When you buy paraffin wax to make candles, most of the time it is sold by weight and conditionned as wax pellets. Such a conditioning is ideal as it makes it easy for you to store, manipulate and proportion.

If you live in the United States, chances are you’ll never use basic paraffin because there’s a wide range of pre-blends available, specially formulated for a specific type of candle.  

But if you’re a beginner, you can learn a lot by playing around with pure paraffin and additives as most european candle makers have to, due to the unavailability of pre-blends in these countries.

Straight paraffin usually comes with a melting point (MP) of 140°F, which limits its use for “hard” candles like Pillars or Votives.