| How my candle is burning. Q: When I light my candle why are there are small puffs of smoke coming from the wick & flame? A. Each time a candle is lit, you need to trim the wick to between 1/8” and 1/4”. If you plan to burn it for a long time (5 or more hours) then trim it to 1/8” and if you’ll only be burning the candle for a couple hours then trim wick to 1/4” and trimming before lighting will stop any smoke from coming off the candle. Q. Why is the rim of my candle jar turning black, is this soot? A. There are only two main reasons for the soot accumulation on the rim of the jar. The first is because you are not trimming the candle wick enough, trim either more of the wick and/or trim more often. The second reason is you can’t possibly be using the metal venting lid that we included for free with your jar candle. See “The metal cap that came with my jar candle". Q: Why is there wax leftover in the bottom of my candle holder? A. If you’re burning votive candles it is imperative to burn them in properly sized votive holders. The proper holder or votive cup is one in which the votive candle fits tightly inside. There should not be much room between the votive candle and the sides of the votive cup. Also, if there is 1/4” of votive or less left in the cup you need to let it burn until it is gone. If you put it out when there is 1/4” left, the next time you light it, it will burn down before it starts to melt out, and the candle will not use up all of the wax. Never burn a plastic cup tea light inside of a snug-fitting votive holder, it could crack the votive cup. Q. Why is my jar candle tunneling? or Why is there wax left on the sides of my jar candle when it is completely finished? A. Each time a jar candle is lit it must be burned until the liquid wax reaches the edges of the jar. If you light a jar candle, burn it for a couple hours and put it out and continue to do that the candle will tunnel down the middle. Our jar candles should be burned a minimum of 5 hrs. each time they are lit. When the candle is about 1/3 of the way gone you need to start using the metal venting lid when you burn the candle. After that, the candle will reach a full melt pool quicker, and this means it will smell even stronger and there won’t be any wax on the side of the jar when it is done. Extending the Burn Time of Candles Q. How can I make my candles last longer? A. Trim the wick! Trim the wick more often. And did we forget to mention, that you need to trim the wick? Here’s how it works: Wax is the fuel that a flame needs to continue to burn. As the wax melts it travels up the wick and is used up. The bigger the pool of melted wax, the more fuel the flame has. The flame continues to grow because it’s supply of liquid wax keeps getting bigger. The larger the flame gets, the more fuel it consumes to keep burning. Think of a baby, and the amount of food a baby needs to keep going in comparison to the amount of food an adult needs to keep going. When you trim the wick, you are in essence trimming the size of the flame. With a smaller flame the wax will last longer. Trimming the wick every couple of hours can make your candle last up to 25% longer. But here’s the catch. Don’t “overtrim” the wick. There should be about 1/8” of the black part of the wick sticking out above the candle. Look at a ruler and really see what an 1/8 of an inch looks like. If the wick is trimmed too much the flame will be so small that it might not recover and begin to consume the wax, it will just go out. If this happens, just light it again a dump out the liquid wax that forms around the wick. This will make the wick stick out more and the candle should recover. It has been said that putting candles in the refrigerator before burning will make them last longer. I know that at our house the candles last longer when it is 68 degrees in the house versus 90 degrees in the house. Did you know this? A brand new candle that has not been burned yet could have a 3” wick sticking out of the candle and you would NOT need to trim it before you light it? Crazy? No, here’s why: The wick is covered in wax and when you light a brand new candle the flame uses the wax on the wick to keep going until it reaches the wax of the candle. The flame will just travel down the wick using up the wick and wax that is in its path. It will burn down towards the candle and the heat from the flame starts to melt the wax directly around the wick, making it liquid and thus allowing it to travel up the wick to be used as fuel, and that big 3” wick is gone, just a normal size wick and a normal size flame. |
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