Making candles can take months to perfect. You need to test EVERYTHING before you are ready to sell. You need to figure out what you want to do first, paraffin, soy, palm, or a blend of some sort. Then you have to decide - containers or pillars. Once that is figured out, if you want to do containers you need to get them, or molds for pillars, and then start testing out your wicks. You want to test for a clean, even burn, under normal circumstances, then test for power burns, then test for in between. Once that is figured out for that wax and that container/pillar, then you start adding in your additives one at a time - color - then test, scent - then test, wax additives - then test. Testing each time, all 3 ways, all the way to the bottom of the container/pillar. It is very time consuming, but it is easier to test this way because with each new variable added, the way your candle burns will change, and once you know inside and out how a plain no color, no scent, no additive candle burns, you will be able to quickly trouble shoot what adjustments are needed when adding your variables.
Most people I know who are chandlers by trade, and have a successful candle business will tell you that it took about 1 year to 18 months to perfect their candles enough to sell.
I'm not trying to discourage you, but this business is not for the "faint of heart" so to speak, and it's not as easy as a lot of people think. There is a LOT that goes into making a safe, clean burning, consistent product.
There are shortcuts sure, but until you know how your wax will perform in the application you want to have it in, there's no way to know what those shortcuts are.
Once all that is done and you feel you have a nice reliable product, first thing you want to do is put insurance in place, and talk to your local business bureau about how to set up a business.
