At our February 2025 conference we will see candle dipping from Lloyd Allard. Click Here to find out more about Lloyd and his class.

Well, my name is Pineapple and I’m the beeswax candle maker here at the 2024 Homesteaders Expo in Iowa. I am teaching people how to make candles in the most simple, basic form there is, which would be dipping. It doesn’t require any fancy equipment, simply a pot. I use beeswax and beeswax only for this demonstration.

Beeswax is what’s in the pot and we have a fire below. The only other thing required is your wick and that would be the string with which you make the candle. And you start with a length of string that is over twice as long as the length of the candle you want.

Now, you can’t get a candle longer than your pot is deep, so be aware of that. This one has already been in the pot once. We’re going to do just a couple here because my wax is already cooling because it’s been very windy today.

And after you have dipped them, you want to take and straighten them. You want a nice straight candle which starts with a straightened wick. I can’t just put this one back in the pot. I need to give it a chance to cool. If I keep putting it back into the pot, it’s going to start melting the wax that is on the wick back into the pot. We want to put layers on our wick. We don’t want to take layers off. So, we’re going to set that aside to cool. Then I’m going to show you different ones.

Okay, these candles have had 5, 10, 15, and 20 dips into the pot. That is the progression of the size of our candles.

After every 3 or 4 dips, I need to trim the bottom. You want to start forming a flat bottom to your candle because it is the nature of dipping to collect extra wax at the bottom of the candle as it comes out of the melted wax. This is a finished pair of candles. This is a pair of candles that I didn’t trim any of the drips. You can see that there is a lot of wax at the bottom, which is all waste. I can cut that off. It goes right back into my pot and I don’t have to worry about it.

This finished candle is about 33 dips. That’s what it took me today. There are so many variables. It can take anywhere from 25 to 50, or 65 dips to get a candle this size. The variables are the temperature of your wax, which you don’t want to exceed 180; the temperature outside, and how long you wait in between dips. This is the size I’m going for. This size will burn roughly a good hour per inch.