Tips Tuesday: Caring for your wooden wick candle
Tuesday means Tips Tuesday! Today’s tips are about properly caring for your wooden wick candle!
At Cavill & Wicks our only wooden wick candle is currently our Cashmere Pine & Scotch, but it’s a good one and we want to make sure you get the most out of this divine holiday candle! The gentle crackle of a wooden wick makes for a very cozy feel, but they can be more tricky than cotton wick candles if you haven’t used them before. There are a few common issues that can cause them not to stay lit at times, but not to worry….these practices will make for a wonderful burning experience with your wooden wick candle!
Tip 1: To light your wooden wick candle, the best technique is to tilt it on an angle and let the flame draw across the wooden wick.
Tip 2: The inaugural burn. Your candles have “wax memory” and once a burn pattern has been established, it’s hard to change. Make sure that your first burn is 1 hour for every inch of candle. Your Cashmere Pine & Scotch candle is approximately 3” wide and thus the first burn should be for about 2-3 hours, or until the wax is melted all the way to the edges of the candle. If you don’t allow this inaugural burn to reach the edges of the candle, each burn will create a deeper depression around the wick and the edge wax will go to waste. Eventually the centre tunnel will be too deep for fresh oxygen to flow and your candle will have trouble staying lit. (If you are already experiencing this problem, read on).
Tip 3: Keep your wick trimmed and short, and free of smoked, charred bits. A wick trimmer, nail clippers or a wire cutter are all great for trimming the burnt areas of the wooden wick. If your wick is too long, the flame will be unable to reach the fuel of your candle: the wax. Keeping the charred bits trimmed will also prevent a dirty looking wax pool (though even if you have some charred bits, the candle will still smell great so don’t panic). Make sure your candle cools before trimming.
Tip 4: A tunnelling candle is fixable. While prevention is the best cure, giving it a good long burn so the wax pool evens out can help balance out the tunnelling effect. If your candle won’t stay lit long enough to melt a large wax pool because it’s “drowning” in wax, try using a paper towel or napkin to soak up some of the excess wax while it’s in liquid form. Removing some of the wax pool to give your wick room to breathe will allow it to burn long enough to create a larger melt pool. BE SURE to keep the paper towel AWAY from the flame to avoid fire hazard.
If you don’t have luck with that, you can attempt to use a spoon to scrape out some of the excess wax around the wick or along the sides of the candle and slowly re-add it (or discard it) as the burn pool balances out. That is a last resort so no guarantees.
Lastly, enjoy every burning minute of that beautiful wooden wick candle. Listen to the gentle cracker, enjoy the soothing holiday fragrance, and sit back and unwind.