Hmm wax..
Wax, I have wax! I spent most of Saturday cleaning and laying out protective layers of things (like Seran wrap and newspaper) onto surfaces that needed protection, then cleaned jars while my fresh wax melted.
Most of the candles are the baby-food jar kind. I like them for two reasons; they ship well, and there is no need for them to be overly scented. I can’t stand over-scented candles. Actually I can’t stand over-scented anything any more.
I usually add some steric acid and glosser to the wax. The steric acid makes the candles burn slower and longer (because exploding baby-food jars and flaming wax is bad) and the glosser when cooled quickly (say– in my freezer) makes cool cracks and features in the wax.
I add the essential oils and color last, I never use scented oils at the craft store. It’s a small snobbery and I’m sure no one notices but me, but I know and that’s good enough. It’s not really the same as acrylic vs. wool, since the preference du jour of the public is for the artificial scents. I have a theory that is based on the function of scent, scent is (and this is not just my theory but pithy physiology) the sensing of small particles combusting or evaporating and releasing gasses, so when you’re sniffing an orange you’re actually sniffing up the gasses being released by the orange.
Anyway, my theory is that by using artificial smells all the time we’re burning up our sniffer nerve endings without thinking of the long term consequences. I’m a smoker and I know that deadens smell and taste, but one of my best buddies is a non-smoker and uses every imaginable smelly thing in her home from air fresheners, to highly scented floor soap, to fabric softener, to artificial candles on a daily basis and she can’t smell a darned thing unless she’s right up to it. Her palate isn’t nearly as sensitive as a non-smokers should be either. Whereas I can smell a single unpeeled banana or orange from across a room and locate it without actually seeing it.
So it’s just my theory, and I’m not saying cigarettes are okay because they don’t seem to do the same amount of damage as air fresheners and fabric softeners do, and I’m not being very empirical about studying the effects of artificial scents on a large population of sniffers, I’ve just noticed a trend. I’m sure there’s other factors involved as well so I won’t be applying for a research grant based on my sniffer theory any time soon either.