[Silver Hallows]

HI everyone! I thought I'd deliver this question straight to the professionals

I just started burning a candle and had developed a small melt pool. I heard a few popping noises and suddenly the top of the candle was on fire! Any idea why the heck that happened? I did trim the wick before lighting.

Needless to say, I'm not lighting that thing again.

[MaggieMae]

Silver Hallows, on 21 May 2012 - 09:08 PM, said:

HI everyone! I thought I'd deliver this question straight to the professionals

I just started burning a candle and had developed a small melt pool. I heard a few popping noises and suddenly the top of the candle was on fire! Any idea why the heck that happened? I did trim the wick before lighting.

Needless to say, I'm not lighting that thing again.

Would this by chance be a "cake candle"? My sis had a "cake candle" style pillar and it caught fire and almost burned down her house. The outer decorations (that look like crumbs around the sides of the candle) were made of some type of plastic.
I am glad you are alright...and I WOULD NOT light that one again either!!!

[becky]

WOW....what kind of candle was it???

[sweet&spiceygrl]

Yikes - that's crazy dangerous! I'd sure let that company know what happened and hope they pull those off the market before a disaster happens. Is this a major manufacturer or a small at home maker?

[Juletones]

How strange. I've only ever heard of that happening with a gel candle. Was it, by chance, a gel candle?

[Nautilique]

OMG ! ! ! I'm glad you were there to put it out! Please do tell us what kind of candle and who makes it!

I only had one *incident*, I was burning a votive in a ceramic Yankee holder which was somewhat *sooty* (my bad!) and the outside of the holder caught on fire. Luckily it was on my stove top (where other *fires* have been known to occur), but my youngest DS saw it and still afraid for me to burn candles.

[felitsa]

I had the same thing happen to me with a Barn Candle. I contacted the company and they told me to throw that candle out and they would send me another one. I think it might be too much scent oil in the wax. Perhaps someone here on the forum, who also makes candles, can answer that question.

[Silver Hallows]

Thanks for all the replies everyone! It was a Candles by Victoria candle that happened to have embeds on the top. I checked in with Victoria and she's pretty sure that there was too much fragrance oil in the embeds. She was really happy that I contacted them right away so they can pull the rest of those embeds.

Bunch of wax for my melter, I guess!

[candlelove]

Thanks for sharing that info. That sounds really scary.

[cookielady]

Wow, that would have scared the crap out of me. Glad you are ok