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Apple Sage Scented Candles DIY

These apple sage scented candles are a DIY candle scent you’ll want to come home to at the end of a long day. This step-by-step candle tutorial walks you through how to make scented candles that stand out! 

One of my favorite scents is crisp apples. When I smell apples, it makes me think of picking apples at the local orchard every autumn to make homemade applesauce, apple butter, and of course, apple pie with my mother and siblings. 

But, as a candle maker, I’ve learned it is very hard to recreate that scent.  

Because we can’t extract essential oil from apples, we have to be creative.

So, how do you make apple scented candles?

It’s all about finding the best natural fragrance blend! Just one whiff of my favorite, and you can picture the crisp red apples overflowing pails at the farmers market. And I’m sharing it with you, along with expert tips for creating fragrant scented candles with eco-friendly ingredients!

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What’s The Best Apple Candle Scent?

Makesy does a fine job of capturing the smell of a small-town farmer’s market filled with apples freshly picked from the orchard. They combined natural aromatic isolates from apple leaves, pear flowers, and apple tree bark with geranium, juniper, and cedarwood essential oils.

It’s created similar to the way the French have been making perfume for centuries! And this type of candle fragrance is phthalate and paraben-free.

Orchard Wood & Apple Leaf is blended like this:

Top: Apple Leaf, Juniper, Pear Flower
Heart: Apple Orchard Wood, Cedarwood, Geranium
Base: Oud, Oak Wood, Myrrh

What scent goes well with apple scent? 

Spicy scents like cinnamon and clove pair well with fruity scents as well as warm sweet notes like caramel. You can also add other citrus scents such as lemon to apple, for a brighter note. 

And surprisingly, some fresh scents smell good with apples, such as sage. What does sage fragrance oil smell like? Honestly, it depends on the sage. Some have a strong crisp scent, while others have an earthy herbal aroma. I prefer the herbaceous scent of sage from this essential oil. 

This combination of luscious crisp apple and herbal sage is easily my favorite homemade scented candle fragrance I’ve created!

The bright positive notes of apple blended with tranquil, grounding sage is magic! It will have you wondering why you haven’t tried this fruity herbal scent combination before. It’s a candle scent you’ll want to come home to at the end of a long day. 

How do you make homemade scented candles?

Candles are often cute enough to serve as decoration alone. My DIY Cheese mold candle and hand-rolled beeswax tapers are great examples of this, but the chief function of a candle is often fragrance. So, how do you make homemade scented candles? 

It starts by choosing a candle scent you’ll love, then getting to know candle fragrance scent types, and lastly, calculating your candle fragrance load. I’ll walk you through each step here, but for more details, see my scented candle guide. It’s everything you need to know to make candles that smell amazing. 

Step 1: Choose Your Candle Scent

Scents play an important role in our lives, and more often than not, we are drawn to a particular type of scent. While you can go about sniffing countless candles to find a good scent, there is a better way.  I broke down how to find the best candle scents for you into 4 steps – including a printable candle scent list and candle scents quiz! Get started with it, or join me in making these beautifully scented apple sage candles. 

Step 2: Choose Your Candle Fragrance Type

I’ve been asked many times, “What is the best candle fragrance type?”.Well, there are three options when it comes to candle fragrance types, and each has its own pros and cons that I share in this detailed guide. 

For this scented candle DIY, I chose Maksey’s natural orchard wood and apple leaf fragrance and organic sage essential oil.

No matter how you go about it, between the fruity freshness of apple and the grounding herbal scent of sage, there is no lack of scent here!

Step 3: Calculate The Candle Fragrance Load

What is fragrance load? The fragrance load of a candle is basically the percentage of fragrance used in candle making. It is carefully calculated to achieve the maximum amount of fragrance a candle can hold without causing candle problems and determines, above all, the scent throw.

To give you a general idea, the average store-bought candle has a fragrance load of 6%. High-end candles, on the other, have up to a 12% fragrance load.

Your fragrance load will rely heavily on the candle wax type you choose. For these apple sage scented candles, I chose NatureWax C-3 soy wax. It’s made in my home state from soybeans my father harvests! A 7 to 10 percent fragrance load is recommended for this wax. 

I entered the total weight in pounds of candle wax I needed to make three 12-ounce candles in my fragrance load calculator and tested the amount of fragrance I could add in ounces. I selected three ounces for an 8.3% fragrance load. 

You can use the fragrance load calculator to choose a percentage for any amount, candle wax type, or candle size! 

Related To: How To Make Scented Beeswax Candles 

How Do You Make Scented Candles?

This soy wax scented candle recipe is all the sweet tartness in the first bite of a honey crisp apple with the soothing scent of sage picked fresh from the garden combined into a simple soy wax candle. 

Apple Sage Scented Candle Supplies:

3 12-ounce candle jars

2.25 lbs of eco soy wax 

2 ounces natural apple fragrance oil

1 ounce sage essential oil

3 cotton wicks

3 wick sticker tabs

How to Make Scented Candles:

Step 1: 

Cover your area or line a cookie sheet with parchment or wax paper to place each candle jar on. Then press the tab on the bottom of a natural cotton wick into a wick sticker tab. Then peel it off from the sheet and place it into the center base of the candle jar. Repeat for each candle jar. 

Step 2:

Place a candle melting pitcher on a kitchen scale and tap the weight. Then pour scoops of eco soy wax inside it until you reach 2.25 pounds. 

Step 3:

Next, place the melting pitcher filled with candle wax inside a saucepan filled with approximately 2 inches of water. Use the double boiler method to heat the wax on low up to 130°F.  

Clip a candle thermometer inside the pitcher or use a no-touch infrared thermometer to keep an eye on the heat of the wax. Stir the wax slowly, yet often with a heat-resistant silicone spatula.

Step 4: 

After completely melting the candle wax, remove it from the heat source and add 2 ounces of natural apple fragrance oil and 1 ounce of sage essential oil for an 8.3% fragrance load to the wax when it is between  110°-135°. Stir the fragrance slowly into the wax for 1 to 2 minutes to thoroughly incorporate the scent. 

Step 5: 

Then use the spout of your candle melting pitcher to fill each candle jar. Hold the wicks centered and upright with wick-centering bars while curing.

Step 6: 

Allow the candles to cure for 24 hours before trimming the wick to ¼ an inch. If you want a strong scent, wait for three to five days before lighting. 

Printable Candle Tutorial

These apple sage scented candles are a DIY candle scent you’ll want to come home to at the end of a long day. It’s everything sweet, crisp, and fresh, yet tranquil and grounding. And now you can make them too with this step-by-step candle tutorial walking you through how to make scented candles that stand out! 

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Save this grounding, fruity, yet, fresh apple sage scented candle DIY to your candle-making Pinterest board, and while you’re there, be sure to follow Life-n-Reflection for more inspiring projects. 

Did you make this? Tag #lifenreflection on Instagram to share yours!