oil can be accentuated by adding more of the same scent, a natural organic coconut flavor. It also blends nicely with lemon, verbena, lemongrass, and natural flavors of chocolate or caramel.

Both de-odorised cocoa butter and coconut oil are available, if you wish to avoid the smell, but still benefit from their skin-nourishing properties.

After solidifying, the soy wax forms a ‘valley’ in the middle, around the wick.

This has to do with pouring the wax-mixture while it was still too hot. Soy massage candle recipes get a nice, smooth finish when the wax is poured after it has somewhat cooled. Wait longer next time and start pouring it in the jar when it no longer looks transparant, but a little ‘milky’.

Remelting soy massage candle recipes after they solidified can be a lot of (messy) work. Adding a little more wax to cover the hole will do the trick.