One of the fun things about being a teacher is you learn to do all kinds of new things you would otherwise never do. I teach in Thailand and Thai schools are obsessed with making things. Every week, in club class, I had to make something new. One week, scrambling around for something to make, one of the Thai teachers pulled me aside and said, “I teach you how to make soy candles”. Soy candles, eh? Never heard of them. But Thailand consumes tons of soy and also uses soy to make soy candles, so I figured it might be interesting. Before club, the Thai teacher sat me down and showed me step-by-step how to make soy candles. Then, during club, I acted like I was an expert, and made soy candles with my kids. They absolutely loved them, and begged me to help them make them again the following week.

Soy candles are actually quite easy to make and I’ve made them several times since. You only need five items and they’re cheap to buy, so making soy candles is also inexpensive.

Before you get started, you will need:

1 pound of soy wax per large candle (in Thailand, we used one kilo to make several small votive candles, which is just over 2 pounds)

1-2 ounces of fragrance, depending on how strong smelling you want it.

A glass container to put the melted wax in (we used small Thai pickle jars, about the same size as a small jam jar as we wanted to make several soy votive candles).

Some color wax dye (my kids are into rainbows and bright things, so we got about 10 different colors – two would be fine to get started with though).

Cotton wicks.

Once you’ve got all your items together here’s how you make soy candles:

1. Put the soy wax into a saucepan and heat on a medium he