Summer is fast approaching and it will soon be time to fill the pools, have outdoor parties, or head to the beach. We have the perfect candles to fit in with your summer time activities. Nothing says summer like a tropical fruit smoothie or these unique fruit scented candles. Our Mojito, Strawberry Daiquiri, and brand new Bahama Mama candles are poured into unique glass cups that can be re-used when the candles have been completely burned. These scented candles are made using palm wax which crystallizes when it dries making it look like they are full of chipped ice. The Mojito candle is scented with lime and mint, the Bahama Mama is fresh coconut and juicy mango, and the Strawberry Daiquiri is a sweet strawberry and cream. Each of these cool candles is topped with a decorative fruit accent whether it be a slice of lemon or orange, a cherry, or strawberries. Use these candles to decorate around your home or at your fun get-togethers this summer. Order a set of 6 or more and save nearly $2.00 per candle at http://www.uscandleco.com/candles/jar-candles/ .
Palm wax is an all-natural, renewable resource that is obtained from the oil palm in Southeast Asia. Due to its environmentally friendly attributes, palm wax offers a whole new choice for candle makers who market sustainable or renewable resource based extensions to their candle lines. It has been grown as a commercial crop in well managed and regulated estates since the early 1900’s. The oil palm produces fruit in bunches which are harvested, and sent to palm oil mills where the oils are extracted, sterilized, clarified and purified into crude palm oil. The crude oil is then sent to palm oil refineries where it is processed further into products such as cooking oil, shortening, cocoa butter substitutes, non-dairy creamers, soaps, and of course everybody’s favorite – Palm Wax.
Palm wax is a superb material for making excellent burning candles. It resists melting in hot summer months, holds fragrance well, and best of all, can be easily manipulated to produce an infinite array of surface patterns ranging from complex crystalline designs to smooth solid colors.
With the combination of quality fragrances, proper wick, and standard wax dyes, the finished candles have been described as having a crystal, feathered or marbled appearance and are clean burning with an excellent scent throw.
Choosing the right candles for your home or event can be more challenging than at first it may seem. There are many factors that go into which candle will work best. Some of the factors are, the environment the candles will be in, the number of candles being used, scented or unscented candles, and length of time the candles need to burn.
Lets assume that the candles being decided on are made by a reputable candle company and are high quality candles. That is, of course, one of the most important factors. There hundreds, if not thousands, of candle styles available to pick from so which one should you choose?
Why are you buying the candles? People buy candles for many different reasons, for decoration, ambiance, to freshen the air, all of the above. The answer to this question will begin you down one path or another. A soft romantic ambiance can be gotten from any candle when it is lit. However, you may not want to light a novelty candle (candle with a special shape or design) because it will be ruined once it is burned. If all your going for is ambiance then you need to consider the environment the candles are being used in. Is the setting a dinner for two or a bubble bath for one? Taper candles are the traditional “romantic couple” dinner candles. If you’re going for the bubble bath then you might just want a few tealights to surround the tub with.
If the candles are only going to be used for decoration, is it for your home or an event? Many people purchase candles to use in their homes that they don’t intend to burn. Pillar candles are very popular for creating decorative arrangements and centerpieces. With so many pillar sizes and colors available finding candles to match your home decor is relatively easy. If you are decorating for an event check with the venue about their rules pertaining to candles. Some have a strict “no candles” rule. Others allow candles but require that the candle flame not be higher than the top of the container they are in. The type of event will determine what style of candle you look for.
If you’re using the candles to freshen the air, the main factor to consider is the size of the room. Smaller rooms like bathrooms may only need a votive or small jar to freshen the air. For larger rooms such as living rooms or master bedrooms larger candles like a 6×6 pillar or 64 oz. jar might be a better choice. The larger the surface area of the liquid wax the faster the fragrance will be pushed into the air. Some fragrances are naturally “lighter” than others. A Vanilla scented candle may not be as noticeable as a Black Cherry, or a Honeydew as strong as a Lilac. Sometimes a subtle fragrance is all that is desired.
Jar candles are very popular because they reduce the potential for wax to spill or drip on to the table. Whatever the reason is for purchasing candles, if you light them make sure to not leave them unattended.
One of the biggest complaints about candles of all kinds is in regards to the soot that can be produced by them. There are a variety of ways to greatly reduce the amount of soot coming from your candles which will also help them to burn better. Today I will share some of these candle burning tips with you to help you have a better experience with you candles and save money. Lets first understand what causes soot from a candle flame.
