Using Color and Fragrance
One of the great joys of modern-day candlemaking is the use of color and fragrance. How glad we must be that the old days of “necessity,” of making tallow candles that smelled of the barnyard, or worse, are over and done with.
Though today there are many perfumes manufactured in the United States, these are almost all made not from flower essences, but from chemicals that mimic them exactly. This marvel of chemistry is not only what put the distinctive odor of roses or lavender in our perfumes, toilet waters, lotions, and shampoos — it is the same as what puts the smell of beefsteak into the vegetable oil used to make the French fries of fast-food chain burger purveyors.
Today's home candlemaker has available to her or him such a wide variety of color and fragrance as to rival the master painters of the past and the great perfume makers of Arabia, who invented the process of distilling essential oils from plants and flowers. The French raised this to a fine art through their development of
Luckily, the
