Candle Care Essentials
Promoting a safer environment with cleaner burning and longer lasting candles.
Are you a candle lover who wants to get the most our of your candles?
The three priorities for “Candle Care” are:
Safety: Open flames in the home carry inherent risks. Ensuring a safe environment is maintained when burning candles is important.
Clean Burn: Black soot is a major turnoff for burning candles. Proper candle care promotes cleaner burning candles.
Extended Life: Maximizing the burn time of our candles is desirable, especially if they are a one-of-a-kind handmade creation!
Meet Rocky! We adopted him in March 2020. Rocky loves to play fetch and spend as much time at the park as possible! When we are home though, we keep our candles on an elevated surface away from where his wagging tail or a stray ball could come in contact!
Taking preventative steps are critical for candle safety
Place your candle on a stable, uncluttered, heat-resistant surface that is out of reach from children or pets.
Keep the flame at least 12 inches away from anything that can burn easily - curtains, clothing, carpets, etc.
Always keep a lit candle in sight.
Avoid burning a candle where there is a strong breeze (hallway with gusts of airflow or near a ceiling fan).
NEVER use water to extinguish a candle’s flame. Instead, use a wick dipper, snuffer, or simply blow it out.
Trim the wick for a cleaner burn
The top portion of the video below shows a wick being lit before it is trimmed. Notice how after lighting the wick, the flame grows tall and releases smoke before eventually settling down. The bottom portion of the wick shows the same candle being lit after the wick is trimmed. Notice here how the flame’s height stays the same after it is lit and no smoke is detected.
Trimming the wick before lighting it helps ensure a cleaner burning candle.
After burning a candle you may notice a little nub at the top of the wick. This is called “carbon buildup” and it is what accumulates as your candle burns. Trimming your wick before you light your candle removes any carbon buildup left behind from the previous burn.
Extend candle life with moderation
The nick name for burning a candle for longer than 4 hours is called a “Power Burn”. Power Burns are not recommended because as the candle burns longer, it gets hotter and uses the candle’s fuel faster. This shortens the life of your candle. Typically, you can expect about 5 hours of burn time per ounce of wax (if the wax is a vegetable wax, like soy). This means an 8 ounce candle should last about 40 hours, but power burning can dramatically shorten that timeline.
I needed to do a lot of testing when I started making candles. Figuring out the proper wick size, selecting the right scents, and learning the chemistry involved with blending various types of wax can be an exhausting process. The number of times I got in trouble for burning too many candles or for leaving candles lit over night are too many to count! Before I started making candles, I never imagined a day where my wife would get upset with me for burning candles - but I guess 34 candles burning for 12 hours at a time in a 1,300 square foot apartment is a bit excessive…
Remember, the best way to get the most our of your candles is to burn them for a max of 4 hours at a time. Everything in moderation!
