a burnt candle showing burnt pieces of wick

4 Mistakes You'll Never Make Again With Your Beeswax Candle

These are mistakes that we have found some candle burners have made during our many years of candle making.  We hope, knowing that these can happen you will be on the lookout for them and avert the problem. At the least, perhaps you will be prepared if they do happen.

Throw matches and trimmed wick into the wax pool of your beeswax pillar Why would you do that? I’ve seen it though. People have trimmed their wick and just let the trimming fall into the burning area of their pillar. I’ve even seen parts of matches floating in the wax pool. Here is a large three-wick pillar that someone abused in this way. This is ugly. Beeswax candles are not cheap! Why would you let this happen to them? It gets worse. It isn’t just unsightly it can be dangerous. Every one of those chunks of matches or wick trimmings becomes a wick. If they come in contact with the flame or they fall into the pool while burning they can act like another burning wick and it may be in an area where you don’t want heat. If it is close to the side of the pillar it will burn through the mantle and sploosh you have a blown side in your pillar and beeswax everywhere. So please be kind to your beeswax pillars and keep the wax pool clean and free of debris.

Turn the overhead fan on at your dinner party when you are burning beeswax tapers Everything is going great at your dinner party. The food is ready, the beeswax tapers are lit, the lighting is perfect, the wine is poured and everyone sits down to eat. And then someone turns the overhead fan on or opens a window. The flame on the tapers bends and dances and then wax drips and pours down the side of your beautiful beeswax tapers onto your white linen tablecloth. What a shame! Beeswax candlesticks are virtually dripless as long as they are properly trimmed (½ inch is perfect) and they are in a draft free environment. If there is a chance that an accident like this could happen I suggest you read these articles for ideas of ways to prevent damage to furniture and tablecloths in such an event. The best plan of course is prevention, and to make sure no fans are switched on or windows or doors opened.

Classic Natural Beeswax Tapers by Honey Candles

Burn Natural Beeswax Honey Candles with Extra Assurance

Break or trim the wick on your Honey Candles® beeswax Tealight The wicks on our tealights are designed to be self- trimming. Just light them. The wick will burn to the correct size and will create just the right amount of heat to burn the beeswax up all the way to the bottom. This is true as long as there is not less than half the wax left in the cup when you light it. Tealights are best burned in one sitting. But never expect them to burn clean to the bottom if there is less than half the wax left when you light them. Correct heat is very important when burning beeswax, particularly with tealights. If the wick has been broken off or trimmed, the flame may never get big and hot enough to heat the wax to the temperature where it can completely burn up. So a short wick on your tealight means a small silly flame, little light and incomplete wax consumption.

Ignore or leave your burning beeswax tapers unattended Never light any candle and walk away leaving it unattended. There is something specific to watch out for with tapers or candlesticks. The wick on our candlesticks is designed to be self- trimming and to gently curl as they burn. If something happens that the wick doesn’t burn off and it breaks off it can slide down the side of the candle. If it is still burning it can actually burn into the side of the candle, even deeply enough to light the wick part way down the length of the candle. This can cause the candlestick to flare, drip and generally make a mess. I have never had this happen to me. We make thousands and thousands of candlesticks a year and have only had a handful of reports of this occurrence. Because we have heard of two or three customers with this issue we want to warn you of it. Our taper pairs now come with instructions under the label telling you how to best burn tapers and warn you of this possibility. If you see that your burning candlestick is developing a mushroom like cap (as shown in the photo on the right) or the wick is longer than the desired length (ideally a ½ inch) snuff it out, trim it to a ½ inch and relight.

We hope that by sharing these four tips to avoid making mistakes with beeswax candles that they will always burn beautifully and brightly for you. Did you learn something new?

Published By Pat Cattermole

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