For a beginner candle maker, or someone who just took it up as a hobby, some details might be confusing at first. One of those questions is regarding candle scenting, so adding different fragrances to your wax. It is really important to know how you can achieve the best scented candle, no matter whether it’s for yourself, a friend or for selling. The appropriate candle-making process will make all the difference regarding the quality of your candle, especially when it comes to perfect scented candles. The question whether you can use perfume oil in candles might be an occurring one, so let’s see whether it’s a good method.

Adding perfume to your candle wax

It might sound like a great idea to use your favourite perfume and make a scented candle with it. It is logical as that might be one of your favourite fragrances. However, adding perfume to your candle wax is not a good idea.

First of all, the mixture simply won’t become right. However, perfumes are not designed to be mixed with melted candle wax so most likely they won’t mix well. Instead, you will end up with a chunky and not consistent wax. So you will already notice during the candle making process that something is not right.

Secondly, after making the candle, it still won’t be a great result as the scent will wear off really quickly. The reason behind this is that – as mentioned before – most perfumes are alcohol-based, so it will evaporate quickly. A scented candle without a strong fragrance won’t really be a nice gift or product.

It is also important to mention that with all the natural candles free from chemical compounds, your product can’t end up being healthy or environmental friendly. That’s because perfumes contain several chemicals, such as formaldehyde which is really not great to breathe in.

Lastly and most importantly, as perfumes contain alcohol most of the time, it can easily become a fire hazard if you light a candle containing perfume.

Apart from all the disadvantages, it is also important to note that using perfumes are much more expensive on the long run. But then the question might come logically: what can we use to make scented candles?

How to make scented candles properly?

If you want your candle to have a long-lasting and unique scent, you might want to try fragrance oils and essential oils. Essential oils are made of one plane, such as lavender or cinnamon oil. Fragrance oils on the other hand are made by mixing more essential oils in order to create a unique fragrance such as a Christmas oil.

We recommend using specially designed fragrance oils or essential oils that work with candles and different waxes.  Of course the number one rule is to test, test, test.  However you can check out our guide which will help you choose the right fragrance oils for soy wax.

If you want to experiment with them, you can mix them at home and it is still a safe method for candle making. You can use cotton swabs or a tissue paper to test your oil mixtures before adding it to your melted wax. Be aware, that there is an optimal temperature - 180-190F – for adding oils to your wax in order to end up with a consistent mixture.