Ingredients for Making Oil Fragrance for Soy Candles

Processed from the oil of soybeans, soy wax provides candle-making hobbyists with a versatile and eco-conscious candle material. Soy wax candles take fragrance and additives easily, making it a breeze to mix and blend a variety of scented candle oils for your craft. Making oil fragrances for soy candles gives you the ability to fragrance and decorate your home as well as the convenience of easy gift-giving. Knowing about the needed ingredients for these fragrance oils prepares you for a variety of scent blends.

Carrier Oil

• Carrier oils vary in color, texture, and scent.

  Derived from the fatty portions of botanical matter such as fruits, seeds, and vegetables, carrier oil provides a base for fragrant oils. It helps cut down the strength of concentrated essential and fragrance oils, which not only makes the fragrance last longer but it cuts back on black soot released by the candle's wick. Too much essential or fragrant oil causes the black smoke and soot, so the use of carrier oils provide a clean burn. Carrier oil types include cold-pressed coconut oil, soybean oil, flax seed oil, hemp oil, and a plethora of other types. Carrier oils vary in appearance and texture as well as aroma.

Essential or Fragrant Oil

• Lavender essential oil is popular in soy candles and other scented crafts.

  Essential oils are extracted from plant materials to form concentrated oils containing strong scents and botanical benefits. Essential oils vary in texture, viscosity, and scent, making experimenting with them an enjoyable experience for candle craft hobbyists. Essential oils are very strong, volatile oils that must never be applied to the skin without being mixed into a carrier oil first. Adding undiluted essential and fragrant oils to candle formulations also creates a black soot, so a carrier oil is needed in the recipe to lighten the essential oil. Aromatic essential oils include lavender, vanilla, chamomile, ylang ylang, and a plethora of others. Blending basic essential oils creates different scents. For example, mixing 10 drops of vanilla essential oil with five drops of bergamot essential oil and two drops of cinnamon creates a scent that resembles a fresh-baked cinnamon bun.

Additives

• Raspberry ketone, an aroma chemical, smells like fresh raspberries and enhances candle oil recipes.

  Different additives exist for enhancing fragrance oil recipes. For instance, polysorbate 20 or 80 provides emulsifying properties to bind the different textured oils together. Some oils are thicker than others, such as neem and rosemary resin oil. Adding the polysorbate to the oil before adding the carrier oil allows it to disperse more quickly, which allows the scents to blend more thoroughly. This makes for easier mixing in the melted soy wax so the entire candle releases the rich scent while it is being burned. Aroma chemicals and colorants also add to the look and scent of soy candle recipes. Aroma chemicals such as raspberry ketone are used in professional perfumery recipes as well as candle making projects. Raspberry ketone produces a fruity smell that pairs well with essential or fragrant oil of vanilla. Musk ketone blends well with woody and earthy scents such as lavender and cedar.