# Homemade/Natural dyes for candles?



## FromScratchGirl

i will be making tallow candles soon and am curious about coloring them - can I use natural dyes such as paprika, cinnimon, sage,beets?

I've heard crayons are a no no for parrafin candles, but what about in tallow?


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## Wisconsin Ann

Crayons may not blend well with the tallow..dunno since I've never tried it! I HAVE used crayons for parrafin candles tho. not that I'd sell because it's kinda iffy on the color you get. what I do is melt the crayons first (and I use crayola, which are actually pretty intensely dyed) then pour the liquid crayon into the same temp parrafin

anyway. sage will give you a light greeny/grey color, paprika will do a brown, cinnamon a redbrown, beets...dunno about that. beet coloring is NOT light fast (will bleachout quickly) on fabric/wool even with mordanting...so I just don't know what will happen with tallow.

The problem with most of the natural substances for dying is that they're liquid or have some form of water in them. Try drying out beets..thin slices in a dehydrator, then pounded up fine...might work

You do know that tallow candles tend to go yellow quite quickly? and they smoke badly. It is quite accurate historically to mix tallow with beeswax (or wax from various berries) to get a better candle.

My best advice to you is to try small amounts of tallow with your various dye substances. check marigold petals perhaps, dried onion skins (nice yellow), even grass (think of those nasty grass stains you used to get on your pants!). Just be very careful with adding anything that has water in it to the hot tallow. 

hmmm. perhaps putting a substance like chopped beets in the tallow as it melts/processes would color the tallow, boil off the water as it melts....not a bad idea to try.


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## lickcreek

I would be concerned about how the little bits of cinnamon, beet, etc would affect the burning of the candle. What happens when they get up against the wick? Could that be dangerous? I have seen instructions before for those "grubby" candles that get rolled in 
spices, and they always said to keep the spices away from the flame area because they would be a fire hazard.

Are you looking for something you can mix in the wax, or are you simply decorating the outside of the candle? Are these container candles, pillars or tapers? I hope you find a safe natural way to color your candles.


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