a typical day

Most of my days are spent making beeswax candles - I make a LOT of candles. I've been doing this now for over 20 years. It's been a learning process over time. When we got our first molds (20+ years ago) we didn't have much of a clue what we were doing. Through trial and many errors the job has gotten a little easier. Here's a photo of one of our original molds that I have wicked and ready for hot wax



My job starts adding a little water to a large kettle then adding chunks of unprocessed beeswax and slowly melting the wax until it's all melted. Then I add a little apple cider vinegar to help clean some of the impurities from the wax and let it simmer for almost an hour. Eventually I remove it from the heat and let it all settle for about another hour.




When the wax is cooled enough so that the water and residue have settled to the bottom of the pan; I ladle off the top clean wax into smaller pans so that I can use them to make candles. The very last of the melted wax is left to cool in the big kettle until it's cool enough to handle. Then I scrape off the residue and start all over again.




The cleaned wax is then ready to be poured into molds. Right now I'm just making 8" colonial candles, 10" hexagonal candles and 10" taper candles.




I know...it's a messy job...but someone has to do it!