How to Care for Your Soy Candle (and Make It Last Longer)
All Bread & Weather essential oil soy candles are lovingly made to provide you with hours of aromatherapy cosiness. To keep them looking and working their best (and safest), here are some tips to maintain their high quality for longer.
Wait for a full ‘melt pool’ each time you light your candle.
A full melt pool is when the liquid wax reaches all the way to the edge of the jar and approx. 1cm deep, all the way around.
For the first lighting this will take anything from two to five hours. Subsequent lightings will take less time. As the flame moves further down the jar, more heat is trapped inside and the wax melts faster.
Allowing your candle to reach a full melt pool will prevent ‘tunnelling’. Find out more about tunnelling and candle care here.
Trim the wick before re-lighting your candle
Long, or crooked wicks can create high flames, smoking, or sooting. Trimming the wick to 5mm (when the wax has set) is the easiest way to prevent this.
Don’t burn your candle for longer than three hours at a time.
As with all container candles, the wick is held in place by the solid wax underneath it. Lighting the candle for longer than three hours at a time, or in a very warm environment, can cause the melt pool to become too deep and the wick may tilt to one side.
If you see the wick has tilted, first extinguish the candle. You can then push the wick back to an upright position using a skewer or other heat safe implement, while the wax is still liquid.
Wait for the candle to cool and solidify completely before relighting.
Don’t burn your candle all the way to the end.
It is best to stop using your candle when 1/2 an inch of wax remains. This will prevent possible heat damage to the surface the candle is on or the jar itself.
Notes for three-wick candles
Owning a three-wick candle is a bit like owning an expensive pedigree pet — very impressive and eye-catching, but they can give you a bit of bother if not looked after correctly. I wick my large candles with the slowest-burning wicks I can get away with, so the first burn takes its time and gives maximum enjoyment. Once you’ve allowed that initial burn to create a full melt pool, best practice is to do shorter burns thereafter — just long enough to form a level melt pool about 1cm deep. Before each lighting, trim all three wicks to the same height so they burn in unison, and every so often, rotate the candle if your surface isn’t perfectly level. If one wick looks like it’s struggling, extinguish the candle and gently clear a little wax around it so it can catch up. And, as with all candles, stop using it once you reach about 1–1.5cm of wax at the bottom — three flames mean more heat, so that safety margin matters even more here.
Notes for tealights
Tealights on the whole tend to be pretty well behaved and low maintenance. I did notice however, when doing a quick test in my studio, that if they are in a cold environment and also on a heat absorbing surface, like marble, they will struggle to burn well. This makes sense given their small size and thin aluminium case — too much heat escapes and the wick can’t melt all the wax effectively. In case you have had this difficulty, try moving them to a warmer spot.
Bonus safety tips for all candles
Always light a candle on a flat, heat resistant surface.
Light your candle in a draft free location. Drafts can cause rapid and uneven burning and destabilise the wick.
Keep your candle out of direct sunlight and away from other heat sources such as fireplaces and other candles.
Never leave a burning candle unattended.
Do not move a burning candle, the wax will be fluid when lit.
Do not leave matches or wick trimmings in the melt pool — debris in the wax can act as a secondary wick, encouraging your candle to burn faster or unevenly.
Never burn the wax down to the base.
Keep your candle away from anything flammable such as foliage and synthetic decorations, curtains and fabrics.
Make sure burning candles are out of reach of children and pets.
