History of Candle Making

Series Summary

Some of the first candles ever used were made to light up temples in ancient Egypt, China, Japan, and India. The making of candles was industrialized in 1834 when Joseph Morgan invented a machine that manufactured 1500 candles per hour. Today, it is easy to make candles at home, and many enjoy candle-making as a hobby. Candles are a great light source utilizing an internal wick that is surrounded by a column of wax. Paraffin wax is the most commonly used type of wax, though soy and vegetable-based wax candles are becoming more and more popular.

Learn more about the history of candle making in this series of expert videos. Get tips on candle making at home. Learn all about the needed materials for making your own candles. See our expert give tips on waxes, wicks and scents for your candles. Our expert walks you through a complete candle recipe. You will see our expert use molds that are used to press the perfect candles. You will become an expert candle maker after watching these instructional videos.

Video Transcript

"For Expert Village.com this is Matt Friedman, owner of the Blue Creek Candle Company. In this clip we will be talking about the history of candles. To find out more about my candles, please visit my website. As you can imagine just like we need light today after the sun goes down our earliest ancestors needed to find a way to light their caves or light the paths that they walked on at night. What they were able to come up was a candle that was made out of tallow. Tallow is a derivative from the fat of pigs, goats and sheets they had available to them at that time. Tallow is extremely smoky, it doesn’t have a very pleasant smell and was extremely greasy but it provided them with what they needed in order to create a candle. That is essentially all that was used until around the 13th century. In the middle ages, we had the introduction of bees wax. Now bees wax is a very sweet smelling wax and burns longer than tallow. The only downside to it at the time was that it was very expensive. With that in mind, bees wax is really reserved for the affluent families at the time and religious in ceremonial purposes. That is pretty much what we used up until the 18th century with the discovery of what is called sperm cede. This is a crystal wax which was formed from the oils of the sperm whales and what they did was they would take the sperm cede and add it into the tallow and this would create a harder candle which meant that it would burn longer and it also greatly reduced the amount of smoke that was produced by these candles. Around 1825 we had the invention of the braided wick. This was wonderful because it helped increase the burn time of the candles that were available at the time. About 25 years later in 1850, we had the discovered of the paraffin wax. Paraffin is a by product that occurs when petroleum is distilled. The great thing about paraffin is that it is much clearer, much brighter, and cleaner and will burn a lot longer than tallow. As you will come to find out, paraffin waxes are still widely used today. Basically what we had up until 1857 was the wide usage of candles. What happened in 1857 was that the invention of the kerosene lantern. In about 20 years later in 1879, we had the introduction of the electric light bulb. So when you combine those two together, the need to light homes with candles after dark greatly diminished. That pretty much leads us to where we are today where candles are still used very widely in homes. Seven out of ten homes always have a candle. Candles are used primarily for home decorations and also for the benefits that many people find of using a regular candle or an aroma therapy candle just too simply help us relax. "