Top 3 ways to make your candle last longer

We all spend a good deal of money on luxurious candles don’t we? now why is it once the candle is unwrapped, sniffed and picked your favourite spot where it looks nice we forget that the most important stages are about to begin and that it needs a good bit of TLC throughout the life of the candle.

Knowing how to look after your candle properly will prolong the life of it and therefore you are able to enjoy it longer.

1 This is probably THE most important thing you do with a new candle, the first time you light a candle make sure that you have long enough. What happens is you light the candle and think ‘oh i need to pop out and buy that bottle of champagne i forgot’ ahem! and blow out the candle after 10 minutes.

Firstly gold medal for remembering to not leave a lit candle unattended but what happens now is the ‘memory’ pool of the melted wax may only have reached the size of a 5p or 10p and therefore will only tunnel down and not reach the outer edges of the candle again.

However you can do a rescue mission, and this can be attempted only the first time, but not really recommended. You can take your hairdryer (all sounding a bit technical right) and very carefully re-melt the top so it evenly distributes the wax….phew!

You want the wax to ‘pool’ to the edge of the container which will then burn cleanly down the sides of the glass. We’ll talk about other types of candle styles like pillar in later blog posts. Feel free to email any questions too.

2 ‘Trim your wick’ Now honestly tell me how many times have you done this? Until i found a wick trimmer around a year ago i did not realise how amazing these are, now not quite Ewan Macgregor amazing but hey we are talking candles.

Now generally you don’t need to trim a wick before you light it the first time as your lovely experienced candle maker will have done that for you, but they are all made by hand so sometimes differ fractionally.

So after each burn before you light it the next time, please please please trim the wick not only does it make your candle last longer but it reduces the sooting caused by long wicks. Ideally it should be around 5-6mm. You can purchase the wick trimmers here – candle wick trimmer

3 Avoid putting your candle where there is a draught, by the door, window or where people walk past at a fast rate, If the flame flickers constantly it isn’t getting the wax to heat in an even fashion. Here’s an extra quick tip, i was going to write 4 tips, but it doesn’t have the same ring to it as ‘3’ Use a candle dipper instead of blowing out a candle, the wax can sometimes end up uneven and not burn as efficiently. see my blog Best way to extinguish a candle