Candle Wax Temperature Chart

Candle wax temperatures get quoted everywhere and attributed almost nowhere. This page is the opposite: one table, every figure taken from a supplier's own published data, and an explicit blank where a supplier publishes nothing. We have not measured any of these ourselves and we do not claim to.

There are four numbers that matter, and most listings publish one or none of them.

1. Melt point. The temperature the solid wax turns liquid. It decides warm-room behavior and, indirectly, wick size.
2. Heat to. How hot to take the wax before you add anything. Usually well above the melt point.
3. Pour temperature. The temperature to pour at. This one controls surface finish more than anything else you do.
4. Maximum fragrance load. The percentage of fragrance oil the wax will hold before it separates.

The chart

The GW 464 working temperatures come from Cal Candle Supply's published instructions for that wax; its two melt points come from CandleScience and The Candlemaker's Store, who state slightly different ranges for the same product. Everything else is from the maker's own product data, read on the dates recorded against each product below.

What the chart shows once you read down the columns

• Pure coconut is the outlier at the bottom, at a published 106F. That is the genuinely low-melting wax people think they are buying when they buy a coconut blend, and the blends publish 115 to 121F, which is container soy territory.
• Container soy clusters tightly, 113 to 121F across three different products from two suppliers. That consistency is why the published wick charts work.
• Pillar soy sits 30 degrees higher, at 142 to 146F, and wants a 190F heat and a 150 to 170F pour.
• Paraffin is sold by melt point rather than by name, which is why the two Blended Waxes products differ by 20 degrees and suit different candles.
• Beeswax publishes nothing. Six listings, no figures.

Pour temperature is the one that shows

Melt point decides what the wax can be. Pour temperature decides what your candle looks like, and it is the figure people ignore.

Only four of the products in the chart publish a pour temperature at all. For the rest, the honest approach is the one on how to make soy candles: pour at the figure your supplier gives, and where there is no figure, treat the first batch as the test that establishes one.

Fragrance load, and the one wax that publishes 15 percent

Ten percent is the common published maximum and it appears on every American Soy Organics product and on GW 464. Two figures break that pattern.

A published maximum is a ceiling, not a target. Above it the oil stops binding into the wax and pools on the surface, and most makers work at 6 to 8 percent rather than at the limit.

The temperatures that are not the wax

Three other published figures constrain a pour, and they are easy to miss because they belong to something else on the bench.

• Dye. One chip set publishes a melt at about 152F and a do-not-exceed of 194F. That sits inside the 170 to 180F the wax instructions call for, so dye goes in during the melt.
• Wax melt clamshells. Plastic clamshells publish ceilings of 150 to 167F, which is below several pour temperatures in the chart above. Wax melt molds covers which wax you can safely pour into which container.
• Wick stickers. One sticker listing publishes a 212F maximum for the wax poured over it, which every figure in the chart clears.

Where the gaps are, and what to do about them

For beeswax the practical route is best wicks for beeswax candles, which shows the derivation in full. For everything else in the chart, the figures above are the starting point and a burn test is what settles it.

Using the chart to pick a wax

Work backward from the candle you want. Gel wax sits off the top of this chart entirely, at a published 215 to 225F pour, and has its own page: best gel wax for candles.

1. A jar candle: a container wax, 113 to 121F, poured at 140F. Best soy wax for candles.
2. A freestanding pillar: a pillar wax at 142 to 146F, or a paraffin around 160F. Best soy wax for pillar candles.
3. Wax melts: a melts-and-votives wax at 125 to 130F, and check your clamshell's ceiling before you pour. How to make wax melts.
4. Maximum scent release: the lowest melt point you can live with, which is where pure coconut at 106F earns its place. Best coconut wax.