All candle lovers have been there at some point or another. You light a candle and mind your business, expecting the candle to mind its own. The candle is burning and just can’t quite make the full wax melt pool. Drat!
I had this problem the other day with a 3-wick candle. These were new 3-wicks to me, and I should have known not to trim my wicks too short (the wicks were pretty slender). So here I was with a rim of wax that was totally distracting. Plus it was interfering with my scent throw!
Here’s a little trick that will help if you ever find yourself in a similar situation.
Step 1: Assess The Situation
The first thing to do is to assess whether or not this trick might work for your rim of wax problem. While it might work for any kind of candle tunnel, this trick really works best when you just have a small amount of wax hanging out around the candle walls. As this was a 3-wick candle, I had quite a bit of wax to deal with, but it still looked manageable for this little hack.
Step 2: Carve it Out
Next up, find a hard object to work on the wax wall. I used a butter knife that I keep in my candle cabinet. You can use a wick dipper or anything else with a hard, flat surface. Use it to start scraping out the wax around the sides of the candle while the candle is burning. You want to do it while the candle is burning because the wax will be a little warmed and easier to scrape out just what you need and not too much! Slowly work your way around the entire problem area.
Step 3: Recycle Wax
Now that you have some soft wax fresh out of your candle, why not get some mileage out of it? Resist the urge to plop this wax back into your candle…chances are the sudden increased wax melt pool will drown out your wicks. I kept a warmer bowl nearby and placed my softened wax into the warmer.
Step 4: Site Back & Enjoy
Now it’s time to sit back & enjoy your candle. It should burn evenly now (If not, the candle has more issues to address that are outside the scope of this tutorial.) I took another picture about an hour later and my candle was burning just fine!
In a perfect candle world, we would never have to muck around with our candles. But sometimes things happen and hey…if you can save the burn, why not?
Do you have any candle saving tips to share? Do tell!
Happy candle burning ~
