Personalised Candle Specialists & Scented Candle Gifts  

Gel Candle Gift Selection Burst into Spring with our Candle Gift Ideas Handmade gel candle gifts offered in a stunning range of different designs. Ideal special gift ideas for the spring season all poured and decorated by hand making a delightful  individual gift idea Wax and Wane are the UK specialists in engraved personalised candles, so for Anniversary candle gifts, Christening candle gifts, Birthday personalised candles or individual personalised candle gift baskets we will have the gift ideal for the occasion you are looking for.

A Warm Welcome To Wax and Wane Handmade Candles

Nestled in the picturesque Lincolnshire countryside Martin and Anne-Marie of Wax and Wane Handcrafted Candles begin their day. It’s a quiet occupation, candlemaking. Only the gentle murmuring of a block of wax as it slowly succumbs to the heat from the boiler into a crystal clear liquid disturbs the serenity. Meanwhile, a collection of candle moulds, once shiny and new, now streaked with dribbles of wax in every colour of the rainbow are arranged ready to receive their fragrant fill. Next to these a measured cup of intensely fragrant oil waits patiently for its moment of glory when the candlemakers add it gently to the molten wax. As they stir the air is filled with a cloud burst of scent……

Isn’t this they way you want your candles to be made, not by huge industrial machinery ?

Here at Wax and Wane you can be assured of a friendly welcome with excellent customer service. We are a husband and wife team specialising in handmade candles. We pride ourselves on the superb range of scented and personalised candles we make and all our candles are handmade from start to finish. Our scented candles are all hand poured with the pure scent being blended with the wax just prior to pouring. This ensures a high scent throw throughout the burn of the candle to fill your room with fragrance. We also offer a wide range of candle based gifts for most occasions and are the UK specialists in personalised engraved candle designs.

Personalised Candles As Gifts

Our personalised candles are handmade candles, poured by us. The candles are then polished and finished ready for engraving with the design and your special details. Once engraved the candle is hand painted with a special wax paint, then left to dry and later polished back to reveal the beautiful engraved image. The personalised candle is then left overnight to fully cure, then any further detail is added by hand and then sealed with a protective coat of candle varnish. The attention to detail is what makes your personalised candle so special. As your Personalised candle is engraved into the wax candle it will look great for years to come without fading (but keep away from direct sunlight as with any other candle!) unlike stick on transfer images that may peel or lose their brightness over time. Our personalised candles are great gifts for Wedding Anniversaries, Birthdays, Christenings, Baptisms, Naming Days, Engagements and Weddings.

Highly Scented Candles As Gift Ideas

Our scented candles are all hand made by us using top quality wax and pure uncut fragrance oils chosen and imported by us. This combination along with our expertise in making and blending scented candles make these candles the number 1 choice. We thoroughly test all our scented candles to ensure they give a smooth burn with an excellent scent throw to fragrance your room. If we are not 100% percent happy with the performance of a scented candle when we are doing our test burns, it is rejected. You can therefore be assured that your scented candle will be of the highest quality available on the market.

The process of making our scented candles is all carried out by hand. Firstly we weigh and melt the wax for the candles. Then, once the correct temperature is reached, the wax is decanted into the pouring jug, the scent is then weighed and gently hand poured and blended into the wax. Finally the wax is poured into the candle mould and cooled. The swift cooling of the scented wax ensures that the fragrance is locked into the scented candle. We then keep an eye on the candles as they cool, breaking the surface around the wick allowing the well to form. As the candle cools to a certain temperature we then top up the well with scented wax to ensure the candle is full of solid scented wax without air chambers, as can occur with machine made candles. if you hold a hand made candle in one hand and a mass produced similar sized candle in the other, you can usually tell the difference by weight of the candles. Using this handmade process for our scented candles ensures that the whole of the wax is scented ensuring a good scent throw right to the end of the candle. If you do have any of scented candle left, you can break this wax up and melt it on an oil burner, like a scented wax tart to get the full benefit from your scented candle without waste. So you can see that there truly are real benefits of buying hand made highly scented candles. They may be a little dearer than the mass produced candles but will burn longer and you won’t be disappointed with the scent throw.

A Brief History of Candles

Although there appears to be little know of the exact origins of the candle, they have been lighting the path of man for centuries and is said that the ancient Egyptians were the first to us reeds dipped with tallow as torches. The Romans apparently moved on a little further by using a primitive wick but still using the tallow as the main ingredient. Tallow was from cattle or sheep suet and was very smoky and gave off an acrid like smell. Beeswax was discovered later and was a great alternative to tallow candles and burnt smoother without the acrid smell, but beeswax was expensive so mainly used by the more affluent.

Spermaceti wax was the next great milestone in the development of candles this wax was harvested from the sperm whale in the form of oil, this also did not have the acrid smell of the tallow candles. The spermaceti wax was harder than both tallow and beeswax and is noted that the first proper type candles were made with this.

The 19th century saw major steps in candlemaking with the first proper braided type wick and later the first machine to mass produce candles. Vegetable waxes were also discovered along the way with the next major discovery being paraffin wax which is a by product of petroleum and with the growth in the petrol engine and need for oil there has been a regular supply ever since.

Candles today are classed more as a luxury rather than a necessity as they were some 200 years ago, but people still enjoy and marvel in the soothing and relaxing effects of candlelight. There is a certain kind of magic in candlelight, whether it be from a scented candle giving off a pleasant fragrance or a standard standby candle for power cuts.

 Quality handcrafted candles handmade with love and care at our workshop near  the historic city of Lincoln.

Secure Online Checkout with Wax and Wane!

Shopping online and ordering through our shopping basket is secure.  When you proceed to check out online and reach the page to input your credit card details, you will see the yellow padlock at the bottom of your browser.  The yellow padlock assures you that you are on a secure website.  Our secure online checkout pages are being hosted by Secure Hosting Ltd., who use a 128bit Thawte SSL certificate to ensure secure transmission of your information.  As well as online shopping, you can still of course order by phone, email (and we'll contact you for credit card details), or fax.