The Do's & Dont's of Candle Care

Lets talk Candle Care..

It’s so important you burn your candles following the directions on your Candle Care cards included with all our candles. 

Firstly, never leave a candle burning unattended! Keep out of reach of children, pets and soft furnishings.

Burn your candle for 4 hours at a time. When you burn a candle for an extended period of time (more than 4 hours) we refer to it as "power burning". By power burning you can cause the wick to become unstable, the flame to get too large and your candle to smoke. Power burning increases the heat in the jar and can lead to the glass exploding, putting your home at risk! Picture below shows a power burnt candle.

 

Never burn your candle dry. Always leave about 1 cm of wax at the bottom of your jar. By burning your candle to the very bottom you are increasing the risk of the glass becoming too hot and shattering #burningdownthehouse

Trim your wick before every relight. By not doing this you are creating a larger flame and in turn increasing the heat in your jar. This also helps to eliminate smoking and minimize soot forming on the container. (Extinguish the candle if it smokes, if the flame becomes too high or flickers repeatedly. Trim the wick and relight).

Always put your candle on heat resistant material, whether it be a coaster, the lid provided or a plate.

You should burn your candle for the first time until the melted wax pool reaches the edge of the glass.(This will usually take between 3-4 hours depending on the size of the container).  By not doing so you are giving your candle "burn memory" which can cause a tunneling candle. The following picture shows a candle that formed an incomplete burn memory. As you can see it has caused extreme tunneling as the customer only burnt it for 10 minutes during the first burn.

 

THE TRILOGY OF BLUNDERS - The picture below shows you what can happen when you do not follow the instructions! This candle has been power burnt (ie burnt for more than 4 hours at a time), the wick has not been trimmed and the candle has been left to burn dry... the exploding jar is the end result!! Luckily no one was hurt and no damage was done to the customers belongings.

As you can see from the pic there is a lot of black soot around the top of the jar. This indicates excessive heat build up in the jar from not trimming the wick.

*PLEASE NOTE - THIS IS NOT ONE OF MY PRODUCTS. This candle was made by a very experienced, reputable maker who shared this pic as a warning*

 

So in summary:

  • Never leave a lit candle unattended
  • Never burn a candle for more than 4 hours at a time
  • Never burn your candle dry
  • Trim your wick before relighting
  • Always put your candle on a heat resistant surface
  • Always burn to the edge of the jar during your first burn
  • Avoid creating an incomplete "burn memory"

   


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