Soy Wax Melting Point and Pouring Temperature: Full Chart in °F and °C

Temperature is to soy candles what timing is to baking bread. The same wax poured at 165°F gives a sunken top and wet spots on the glass, and poured at 120°F gives a rough, lumpy surface. Here are all the temperatures, with what happens when you miss them.

The four temperatures you need to know

Soy wax melting point

Container soy wax has a melting point of about 115-130°F (45-55°C), depending on the blend: that is where the wax starts to turn liquid. It is not the temperature you work at. To dissolve every crystal and get an even candle, heat the wax to 175-185°F (80-85°C), well above the melting point, then let it cool to the fragrance and pour temperatures in the table. Pillar and wax-melt blends are formulated to melt higher, so check the supplier's spec sheet for yours.

Temperatures for popular waxes

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Why fragrance goes in hot

At 175°F soy wax has low viscosity and fragrance oil disperses through it in under a minute of stirring. At 140°F the wax is thicker, some crystals are already forming, and the oil ends up unevenly distributed: some candles in the batch smell and some do not. The exceptions are essential oils and oils with very low flash points, which go in at 150-160°F at the cost of weaker scent.

Pour temperature: the symptoms of getting it wrong

Wax cools in the pitcher faster than you expect: from 185°F to 140°F takes 10-20 minutes depending on the volume. Stir every 2-3 minutes and read a probe thermometer in the middle of the wax, not against the wall.

Pouring too hot or letting the candle cool too fast usually shows up a few days later as a white bloom or patches where the wax has pulled away from the glass. Causes and fixes are in soy candle frosting and wet spots.

Container and room temperature

• Containers should be at room temperature or gently warmed (100-120°F, with a heat gun or a low oven). Cold glass sets the wax instantly at the walls and leaves wet spots.
• Room: 68-75°F, no drafts. In a cold kitchen candles cool too fast and crack or frost.
• Do not chill in the fridge or outside. Slow cooling over several hours gives the best structure.
• Do not move the candles for the first 2-3 hours after pouring.

The thermometer matters

The best tool is a probe thermometer (kitchen or candy) reading to 300°F. Submerge the probe in the middle of the wax without touching the bottom or wall of the pitcher. Infrared thermometers read only the surface, which is 10-20°F cooler than the interior, and regularly lead to pouring too hot.

Second pour and smoothing tops

If the top sinks around the wick despite good temperatures, keep back about 10% of the batch. After the candle has fully set, heat it to 150-160°F (a little hotter than the first pour, so it bonds) and pour a thin layer. Minor imperfections smooth out with a heat gun: 10-20 seconds from about 4 inches away, until the surface just melts.

More on fixing sinkholes, frosting, and wet spots: soy candle troubleshooting.

Temperature is not the last step: fragrance keeps binding into the wax for days after it sets. How long that takes and how to tell when a candle is ready is in our guide to soy candle cure time. If the temperatures were right and the candle still smells faint when lit, work through how to make soy candles smell stronger.