There are so many hobbies out there in this modern world that it can be hard to choose. I have found candle making to be a hobby that can be fun, and interesting and you can end up with some great candles that you can enjoy yourself or even gift to friends and family.
Candle-making is not an expensive hobby to start because most beginner kits cost around $50 making them affordable for most if not all people. If you budget $50-$100 to include the cost of the candle kit and the packaging then you can get most of the essential equipment you need to start.
Apart from hobbies like drawing, candle making is just one of the cheapest hobbies to be able to start and master for such a low entry cost.
You may find that as you progress in this hobby and you come to need certain tools or equipment, that you already possess most if not all of the things already thus making your overall spend less than you anticipated.
How expensive is candle making as a hobby?
Candle making as a hobby can be as cheap or as expensive as you want it to be. If you are looking to make candles on a budget or just for yourself then you do not need to spend more than $100 to get yourself started. If, on the other hand, you are looking to make something a little more fancy and high end then aim to spend double if not triple that price so you can buy premium ingredients and packaging materials.
When you make candles as a hobby one of the things you can do to offset the costs could be to gift your candles to family and friends for those special occasions. If you already buy gifts for those people then what you spend on candle-making materials can be recouped by not buying gifts and giving them an awesome candle instead.
Spend Less on candles
If you are looking for the cheapest functional candle for the purposes of emergency if the electricity fails then it will be cheaper to buy them. Cheap emergency candles will be made of paraffin and will contain no additional colors or scents but they are purely functional rather than decoration, inspirational, etc.
If you are looking to spend less on candles by making them at home then yes, you will definitely save money if you are intending to make average or better candles for yourself.
If you take Yankee candles as an example. A 22oz jar candle currently goes for $31 (at the time of writing this article) and is made of paraffin, one of the cheapest waxes out there. You can buy from Amazon a 10lb bag of soy wax for $32.95 which would be able to make 7 x 22ox candles, meaning the price of just the wax in a Yankee candle is around $4.50 assuming they are not buying in bulk and getting an awesome discount (which they are!).
So if you take that base price of the wax, add $1 for the jar, $0.25 for the color, $1.25 for the perfume (you want a good scent throw), and $2 for the box/packaging, then you could make an equivalent candle for about $9, but let’s be generous and add another dollar for sundries, so an even $10 or a third of the price.
How many candles will 5, 10, 25 pounds of wax make?
Here is a chart where you can see the types of candles compared to the amount of was you intend to use to give you a net amount of candles produced
| Candle Size | 5 lbs of wax | 10 lbs of wax | 25 lbs of wax |
| Tea light | 133 tea lights | 266 tealights | 667 tealights |
| 4 oz candle | 20 candles | 40 candles | 100 candles |
| 8 oz candle | 10 candles | 20 candles | 50 candles |
| 12 oz candle | 6 candles | 13 candles | 33 candles |
| 1lb candle | 5 candles | 10 candles | 25 candles |
| 20 oz candle | 4 candles | 8 candles | 20 candles |
These values are approximate and do not include the weight of the containers if any. So if you want to make pillar candles, tin candles, jar candles, or tealights then these weights will be for the volume of wax needed only.
Is there money in making candles?
Yes, candle-making can be very lucrative when you take into account that an average candle bought from a large candle manufacturer has a profit margin of 100% or more.
If you produce candles of high quality and can appeal to a higher quality demographic then you can easily make returns of 200% or more on your products. Making 100 candles a week could net you $3,000 a week easily with a good strong brand and high-end marketing and packaging.
The US candle market alone was worth $3.14 billion in 2013 according to the Nation Candle Association and has shown to have grown considerably over the years. The NCA also states that (at the time of writing) candles sell from $1.99 at the low end to as much as $200 for a premium, top-quality candle.
If you want a more detailed breakdown then check out my other article Profitable candle-making business, can I do it? Yes!
Conclusion
Candles can be a cheap, fun hobby at a low price point if you want to just do something interesting for yourself. If you want to turn your hobby into a side hustle that can earn you a few dollars then it could quite easily, under the right circumstances, become a fully-fledged business that can free you from the daily grind of the rat race. Whatever you decide I hope you have a lot of fun along the way
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