5 Tips For Taking Care Of Your Candles

Are you serious? First I have to take care of my soap, now I have to take care of my candles too? Well, if you want to get the most out of your candle and be safe at the same time…yes. Yes you do have to take care of them. Alright, so now that you have this new candle, you want to use it wisely. Will it burn evenly? Will I know how to trim the wick properly? How can I keep it clean? Fuggetaboutit! We’ve got the answers to all of your burning candle questions. Let’s get to it!

Prepare Your Candle For the First Burn

The first thing you want to do is make sure your wick is the proper length. We recommend using a wick trimmer since it creates a nice clean cut that maintains the integrity of the wick. You want your wick to be about ¼” in length before burning. You will want to trim the wick to this size for every subsequent burn. We recommend only trimming wicks on cooled candles, to prevent debris from falling into hot wax.

Find The Perfect Spot

You want to find the perfect surface for burning. The ideal surface is even, heat safe, away from drafts, and out of reach of pets, children and long or elaborate draperies. We love an elaborate window treatment, just keep them away from fire!

Finally, you may light your candle. Lighters are great for early burns, but as the candle wax gets lower, we recommend a long match to reach the wicks without burning yourself.

First Burn

The first time you burn a candle it is really important to ensure that the first layer has completely liquified on your first burn. Otherwise, you get wax that stays up the edges of the candles for every burn afterwards.

We recommend burning your candle for 3 hours initially ( or until you get a full melt pool) to ensure that you don’t get tunnelling on the second burn.

This candle has a full melt pool.

This candle is tunneling.

Supervise Your Candle

Wait…am I supposed to just babysit this thing now? Yes! If you have ever watched me make soap on TikTok you know my motto is “Safety First”. Never, Ever leave a candle burning unattended.

Helping your candle burn to its potential is a delicate balance of leaving it alone and keeping an eye on it. Most surfaces aren’t perfectly even, so we recommend rotating your candle 180 degrees every 30 minutes. This will ensure that you get an even pool of liquid wax.

Keep Your Candle Clean

You want to avoid any debris in your molten wax pool, so don’t leave any half burnt matches or wicks in there. The candle will start to smoke, and instead of a lovely fragrance, you will get black charring.

If you don’t trim your wick, the burnt wick will fall into the molten wax and be a potential fire hazard and often creates an unpleasant smell.

This is one step of candle care that most people ignore, but it will help your candle last longer and smell fresh every time.

Candle Don’ts

Don’t leave unattended
Don’t play with the wax or try to move the wax around the jar. This will make the wax uneven and promote uneven burning.
Don’t burn for more than 4 hours. Your wick can “mushroom” and create a large and unstable flame.
Don’t forget to trim that wick! Untrimmed wicks lead to popping, smoking, and soot. This is how candles end up looking dirty and full of debris.
Don’t burn in a small unventilated room.
Don’t fall asleep with your candle burning.

Candle Do’s

Enjoy often! Treat yourself!

So, yes, you have to care for your candles so that you can get the most out of them. No one wants to buy a nice candle and then burn it in a way that makes it tunnel, spews black smoke or even worse sets a fire. Use the tips laid out here to take care of your candles and you will get several more uses out of them and have a much better experience.

Now that you are a candle expert, you should pick up a few. Go ahead. Treat yourself to a relaxing evening. You deserve it.