Care Your Candle Like a Baby.....
The candle is your baby….
The candle is your baby…what???
Yes, you have heard right. Treat your candle like your baby or your loveable pet. It will never let you down. There are several rules of burning a candle, its caring tips and even its blowing and disposal also have some rules. We are not threatening you with this, but it’s a necessity and very enjoyable.
Why there is a need for candle care?
See scented candles are meant to give you aromatherapy. So technically there are rules for that too. In this topic, we will discuss with you all the candle care tips one by one in detail to make you aware of candle burning. So that you can make the best out of your candle.
1. Unpacking your Candle
Unpack your candle with great care. As good quality candles are made with great care and if the candle is made in glass or ceramic then it became mandatory to care for it. Any loose handling will break it. So there are possibilities that it will get damaged or you may also be hurt by the broken pieces of glass or ceramic. So unboxing should be done on a table with a towel top or any cushion base
2. Trimming your candle.
Do not light the candle without trimming the wick. Tough good candle makers know the importance of trimmed wick and they hand over the candle after trimming the wick but sometimes it comes as it is. Always trim your wick to a quarter of an inch or 6 mm before any lightning. This is necessary for proper burning. You can trim the candle with any available scissors, or a special candle trimming tool is also available in the market.
What happens if you do not trim the wick?
If the wick is too big then it will make either higher flame resulting in overheating the candle. Excess heat will burn the wax and fragrance instead of properly diffusing it into the environment. Also, sometimes large wick is unable to take proper wax and extinguish.
If the wick is too small, then also it is not good for candle health. The smaller wick will make low flame resulting in less heat. This will affect less hot through. Also, it will not melt the wax-up to the edge result in tunnelling and making the candle ugly stuff. Continue tunnelling results in cutting off the oxygen supply and making the flame extinguish and all the candle charms get dumped.
Trimming is required each time you start to burn your candle.
3. Do not continuously burn the candle
You may purchase the candle describing burning hours like 30, 40, or even 50 hours. That doesn’t mean that you can burn them continuously for days.
This is the total time a candle can burn but there are some terms and conditions of this burning.
Then, how much a candle should burn in a single go? This is the question.
We refer to the molten wax in any jar candle as a melt pool. The answer is when the melt pool reached the edge of the candle you can turn it off but not before that, maximum burn in such that the melt pool touches the edge and the depth of melt pool is about half of inch then this is the limit for any jar candle we can burn. The approx. time for achieving this is about 4 hours. In some cases, it will be less or more.
What happens if we don’t extinguish the candle once it reached the above condition?
The answer to this question must be known to every candle user and maker. As this is a fire item, so precautions should be taken while using the candles. Burning a candle continuously will make overheat. This will make the wax overheated and wax may catch fire. Overheating also generates soot, black smoke, and excess heat will break the container and this will be hazardous.
What to do if my Candle catches fire?
In this case, don’t panic and do a simple thing. Cover the fire with a blanket or with sand. This will cut off the oxygen supply. If you have a fire extinguisher, then it will be best. Don does not use water in this case. As wax is lighter than water. It will bloat on the water and if the fire will not stop then it looks like the fire got wheels to move.
4. What is the right way to light a candle?
Well, this is a very simple step. There are several methods to light a candle. You can use a matchstick, blow torch, lighter, or any other source of flame. But we are not talking about that.
The first time when you light the candle you can simply trim the wick and light it. But once you completed the cycle, you have achieved the perfect melt pool and extinguished the candle. Now the best practice is to light the candle again once it gets completely solidified. The best result can be achieved by lighting after 24 hours of extinguishing. The candle gets proper rest and once again it is ready to lighten your life.
5. How to extinguish a candle?
You may think that is this the topic I should read about extinguishing a candle. Even a small kid knows it. The common practice we do in extinguish is to blow off the candle. 99% of people use the same trick. Believe me, this is very bad practice even from a health point of view. Will explain how.
A scientific study shows that blowing off the candle results in germs spattering all around. Also blowing off will create smoke and smell. Most of the people blow off the candle on their cake and that will contaminate the cake with germs.
So now the question is how to extinguish it. Simply cut the oxygen supply and the candle will extinguish automatically. For this cover your jar or container candle mouth with some fire retardant object or you can use the special tool made for this purpose known as “Candle Extinguisher Snuffer”
6. Precaution in lighting a candle.
What is the rocket science in that nor is there any coding to be done in lightning that, just simply light the candle and do your work as usual.
Yes, it is as simple as that but some precautions you have to take while burning a candle. Some of them are:
- Always keep your candle on a hard and flat surface with no tilting, Surface will be fire retardant like on any metal surface.
- It should not be on any wooden surface, any cloth, plastic, paper, or any surface that catches fire easily.
- Keep away from drafts. Why it is so. Drafts make flame unstable. This will affect the burning and also it may come in contact with any curtain or other fire-catching items.
- Keep away from children- As children don’t know the fire risk and may be possible that they burn themselves or put a candle somewhere that is not suitable for the candle lighting area like we mention in the above points.
- Keep away from pets- Pets are like children, so the same rule will be applicable
So never keep burning candle attended. That doesn’t mean you can skip your work, but some attention is required while doing any work if a candle is burning.
7. Do not burn up to the end.
Why? I have paid for it. For whom should I leave it?
Yes, dear, it is only for you, but this is also for your safety. It is advisable to stop lighting candles when a quarter of wax is left. At this stage, wax is overheated and there are chances that it may catch fire. Also, it will break the jar. We have already discussed above the consequences of overheating
8. Disposal of wax
Why is there a need for the proper disposal of wax? Suppose you are left with some wax in the jar and you want to reuse that jar. In this case, you have to clean the jar properly.
The best way is to place the jar in hot water that will melt the wax. Due to being light in weight than water, it will float above it. Once it gets cooled Collect that wax in some other container or any polybag but don’t let it throw in a sink of your kitchen or do not flush as it may choke your drainage system.
What to do with that leftover wax?
You may collect leftovers from multiple candles and use them in your candle-making under the DIY (Do it yourself) initiative.
If you are a regular candle user then we recommend you have a small fire extinguisher in your home. It is not for candle only buy this is for your safety in all the scenarios of fire.
In developed countries burning candles are a necessity. As they are very well aware of all the benefits of burning candles. When you came back from work, just sit in a dark room, lit a scented candle as per your choice, and take this aromatherapy. Believe me, doing this for just 30 minutes helps me in personally getting again energetic to do lots of stuffs. I can then append quality time with family and friends.
We must suggest you introduce candle burring practice in life end see the positive changes.
Thanks to all for reading this. We hope you like it, If you have any questions related to this topic and if you want details on any other topic related to candles, then please feel free to send a mail at feedback@namocreations.com.