Here at Melt, we’ve worked hard on our fantastic range of handmade candles to make them a true treat for your senses, and we want you to get the very most out of them! And to do that, you’ll need to know a little about your wax pool. But what is it? Well, it’s nothing too complex – basically it’s the puddle of melted wax that results from burning your candle. Easy enough to miss, and a really common factor that people tend to forget about when lighting up a new candle for the first time.
So that’s the basic description. The big question now is – why is it so important?
What you’re aiming for
In the ideal world, you want to be in a position where the wax pool reaches all the way around the outer edge of the candle, measuring about a quarter of an inch deep. Why? Because allowing your candle to form a lovely wax pool will help you to get the best scent out of it, as well as maximise its lifespan.
In order to form a substantial wax pool, you typically need to burn your candle for about one hour for every inch in diameter your candle possesses. The larger the candle, the longer you’ll need to leave it burn for. This is pivotal the first time you light a new candle. If you don’t leave it to burn for long enough, you won’t get the the desired pool effect, and this can cause your candle to form a ‘memory ring’ and ‘tunnel’ into itself.
Tunnelling is not something you want – this is basically when the candle burns for too short a time, causing the wax to only burn a small ‘memory ring’ around the wick that doesn’t reach the outer wall of your candle. If this happens, the wax will start to tunnel, and you’ll waste a lot of valuable candle wax. The next time you light up your candle it will only burn to the edge of the memory ring, essentially wasting all that lovely fragrant wax near the edge, and substantially reducing the life of your candle.
How to stop the memory ring forming
Luckily it’s not a complicated trick, you just need a bit of patience. By allowing your candle several hours to form a substantial wax pool every time you light it, you’ll exponentially increase both its lifespan and scent throw. That gives you the full luxury candle experience, for a longer period of time! (It’s weirdly ironic in a way – the more you burn it, the longer it’ll last!)
As a side note – jar candles are especially susceptible to tunnelling, so we’d recommend that you save those for a time when you can relax and enjoy them properly.
Ultimately, you won’t get the full luxury candle experience if you create a ‘memory ring’ the first time you light up your candle. At Melt, we want to you to get the most out of your candle experience – so whatever your taste, feel free to browse our full range of scents to find the perfect mood. If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch with our team, or pop down to our Shop on the Farm to smell our candles in person. We can’t wait to help you pick your perfect fragrance!