What Causes Candle Soot
Soot from a candle is caused when there is incomplete combustion of the fuel. This can be caused by a number of factors. Two of those factors are the balance between the wax and wick in the candle and disturbing the candle flame. The fuel to the candle flame is the liquid wax which is being drawn up through the wick. Once the flame of the candle has started drawing the liquid candle wax up the wick, it does so at a steady rate. When the candle flame is disturbed the size of the flame changes and the amount of fuel being used is no longer consistent. When too much fuel is presented to the flame it is not all burned. The excess fuel is put off in the form of soot.
Avoid Burning Candles in Drafty Areas
Burning candles in a drafty area such as near an open window, air duct, or fan will cause your candle to put off a large amount of soot. When something causes the candle flame to bounce around the size of candle flame changes. A steady flame will use a consistent amount of fuel. A wick that is bouncing around will draw fuel up the wick at a variable rate, sometimes too much, other times, not enough. When a large amount of fuel is drawn into the wick and then the flame size shrinks, not all the fuel is burned. The extra oil is expelled as soot into the air.
Use Open Bottom Hurricanes and Vases
Many event locations, where candles are used for decoration, require that the candle flame not be exposed above the top of an enclosure. This could mean the flame of your votive candle must be below the top edge of the glass or that pillars and taper candles need to be in tall cylinders or hurricanes. At first this sounds like a good idea to also keep the draft away from your candles, and it is. However, using a closed bottom cylinder or vase can create problems of its own. Fire needs and uses oxygen to burn. When you have a candle down inside of a container the oxygen is quickly used up and more is needed for the flame to continue burning. Naturally, more air is sucked into the container through the top but at the same time the warm air heated by the candle flame is trying to get out. This fight between the warm and cold air causes turbulence (a draft) in the container which causes the candle flame to dance and produce soot. The best way around this problem is to use a cylinder or hurricane vase that is open on both ends. Raise the container up off the table about a half inch using something that can spaced apart so air can get in through the bottom. For my test I used 3 stacks of coins, which I am not recommending you use, but to give an example of what I mean.
Put Candle Cappers On Jar Candles
If you are burning a jar candle with an opening of about 3″ you can purchase a candle capper for less than $4.00. Obviously there is nothing you can do about the jar having a closed bottom but these jar cappers will help regulate the air flow in and out of the jars and reduce sooting. Jars will usually produce more and more soot the further down into the glass they burn. This is because the flame is getting farther and farther away from the fresh source of oxygen. Here is a video that demonstrates how these jar caps work.
Trim The Wicks
The easiest way to reduce the amount of soot from a candle is to keep the wicks trimmed. I recommend starting with about a 1/4″ wick for the first lighting. If after a few minutes the candle flame looks too big or is bouncing around (while not in a draft) you should trim the wick a little shorter. Keep an eye on your lit candles, they should never be left burning unattended. If your candle has been burning for a long time the wicks may need to be trimmed again. Don’t be afraid to blow a candle out, trim the wick and relight it.
Purchase Quality Candles
Make sure you are getting a well made candle. A well made quality candle doesn’t mean expensive, it means well made. Anyone can melt some wax through a string in it and call it a candle. Is it a candle? Yes. Will it burn? Maybe. Should you spend your hard earned money on it? Probably not. The internet is full of pages on which people are selling candles. Google search term candles, currently there are 165,000,000 results. An experienced candle maker will know how to match the wick size, wax type, fragrance, and candle size to produce a great burning candle.
Conclusion
Use these tips to get the most value and the best burn out of your candles.
As I have been skimming over candle related questions posted by people online I have seen the topic of tunneling come up quite often. For those of you who do not know what tunneling means in relation to candles, it is when the candle burns straight down the middle and not out to the edges. The point of this post is to explain a few reasons why a candle may tunnel and how to try and fix the problem. I mean lets face it, nobody wants to toss a candle that has hardly been used.
Two of the main reasons a candle could tunnel are poor quality and too many short burns. In the case of poor quality, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the wax was bad or the fragrance was cheap but most likely the wrong wick was used in the candle. If the size of the wick is too small, it doesn’t create a large enough flame, which in turn doesn’t create enough heat to melt the wax. What you want to see when you burn a jar candle or votive, (any type of container candle) is for the wax pool to reach all the way to the edge.
