There’s a difference between a candle that’s made and a candle that’s manufactured. At Smelty, every single candle is poured by hand in small batches at our Castle Cove studio in Sydney. No production lines, no machines, no shortcuts. Here’s exactly what that process looks like, from raw ingredients to the product you unbox at home.
Step 1: Sourcing the Ingredients
Every Smelty candle starts with three core ingredients: soy wax, a cotton wick, and fragrance oil. Each is chosen deliberately.
Soy wax. We use 100% natural soy wax flakes — no blends, no additives in our Everyday Collection. Soy wax is plant-derived, renewable, and biodegradable. It burns cleaner than paraffin and releases fragrance more evenly. Read more about why we chose soy wax over paraffin.
Cotton wicks. All Smelty wicks are unbleached cotton — no lead, no zinc, no synthetic core. Wick selection is one of the most technically involved parts of candle making. The right wick diameter for a given jar and wax weight affects everything: burn time, mushrooming, tunnelling, and scent throw. We test wick sizes extensively before any new product goes to sale.
Fragrance oils. We use phthalate-free fragrance oils specifically formulated for candle use — tested for safe fragrance load percentages in soy wax. Some scents also incorporate natural essential oils. Every fragrance is evaluated for both cold throw (how it smells unlit) and hot throw (how it performs when burning).
Step 2: Preparing the Jars
Smelty uses amber glass jars for all core range candles — chosen for sustainability, sun protection (amber glass filters UV light, which can degrade fragrance over time), and reusability. Before each pour, jars are cleaned and the wick is centred and secured using a wick bar across the top of the jar to hold it in position during the pour. A wick sticker or hot glue secures the base of the wick to the bottom of the jar.
Getting the wick centred correctly isn’t optional — an off-centre wick causes uneven burning, which wastes wax and reduces burn time.
Step 3: Melting and Blending
Soy wax flakes are melted in a double boiler to a precise temperature — typically around 75–85°C, depending on the wax type. Temperature matters more than most people realise. Add fragrance too early and the wax is too hot, causing the fragrance to burn off rather than bind. Add it too late and the wax begins to solidify unevenly.
Once the wax reaches the correct temperature, fragrance oil is added at the measured percentage for that scent — typically between 8–10% of the total wax weight. The mixture is stirred slowly and thoroughly to ensure the fragrance is fully distributed through the wax. Rushing this step causes fragrance pooling, where scent concentrates at the bottom of the candle rather than distributing evenly.
Step 4: Pouring
The blended wax is poured into the prepared jars at a specific temperature — usually around 55–65°C for soy wax. Pour temperature affects the finished surface texture. Pour too hot and you get sink holes and rough tops. Pour too cool and the wax can’t flow properly and sets with air pockets.
Small-batch pouring means each jar gets individual attention. The wick position is checked after each pour, and any jars that aren’t right are reset before the wax fully sets.
Step 5: Curing
Once poured, candles are left to cure undisturbed at room temperature for a minimum of 24–48 hours. Curing is when the fragrance molecules fully bind with the soy wax — the longer the cure, the stronger the cold throw (the scent you smell from an unlit candle). Some batches are cured for up to a week before quality testing.
This is the step most mass manufacturers skip or shorten to speed production. It’s also why a freshly poured candle often smells weaker than the same candle a week later.
Step 6: Testing and Finishing
Before any new scent or batch goes to sale, it’s burn tested. A test candle is lit, the burn pool is monitored at 30-minute intervals, the wick is assessed for mushrooming or sooting, and the hot throw is evaluated. A candle that tunnels, smokes, or doesn’t throw scent properly doesn’t leave the studio.
Once approved, the wick is trimmed to 5mm, the jar is labelled, and the candle is packed for sale or dispatch.
Why This Process Produces a Better Candle
The attention to temperature, cure time, wick selection, and fragrance load at every stage is what separates a hand-crafted candle from a mass-produced one. It’s also why the instructions matter when you get your candle home — the first burn, wick trimming, and burn session length all affect whether you get the full 40–50 hours of burn time the candle is capable of.
Read our guide on how to burn your candle correctly to make the most of every hour. And if you’d like to experience the process firsthand, join one of our candle making workshops in Sydney — you’ll work through every step above and take home a candle you poured yourself.
Browse the full Smelty candle range or visit us at the Castle Cove studio, open Wednesday–Saturday 10am–6pm.