Candles make a great addition to any home for many reasons. You might want them to add a touch of style or to create a more relaxing atmosphere. Lighting a candle can be a wonderful way to relax any time of the day or night, and, for many people, the fragrance can be the best part.
If you’ve found the perfect candles, you’ll naturally want to use them for as long as possible. Luckily for you, we’re about to share six simple ways to make your favorite candles last longer.
1. Let Your Candle Burn
If you want to keep a candle for a long time, you may be tempted to only light it for short periods. However, doing this can decrease the life span of the candle!
If you don’t allow the wax to create a pool on the surface of the candle, which will usually take around two hours, you can create a problem known as tunneling. Tunneling is where the wax at the edge hasn’t been able to liquefy as it should. If this happens, the next time you light your candle, the flame will begin to burrow down and create a tunnel while not melting the outer wax.
Another important rule of thumb is to keep your burn times shorter than four hours. This prevents the candle from getting too hot, and the wicks from getting too long. If this happens, you can experience smoking or sooting from the wicks, and the vessel could crack from the heat. Always burn safely, and keep an eye on burning candles.
2. Trim the Wick
If you don’t trim the wick with each use, this could heavily impact how long-burning your candle is. When the wick becomes too long, it’s much harder for the candle to burn evenly, which can affect its life span.
A long wick can also cause black soot, which isn’t pleasant for you, your home, or your candle!
For optimum results, keep your wick at a quarter of an inch. You can do this with scissors at the beginning, but you may need a candle wick trimmer to reach easily as the candle gets smaller.
Trimming the wick isn’t a big task and will take just a few seconds of your time before you light your candle. Keeping your wick trimmer in a convenient place will make it easy to remember to do this each time. Also, wick trimmers are not expensive, so it’s well worth purchasing one to easily get more joy out of each candle.
3. Keep Your Candle Covered
Putting a lid on a candle will help to preserve the scent of the wax, meaning you’ll be able to continue enjoying the fragrance. Covering your candles will also keep dust and other particles away.
You can do this with a lid if it has one, or create a simple cover using cardboard or a similar material. It can be helpful to keep the lids of old candles for new ones that don’t have them.
As a safety precaution, always ensure the flame is completely out before putting a lid or any kind of cover on your candle.
4. Don’t Blow Your Candle Out
Blowing out your candle when you’ve finished enjoying it might seem like a normal part of the process, but this could cause the wax to become uneven. Doing so can also harm the wick, making it harder to light next time.
Instead of blowing your candle out, invest in a candle snuffer or a wick dipper. Both of these handy tools will help keep your candle in the best condition.
It can take time to get over the habit of blowing candles out, especially if you’ve been doing this for a long time. However, you’ll soon get into the new habit of extinguishing your candles with a snuffer or wick dipper instead!
5. Place Your Candle Wisely
Where your candle stands in a space can impact how long it lasts. For this reason, the best place to put candles is in an area that’s free from any drafts. So, don’t place them near windows, air vents, or fans, as this can increase the rate at which the wax melts. Drafts can also cause an uneven burn, which not only means the appearance will be altered but also that you don’t get to enjoy your candle for as long.
Keeping your candles away from the walls in your home is also a good idea. Although this won’t magically create a long-burning candle, it will remove the risk of black marks appearing on your walls. These black marks can be tough to clean, and if the flame is particularly hot, then being too close to the wall could also cause paint to peel. So, it’s wise to avoid these problems by simply putting your candles in a safe place.
6. Choose Coconut Wax Candles
Coconut wax is the slowest-burning wax available for making candles today, so choosing coconut candles is a no-brainer.
Coconut-based candles will naturally burn for longer than those made from paraffin wax, soy wax, or beeswax, meaning you’ll get to spend more time enjoying them.
The slow burn of coconut wax is due to how soft it is. A softer wax requires less heat to burn, so coconut candles have cooler wicks, thereby allowing for a prolonged burn time!
Making Your Candles Last Longer
Remember, every candle will have a typical burn time and you can check this out before you decide to buy.These simple tips won’t dramatically increase the lifespan of a candle beyond the estimated burn time, nor is there anything you can do to make a candle last forever. Still, they will help to keep yours burning well for as long as possible.
However, if you feel sad every time a candle finishes, you might be happy to know that there is life after death in our candles! Each of our candles comes with a wildflower seed paper card that you can plant in the vessel to grow flowers after the candle has finished burning. Buy a Plant Based Candles and stop throwing your empty candles away 🌱