Like yoga or baking, making candles has become a kind of stress relief for me. I’ve made dozens of scents over the past five years, and the hobby helped me bounce back from burnout, as I tested new fragrance blends, vessels and soy waxes.

Buying all the supplies and testing out candles out can be costly—especially if this is just an occasional craft project—so if you’re getting started, I highly recommend trying an all-in-one candle-making kit before buying pounds of products. Through trial and error, I’ve tested a bunch, and there are a few I’ve found are truly worth the spend. So, *drumroll please,* here are the best candle making kits I’ve tested in 2025.

1. Banter & Bliss Candle Co. Minimalist & Modern Candlemaking Kit

Best Overall Candle Making Kit

• Type of Wax Included: coconut soy wax
• Number of Candles It Makes: 4 candles (7 oz. each)
• Shipping Cost: $7

This kit is an incredible value. For just $42, you have just about everything you need to make four 7-ounce candles. (That’s like TJ Maxx candle prices!) You could actually use this set to invite a few friends over and host your own candle making party. The only things missing are a pouring pitcher and thermometer, which are a solid investment if you think you’ll make more candles down the road, and you can tack them on for an extra $19.

The coconut-soy wax blend holds fragrances easily, and you can customize your kit to include any one of the two-scent combos (Blue Volcano fans will want to check out the Sugared Mango & Grapefruit Mangosteen duo!), as well as your preferred candle color (if white feels too plain for your tastes) and jar color.

2. Paddywax Candle-Making Kit

Best Aesthetic

• Type of Wax Included: Soy wax blend
• Number of Candles It Makes: 1 candle (12 oz.)
• Shipping Cost: Free

Want a kit that already comes with a digital thermometer? This kit has you covered, along with a wick, wick sticker, and just enough wax and fragrance oil to fill one (very on-trend) 12-ounce bubble glass jar. You can choose from one of four scents, though I’m partial to Pacific Moss & Mist. It’s beachy without being over-the-top sea salt and coconuts.

The instructions are pretty easy to follow, though I used my pour pitcher to create the double boiler, rather than pour the wax into a bowl and place that over a pot of boiling water. (I don’t recommend making candles in bowls you’ll later cook and eat out of.) The resulting candle has a great hot throw, easily filling a bathroom or bedroom, and it looks professional. It does have some tunneling, suggesting the wick isn’t big enough for the vessel, but otherwise, it’s great.

NOTE: It seems Paddywax is phasing out these kits, though you can still find them on Amazon and in select HomeGoods and Barnes & Noble stores (for now).

3. Siblings Welcome Candle Set

Best Candle Refill Kit

• Type of Wax Included: coconut-soy blend wax (paraffin free)
• Number of Candles It Makes: 2 candles (one 12 oz., one 7.5 oz.)
• Shipping Cost: Free shipping on orders $60+

While Siblings recently retired one of my favorite candle scents of all time—No. 13, a cozy blend of palo santo, marshmallow cream and burnt sugar—they have several others to choose from. And of those, I’d recommend their Welcome Kit, which offers a great introduction to the brand. Each Welcome Kit comes with everything you need to make a 12-ounce candle and a 7.5-ounce one, and it includes a scent discovery kit of tea lights to introduce you to new scents, as well as a wick trimmer.

At $46 (normally $58), it’s a pretty solid deal too. You can choose between four scent categories too—floral, citrus, woody and warm. I linked to that last one here, since it’s the closest match to the cozy vibes that No. 13 had.

All of Siblings’s kits are low-effort, low-mess: You simply tear open the bag, pull out the wick, candle care label, wick holder and instructions, then pop the bag of fragranced wax in the microwave. As it melts, you put the wick into a heat-safe vessel of your choosing (or you can buy their reusable Forever Vessels), using the included popsicle stick with a hole in the center to keep the wick in place.

Once melted, you pour the wax into the vessel and wait for it to cure, or firm up. That’s it.

4. Makesy Candle Makers Starter Kit

Best for Aspiring Entrepreneurs & Serious Crafters

• Type of Wax Included: Soy wax
• Number of Candles It Makes: 2 candles (9 oz. each)
• Shipping Cost: $11

If you’ve seen Makesy on Instagram or YouTube, their aesthetics probably got to you. The brand’s marketing is top notch, drawing you in with their gorgeous packaging and materials. But it can be intimidating to just start ordering pounds of wax and everything else from them—plus, it adds up fast. That’s why this Starter Kit is so awesome—it’s packed with the essentials to get you started, all housed in a large pouring pitcher you can reuse afterward.

