Water
Bath Cooling
Often candles may be cooled quicker (about four hours) by dropping them into what is called a 'water
bath', immediately after pouring. An easy way to set this up is to use a tea pitcher or any tall
container. We find the basic low cost plastic pitcher works well. Inside of the pitcher place an
average size drinking glass. The glass needs to be wide enough for your candle mold to fit inside.
To use: Just before your wax is ready to pour, place drinking glass inside pitcher. Fill glass
and pitcher to the top of the glass with as hot of water as possible. It does not have to be
boiling and usually very hot water out of the tap will work fine.
Next pour your wax into the candle mold and slowly lower full mold into the drinking glass.
Then fill pitcher with hot water until it is close to the top or edge of the candle mold.
Caution! the mold will be very hot (about 190F degrees) and it will burn you! We recommend
a good set of serving tongs to pick up hot molds with. Tongs come in handy for many things but
even with tongs, move mold to water bath slowly and make sure not to let mold 'pop' out of the
tongs!
It is best to let the candle cool completely in the water bath. When the water feels cold to the
touch, the candle is cool. As candle cools in the water bath you can also fill in the 'dent' which
occurrs. To do this, when candle is mostly cooled, carefully remove wick holder and using a razor
blade, trim wick to just below where the bottom of the candle is (or will be). Then add wax that
is barely melted. If it is too hot it may affect the candle surface later.
Note: Remember that water is heavier than wax!! If even a small amount of water gets
into the mold it will quickly sink to the bottom, undetected, until you remove the
candle from the mold and find the top of the candle is ruined. Worse yet, if the top part of the
candle has cooled slighty water can get trapped inside and be unnoticable. We recommend shaking a
candle that has been in a water bath (after it is removed from the mold) to see if water can be
heard inside candle. Any water at all, anywhere, and the candle is ruined! Break the wax into
pieces so any trapped water can get out and let the wax dry completely. Then...try again!
Water Bath Tips:
2) You will probably not be able to pour water out of the water bath once the mold
is placed inside! For this reason it is not a bad idea to keep a small hose near by when topping off
the water bath with water, after the mold is in place. If it looks like you might have too much
water going into the pitcher you can usually drop the small hose in the water and siphon off the
amount needed before it can reach your candle. We find a narrow hose like the kind used with fish
aquariums works well for this. This is a low cost plastic hose which can be found at most pet stores.
3) Another thing to try if you are having temprature problems is to move the water bath once
the mold/candle is placed inside. This is another reason not to top off the water until you are
certain of where you want to leave it for a few hours. It may be necessary to move the water bath if
you are having drafts around where you normally allow your candles to cool. Drafts can come from
open doors and windows as well as heaters and air conditioners.
1) Heat pitcher with glass inside, twice. First run very hot water inside to warm items up
from room temprature. Then pour out hot water and fill again with hot water to get both water and
containers as hot as possible. It is not usually necessary to do this unless you are trying as much
as possible to cut down on probelms due to temprature changes.
