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Candle Care + Candle Etiquette

July 17, 2015

With winter well and truly upon us, we gravitate towards the warmth provided by the glow of a burning candle. And the alluring scent that lingers and touches every corner of the room, putting you at ease and setting a relaxing atmosphere.

Our candle sales are at our highest during these cold winter months, so we know you all are enjoying the ritual of lighting up a candle.

There is always at least three candles burning in our home at any given time. One on the kitchen bench as we prepare dinner, one in the bathroom and one that gets moved from the dinning table to the lounge/coffee table. So with all this candle burning, we want to ensure that you are getting the most out of your Archon Designs scented soy candle and following the below basic candle care + candle etiquette, so that your candle will always look gorgeous! and working as if it was new, at every burn!

Burn your candle for a minimum of 1 hour and a maximum of 3 hours.
Trim your candle wick! Do this either before or after each burn.
Always protect the table or surface on which the candle rests. Our lids act as a good protector.
Do not burn your candle all the way down. Always leave at least 20mm of wax at the bottom.

So WHY, WHY, WHY!?! the top 4 basic candle care + candle etiquette? Let us explain:

You should always burn your Archon Designs candle for a minimum of 1 hour until you achieve a 'full melt pool'. This is where the entire surface of the candle melts across. Why? As simple as, wax has a memory; a 'wax footprint', is how we like to explain it. So say you only light up the candle and burn it for 15 minutes and have to dash off somewhere... You will notice that the candle has only had a chance to burn through a small diameter of wax from the wick, creating an 'inner ring'. Now, if you come back to the candle for the next burning session, the candle will only burn up to the imprint left of the inner ring, all the way to the bottom of the candle, thereby leaving you with all this excess wax that has accumulated on the sides of the glass tumbler. So not only will you have a hard time cleaning the glass tumbler to recycle/up-cycle it, you are more likely to throw out the candle and glassware, as you wouldn't be bothered to chip away at the wax on the sides. But the greatest disadvantage is that you are not achieving a 'full fragrance throw' (full scent of the fragrance from the candle), by not achieving the 'full melt pool', at each candle burn. So remember... Minimum 1 hour each burn time.
And never burn your candle for more than 3 hours at each burn. As more than 3 hours the glass tumbler can overheat, compromising the integrity of the glassware's structure. Even more so important as our Archon Designs soy candle is housed in a black glass tumbler and we all know that the colour 'black' conducts heat, causing the glassware to get hot and can overheat. Also to preserve the fragrance you should not over burn your candle for more than 3 hours per burn.
Trim your wick after or before each burn. This is very important to prevent your candle from causing excess smoking and sooting, or from burning the sides of the glass. The excess smoking also contributes to the over heating of the candle glassware that we discussed earlier. We recommend trimming your wick 5mm each time. Invest in a good pair of wick trimmers that will cut and remove the excess wick cleanly. Or if you don't have a pair of wick trimmers, please use a tissue and nip the tip of the wick. Using a tissue will ensure your fingers won't get black from all the soot too!
By protecting the table or surface on which the candle rests on will help when it's time to blow the candle out and re-locate the hot candle glassware to a safe place, out of reach of children and pets; as you can imagine the wax is still hot and runny and it will take some time for it to set; depending on the room temperature.
Never burn your candle all the way down, because once there is no wax at the bottom of the candle, the wick will continue to burn through until you have realised there is no wax, and by that time the glassware is heating up and potentially be overheating and can cause to compromised the integrity and structure of the glass. Ideally you should always leave at least 20mm of wax at the bottom; 10-20mm is fine.