Sometimes the tunneling effect is caused by too many short burns. Take note to the size of candle you are burning and to how long you are going to leave it lit. If you know you will have to extinguish the candle in an hour or even two, light a smaller one like a votive or tealights. A 4″ diameter jar candle won’t usually melt out to the edge in an hours time. A few short burns in a row will start your candle tunneling. What starts to happen next is as the flame works its way down into the candle it starts to melt wax off the walls. This wax runs down the sides and fills up the hole around the wick and drowns it out. Once that happens, relighting the candle will not work.
So how do you fix a candle that has tunneled? The easiest way to get fix your candle is to remove all of the wax that is higher than the area around the wick. Use a butter knife or a fork to carve away the built up wax. You can use that wax in candle warmer or toss it in the trash. If you try to light your candle it may not easily light. This is because the wick is not long enough due to the liquid wax which ran down into the hole surrounding the wick. When the wax hardens it leaves the wick to short to light. You can carve some of the wax away from the wick and try lighting it. A better option is to lay the candle on its side, use your lighter to melt the wax away from around the wick and pour it into the trash. Relight your candle and make sure that you allow the wax pool to reach the edge before blowing it out.
For the poor quality candle you can do a temporary fix using the method above however you will need to repeat the process after a few burns because the candle will not ever melt all the way to the edges.
Due to an over-run on this Jamaica Me Crazy scented jar candle we are offering a Buy 1 Get 1 Free deal with no limit on quantities. Purchase as many of these beautiful jar candles as you like for $30.00 each and get them same quantity for free. This 64 oz. jar has a black metal lid in a matte finish. Once your done burning this large 3 wick jar candle you can use it on your kitchen counter to store important stuff in, like chocolate chip cookies! Jamaica Me Crazy is a really good fragrance for the spring and summer because it smells a lot like Hawaiian Punch. This highly scented candle will burn for approximately 180 hours, is 6 1/2″ tall with the lid and about 7″ diameter. This special deal will only last while we have stock available. Once this jar candle is gone, it’s gone.
We received a phone call the other day from a customer who had just placed a nice size order of jar candles with us a few days before this call. She wanted to check the status of it and we were happy to tell her it was shipping out that day. As the conversation started to come to a close she said she had a minor complaint. She said that on her previous order of jar candles non of them stayed lit, the flames just kept going out. That is not usually a complaint we get about our candles so we began to ask her a few questions of our own to try and see what the problem may be. Through continued conversation the lady admitted that she had been on our site and had left it. She wanted to do a little more looking around the web before making a purchase. She came upon a different candle company’s website who sells jar candles in glass that look similar to ours. She must have called her order into this other company because she said she asked them if their jar candles were the same thing as U.S. Candle Company’s candles. The customer service person told her they were so she placed her order with them. We explained to her that we do not sell to this other company and that they were not our candles. In fact she told us that her 26oz jar candles had 2 wicks in them. We DO NOT put 2 wicks in our 26oz jar candles, we don’t need to. Our jar candles burn great with 1 wick. The point of sharing this story is that if you want OUR great burning jar candles make sure that you are getting OUR candles and not some cheap imitation made with lower quality materials. If you ever have doubts that another sites candles are not ours feel free to call or leave a comment to find out if they are legitimate.
with lime and mint, the Bahama Mama is fresh coconut and juicy mango, and the Strawberry Daiquiri is a sweet strawberry and cream. Each of these cool candles is topped with a decorative fruit accent whether it be a slice of lemon or orange, a cherry, or strawberries. Use these candles to decorate around your home or at your fun get-togethers this summer. Order a set of 6 or more and save nearly $2.00 per candle at http://www.uscandleco.com/candles/jar-candles/ .
Due to an over-run on this Jamaica Me Crazy scented jar candle we are offering a Buy 1 Get 1 Free deal with no limit on quantities. Purchase as many of these beautiful jar candles as you like for $30.00 each and get them same quantity for free. This 64 oz. jar has a black metal lid in a matte finish. Once your done burning this large 3 wick jar candle you can use it on your kitchen counter to store important stuff in, like chocolate chip cookies! Jamaica Me Crazy is a really good fragrance for the spring and summer because it smells a lot like Hawaiian Punch. This highly scented candle will burn for approximately 180 hours, is 6 1/2″ tall with the lid and about 7″ diameter. This special deal will only last while we have stock available. Once this jar candle is gone, it’s gone.
U.S. Candle Company Blog 