With a little bit of care, your Wicked Sunday Co. candle will last longer, burn more consistently and produce better fragrance. Oh, it may also help not burn the house down.
The good news is, looking after your Wicked Sunday Co. candle is super easy.
The first burn
The wick
We trim all our wicks to the correct length, but it doesn’t hurt to check. Before you light your candle for the first time, make sure that the wick is only about 5-6mm (about ¼ inch) above the level of the wax. We trim all our wicks to the correct length, but it doesn’t hurt to check.
The first burn should be a long one
The first burn is the most important one! Make sure that the candle burns until the entire surface of the wax has become liquid. This could take 2, or even 3 hours. You may have heard that soy wax has memory. This is why. If it doesn’t burn all the way to the edges, the next time you light your candle it will only melt as far as your first burn creating a tunnel, and wasting all that gorgeous smelling wax! Not to mention, it reduces the life of your candle.
But don’t over do it!
Never burn your candle for more than 4 hours. After about 4 hours, the melt pool may be starting to overheat. This also means that the amount of scent the candle puts out is reduced and you will notice that the flame may start to cause smoke, soot, and the wick can become extra mushroomy. Noone needs that.
If this starts happening, extinguish the candle and wait for it to cool down. We all need a break sometime, and so do our candles. You may then wipe the soot away with a tissue or damp cloth. Give that wick a trim back to the magic length of about 5-6mm.
The wick
Keep the wick trimmed! Ok, this is like the golden rule of looking after your candle. Every time you relight your candle, check your wick. It will probably be too long with a bit of mushrooming at the top. Give it a trim back to 5-6mm. Do I really have to?, we hear you ask. Yes you do! It can be a pain, but it’s so worth it. No one needs their house burning down.
If your wick has become long enough to fall over, you may also recenter it after you have trimmed it back. If you are experiencing uneven melting of the melt pool, this may be caused by a wick that has fallen over. In this case, extinguish the candle and wait for it to cool down before trimming and recentering the wick and relighting.
Keeping your wick property trimmed can prolong the life of the candle as much as 25 percent!
Extinguishing your candle
Of course you can blow on it, but did you know that this is not ideal? Putting out your candle the correct way will ensure you stay safe and you don’t end up with a room smelling like smoke. Simply blowing out your candle leaves the wick smouldering which is what fills the room with the smoke smell.
The best and safest way to put out your candle is by using a candle snuffer. It can help prevent the wick from moving, ensures no wax is spilt, and it prevents the wick from smouldering and releasing all that smoke. It also feels kind of neat doing it that way.
Another nifty little tool is a wick dipper. You would dip the lit wick into the wax melt pool to extinguish the flame. This method is really effective as it extinguishes the flame without any smoke and leaves the wick coated with wax for easy relighing. A wax dipper is a metal utensil with a little lip / hook on the end used for scoping the wick back out of the wax. Or if you don’t have one of those, and most people don’t just use a pair of tweezers. You’re welcome! Oh, and make sure the wick is straightened again properly, so it doesn’t get lost in the melt pool. That would be a bit unfortunate.
Never use water to extinguish your candle! Water can cause the hot wax to splatter and getting water on the hot candle container can cause it to crack.
When to stop burning your candle
Always keep an eye on the amount of wax remaining in the container. You want to stop burning the candle once the wax level falls below about 1.25 cm (half an inch). Burning the candle below this point is dangerous. It makes the container really hot, and it can create some weird mini explosion, causing damage to the container, the surface and things around it.
Enjoy!