Yes, You've Been Burning Your Candles Wrong This Whole Time
There are a few tips and tricks that can help you save your candles from an untimely demise. Take notes, this will be on your midterm exam. If you do well, your next candle might just live out its days burning long and proud like its ancestors had hoped.
You never trim your wick.
As we've mentioned in a previous post, trimming your wick is so so so important. It can correct a whole slew of problems like the flame not burning straight, soot in your candle, smoke when it burns, and the wax turning yellow over time. You should trim it before every burn and ensure the wick stays between 1/8 - 1/4 inch.
You light a candle and then need to leave. (Or your cat smothers it.)
Don't light a candle and then 5 minutes later blow it out. It's important to let the top layer of wax melt completely across the candle. If you don't let this happen, your candle can start to tunnel. Once tunneling starts, there isn't much you can do to get to use all that waxy goodness.
Pro Tip: If your candle is already tunneling, you can wrap the candle in aluminum foil so that only the top is open. Then light the candle. The heat from the flame will heat up the jar and in turn the aluminum foil and will help melt the wax from the walls. Make sure you do this while you are in the room and can supervise the candle burning.
You burn your candle by an open window.
Keep the flame away from moving air, e.i. fans, wind, heavy traffic areas. The moving air can cause the flame to move and hit the sides of the container, causing black soot marks.
You burn your candle for more than 4 hours.
Having a candle burning for four or more hours can cause carbon to collect on the wick and cause 'mushrooming'. This can cause the wick to become unstable, the flame to get large, and the candle to get sooty.
You blow your candles out like a birthday cake!
What's wrong with this, you ask? You can blow wax into the room and smoke in the air. It can also bury the wick in the melted wax. Try smothering the flame with a lid.
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