The kit comes with everything you need to make two nine-ounce, wooden wick candles in sleek matte black and gold metal tins (which look so much chicer than “metal” might suggest). And it features one of their most popular fragrances, Vanilla Gelato & Waffle Cone. The scent is a bit milder than the other kits, and there’s been some tunneling with the wax, but all in all, it makes gorgeous candles that will have you dreaming of opening your own Etsy shop. Or maybe that’s just me.

I purchased my kit from Michaels, but it seems they’ve been discontinued there, though you can still buy them at Hobby Lobby. I’m also a big fan of their Makesy a Wish Candle Kit, but that too, seems to be on its way out.

5. ToAuto Candle Making Kit with Cake Decoration Set

Best for Making Dessert Candles

• Type of Wax Included: soy wax
• Number of Candles It Makes: 4
• Shipping Cost: none (if ordering via Amazon Prime)

After reading up on Digiboils and other wax melters, I wound up buying ToAuto’s 4-quart melter—and I’ve loved it. So, when the brand reached out and offered to send a full kit for making dessert candles, I couldn’t resist trying it out.

The 1.5-liter melting pot isn’t just cute (check out those fluted edges and sage green color!); it melts wax quickly and efficiently, something many melters struggle with. It’s easy to use and easy to clean—so much so that it’ll make you ditch the double-boiler method, fast. I’ve loved it so much that if I’m just making a small batch of candles—three or less—I’ll use this melter over anything else.

The kit comes with just about everything you need to make dessert candles (including a hand mixer, piping bags and piping tips, because you’d want a separate set just for candlemaking, so you don’t contaminate your food). But there’s a bit of a learning curve to making dessert candles. The included guidebook walks you through letting the wax harden just enough for the surface to solidify—then you need to act fast. I recommend using the largest piping tip and having your bag prepped before you even start whipping the wax.

Once whipped, you have mere minutes to pipe your decorations on top before the wax starts to harden (and clog the piping tip). It took three tries for me to find the right consistency.

One thing to note: This kit doesn’t include fragrance oil, so if you want a scented candle, you’ll need to order that separately.

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The Best Candle-Making Supplies I’ve Tested in 2025

What Do You Need to Make Candles?

Ready to get more involved with your candle making? If you’re ready to move beyond a kit, I suggest following Tiana Coats, Memory Box Candle Co. and Standley Handcrafted on YouTube, and investing in a few key items:

1. Pouring pitcher, $20, Amazon — This one holds up to 4 pounds of wax, so you can make larger batches of candles at a time. (I have a 1-pound pitcher, and it gets tedious refilling it to make more than one candle at a time.)
2. Meat/candy digital thermometer, $12, Amazon — A candy thermometer works well for checking to see if your wax is the right temperature to add in fragrance oil, and a digital one will give you a read much faster than the traditional kind.
3. Wax — I love coconut soy wax, because it has a relatively good throw, is fairly clean burning and is easy to work with (minimal sinkholes). Soy 464 also has a great throw and is pretty forgiving, making it a solid choice for anyone who’s just getting started in candle making.
4. Vessels (AKA the Jars) — These need to be heat-safe, thick-walled and designed for candle making. Makesy’s Aura vessels, while a bit pricey, are a very reliable, gorgeous vessel for creating a luxury look.
5. Wicks & Wick Stickers or Clips — Once you’ve decided on a vessel and type of wax, you can choose wicks based on what works best for that combination. You can go with cotton or wood wicks; it’s just a matter of finding the right-size wick for the jar you’re using. I like to use CandleScience’s wick guide to help figure out which wicks might work best, then I test them to confirm they work. (It’s a bunch of trial and error, which is why beginners may prefer to use kits.) Here’s a handy guide to testing, BTW.
6. Fragrance Oil — I love the scents at CandleScience and Makesy, and I trust their blends. It can be great to start with a sampler pack of 1-ounce options, limiting yourself to 10 or less—so you don’t fall victim to the tyranny of choice—and 1 ounce is typically good for using with a pound of wax. That’s plenty to get you started and know whether you like the scent or not.
7. Stirring Stick — A skinny spoonula or honey dipper works well here; you’ll need it for stirring fragrance oil into the wax before pouring it

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FAQ: Is It Cheaper to Make Candles Than Buy Them?

Yes—with a caveat. The cost per candle tends to be cheaper, especially if you’re buying ingredients in bulk, but you have to factor in the initial costs of the supplies you’ll need, and if you delve beyond using a kit into creating your own blends, the cost of testing those blends to find your signature recipe (or ratios of wax, fragrance oil and the right wick/vessel for them).

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This post originally ran in March 2023, but has since been updated as new kits have been tested, and to ensure all links are working and the information provided remains accurate.