Four essential oil blends for your homemade candles

Four essential oil blends for your homemade candles

For a forest-inspired or spicy vibe, for relaxation, or for your fruity cravings!

Note 1: our blends are presented to you in two formats: in percentages and in grams (for a 250 ml candle). For the percentages, you must understand that this refers to the proportion of each essential oil contained in your essential oil blend only. Therefore, "50% balsam fir" does not represent 50% of your total wax amount!

Here is an example of what that looks like for a 250 ml candle, which is about 192.5 g of wax. A 5% concentration of essential oils corresponds to about 10 g total of essential oils in this case. This is just an example. The weight will vary depending on the sizes of the candles you make. It will be important to do the calculation based on what you are making, every time.

Note 2: to understand how to calculate all of this, we invite you to read the section following the one where we share our essential oil blend suggestions. We explain how it works and how you will be able to apply the principle yourself at home.

How to calculate the quantity?

TLDR: for a standard size candle, which is about 1 cup (250 ml) of wax, you will need 10 to 20 g of essential oils (which is equivalent to a concentration of 5 to 10%), corresponding to just under 1 (5%) OR just under 2 (10%) 15 ml essential oil bottles.

Okay, I hope not to lose you too much in my little calculations. But basically, what comes into play here are the concepts of volume, weight, and density.

First, it should be noted that we usually recommend a concentration of 5 to 10% essential oils in a candle.

Personally, I find that's PLENTY, but in reality, it will depend on your blend. Some blends are more powerful, others lighter or more volatile.

By using the concept of the fragrance pyramid, we are usually able to create an optimal blend that will last well over time. We invite you to refer to our article on making homemade perfumes. The section on the fragrance pyramid will be of particular interest to you, since the principle also applies to creating a blend for a candle!

What do these percentages mean?

When we talk about percentages, this must be calculated based on the total weight of wax in your candle (in grams). A classic kitchen scale or a precision scale will be very useful to ensure accurate calculations.

Let’s say you want to make a “classic” size candle, which often corresponds to a volume of 1 cup (250 ml) of wax, you might be wondering how to calculate the quantity of essential oils you should add to it.

You will first have to 1) determine the volume that the containers chosen to make your candles can hold, 2) multiply by the number of containers, then 3) multiply by 0.77. This calculation will give you the total volume of wax you will need to make your candles, in weight. This principle is, in fact, in our guide! Demonstration:

container volume (ml) x number of containers x 0.77

= quantity of wax needed (in grams)

So 250 ml x 1 x 0.77 = 192.5, which we can round to 193 g of wax.

Based on this weight, you are able to calculate your quantity of essential oils by multiplying your total amount of wax by 5 to 10%, which, here, gives 10 to 19 g of essential oils.

A standard essential oil bottle contains 15 ml. We are therefore returning to a volume (hahaha, I know, I know, we are constantly jumping from volume to weight! Stay with me!)

So. Density.

The average density of essential oils is 0.9.

If we multiply 15 ml by the density, we get the average weight of essential oils for a 15 ml bottle, which is generally 13.5 g (this means that the essential oil is slightly lighter than water for the same volume). It will vary slightly from one essential oil to another, because their composition differs, and therefore their density as well. But in general, that’s about right!

SO, all that to say that, in a candle of about 250 ml (193 g of wax), you can put between 10 and 19 g of essential oils. This therefore corresponds to a little less than 1 OR a little less than 2 essential oil bottles.

OK OK, I admit, it’s not that simple, but get your pencil and calculator out and I swear that as soon as you put things on paper, it will all make sense.

Measuring my essential oil blend

In the recipes I’m suggesting, I am talking to you about percentages. You must understand that these proportions must be percentages of your total amount of essential oils only (which you just calculated above!).

So if I give you a percentage of 75% lavandin in one of the blends above, it corresponds to 75% of our essential oil blend.

If you decide to put 5% essential oils in your candle, you will put a total of 10 g. Your lavandin will make up 75% of this quantity, i.e., 7.5 g.

Let’s do it together:

5% (essential oil blend) of 192.5 g of wax = 10 g (total quantity of essential oils to add to your candle recipe)

75% (of lavandin) of 10 g = 7.5 g (quantity of lavandin to put in your essential oil blend)

And so on for the other essential oils.

Does that make sense?

But then, how many drops is that?

If you prefer to calculate in drops, you can use the following calculations.

15 ml = 13.5 g = approximately 300 drops of essential oils.

Therefore, for a blend of 75% lavandin and 25% exotic basil, you can consider that it is 225 drops of lavandin and 75 drops of exotic basil. Are you following me? Hahaha!

That is a lot. For these kinds of quantities, a scale is really more practical, in all honesty! But I know that some people still prefer to use drops to measure, so THERE YOU GO! Now you know EVERYTHING!

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We hope these little suggestions will please you and make you want to formulate your own fragrance! You’ll see, it’s really fun!