We are candle makers, you are the candle lover. And that’s why we want you to enjoy your candles as good, safe and long as possible. In our candle studio we constantly test our candles on criteria such as burning time and wick size. And through these tests, we found out some interesting stuff we want to share with you. Consider it a collection of 6 tips for burning candles.
Our tips for burning candles the right way
- Keep your wick short
- Melt the wax layer by layer
- Don’t burn the candle too long
- Keep the wick in the centre
- Leave a small layer of wax
- Don’t blow out your candle
Do you want to know how to get going? Below you’ll read more about the 6 tips for burning candles the right way!
1. Keep your wick short
Lets start with this burning tip, because it might be the most important one to burn your candle properly. And it may even yield you up to 5 extra burning hours.
It might feel a bit weird to keep your wick this short. But by doing so, the flame is a smaller and this way the soy wax melts easier and slower. The bigger the flame, the warmer the candle and the faster the wax evaporates. So: break or cut the wick to a maximum of 1 cm before every burning session.
2. Melt the wax layer by layer
The last thing you want is for your new candle to not fully burn up. It would be such a waste. This mainly happens when your candle ‘tunnels’. It’s the phenomenon where wax is still sticking to the sides of the glass after burning it.
Normally this doesn’t happen to our soy candles because the wax turns fluid quite fast and all candles have the right wick size. We do however advice you to first only melt the top layer of wax when you light your candle for the first time.
It might seem like your candle is tunnelling the first couple of hours. This is because the glasses are V-shaped. But you’ll notice that all wax will melt once the flame is closer to the middle and the glass gets hotter.
3. Don’t burn the candle too long
One of the tips to burn your candles longer: don’t burn the candle for multiple hours consecutively. Because the molten wax will also emit a lovely scent after the flame is extinguished.
If you burn the candle to long consecutively, the wick will free up more, causing the flame to grow stronger. You can recognise this by the ‘mushroom-shaped’ end of the wick and the size of the flame. It will cause the wax to melt faster than needed. Also, a bigger flame may cause smoke and black swipes on your glass.
So it’s really important to trim the wick regularly to prevent this. And also do not burn it for more than 4 hours at a time. We consider one to two hours a great burning time.
4. Keep the wick in the centre
Wicks might have the tendency to tip to one side or the other. If this happens, causing one side of the candle to melt faster, gently flip the wick to the other side using a match.
If you’ve nearly finished burning your candle (the bottom layer of the wax has molten), the glue that attaches the wick to the glass might loosen up a bit. This can cause the wick to drift towards the edge if you blow it out or move the candle. Therefore, it’s very important not to move the candle while the wax is still fluid and to extinguish the candle (tip 6) instead of blowing it out.
5. Leave a small layer of wax
Yes, the glass will be hot! We’re talking about fire here, so please be extremely careful. We advice you to leave a small layer of wax in the candle before extinguishing it for the last time. This prevents the bottom of the glass from the direct heat of the flame.
Naturally, you always place your candle on a fire resistant surface to prevent fire or serious injury, and also to make sure it doesn’t leave any stains or circles.
6. Don’t blow out your candle
As explained in tip 4, we advice you to not blow out your candle because it may smoke and the wick may drift towards one side of the glass. But how should you extinguish it then? Here’s the final tip of our 6 tips for burning candles: the best thing you can do is gently dip the wick in the fluid wax with a match or stick. This will immediately extinguish the flame. Make sure to push it back up once the flame is gone. That’s it!