Candle waxes - Special effects waxes

A range of candles with a fantastic mottled finish (image © 100candles.com)

The marbled effect

Although you can create candles that display a marbled look without using any special blend of wax (see the Projects section), you can find ready-to-use wax blends that imitate the noble aspect of marble.

Instructions of use vary widely depending on the manufacturer so follow their instructions to achieve the best results if you decide to use this kind of blend.

The rock effect

The formulation is almost the same as that of the "marble" blend but the crystals are smaller and imitate Quartz or granite.

It can be hard to find outside of the United States but it's a fun wax blend to play with!

The snowflake (or mottled) effect

There are multiple ways to achieve a mottled effect on the surface of your candles (and the odds are high that you will sometimes achieve it when you don't want to).

Most of the time, all you need to do is "saturate" the paraffin with oil (mineral oil, for example) and to let the candle cool off as slowly as possible (air cooling is preferred to water cooling but you can wrap the freshly poured candle and its mold in a few towels).

You can find wax blends specially formulated to easily achieve mottling.

Other formulas are conceived to only overdip candles made with a "classical" wax blend.