soy wax frosting: why is my candle top changing?

tis the sesason to discuss frosting… no, we are not discussing sugary goodness, but we are talking about a natural process that happens to soy wax!

have you ever noticed that the top of your soy candle may get “frosty” if you keep it a long time without burning? Have you ever wondered if this is normal?

well it is! when the glossy top starts to turn to a more opaque finish, it’s called frosting. this is a natural characteristic of soy wax, and it is one way that you can tell that the candle is made with pure, all natural soy wax.

when the wax arrives to our studio, it comes in opaque white flakes- these are melted down and poured into your candle. overtime, frosting is simply the wax returning to it’s natural opaque state. frosting does not affect the way candles burn or impact the scent throw, so even if you see this on a candle you have kept for a while, go ahead and light it up!

so next time you take a look at your candle and notice little imperfections, let it remind you it was made by humans with the best all natural ingredients!

a look in the studio

you may have burned our candles, shopped from us online or in person, or purchased our products from one of our retailers… but have you seen where our candles are made?! we thought it would be kinda fun to show off our studio- to share the space where we mix the magic that we send to your home…

our studio is broken down into stations where we have different tasks- mixing, pouring, cooling, labeling, and shipping. this structure is important for a few reasons like work efficiency and cleanliness (we like to keep melted wax away from our beautiful labels and packaging!)

here is our mixing + pouring station. we have our large waxmelter where we melt around 45-50lbs of wax at a time. we use pouring pitchers to add fragrance oils in, stir, and then pour that batch into our candle vessels.

once the candles look good, we move to labeling! each candle gets labeled by hand with their appropriate collection / scent label.

our studio is located on wealthy street in grand rapids, michigan - a busy shopping district full of coffee shops, restaurants, and other small retail shops.

in our studio space, we have a small showroom where you can shop our collections as well as other candle accessories, homewares and art.

so next time you light up a sable candle, remember the faces and hands that made it, and space it came from. hope you enjoyed the sneak peek into our studio life!

we use bakery style racks to house our cooling candles. after they are handpoured, we move the tray to one of these racks to finish fully setting.

after setting, we do a quality check for any imperfections in the wax (pits, uneven setting, clumpy wax, bubbles, etc). If they need to be fixed, we move them to another rack.

after each candle is labeled, we do another quality check before sending the candles to our backstock shelves, out in orders, or to one of our retailers.

check out a list of our retailers: