Soy Votive Candles

These soy votive candles were made using 20% paraffin with RRD29 cotton wicks and I think they turned out very nice!  

This was the first time I've ever made several votive candles at one time.  Of course, to burn a votive candle, you must place it in a votive holder, as it melts over its edges.  These were made with Akosoy 5702-02-02 (also known as Golden Wax 464) and 141mp (melt point) straight paraffin.  The wicking was bought by the yard, so I could cut the wicks to the length I needed (2 3/8"), using a 15mm wick tab.  

It took me a little while to get the hang of placing the wick.  With votives, there are a couple of ways to handle the wicks.  One way is to purchase votive molds that come with wick pins and insert the wick after the candle has hardened.  I preferred to try what I feel is a cleaner method, so got molds without the wick pins.  

To place the wick, the candle is poured, then allowed to cool just a bit until a skin forms on the top, then the wick is put into place by pushing it through the semi-cooled top skin layer until the wick tab sits on the bottom of the mold.  It took a little practice in learning to do that so they're centered & placed correctly, so my second batch worked out better than the first, but I like that method all the same.  

I added a little color to them by dropping little flakes of dye on the surface.  (You can see that I did not color the top pour on some of them.)  Sharing this has made me want to make some votives!  I think I will do that this afternoon!  :)