How to Trim Your Candle Wick
A great candle experience begins with proper candle care and maintenance. By following these guidelines, you can ensure that your candle has the perfect glow. It will burn more evenly and your wick will maintain its original shape. There are two main benefits to keeping your wick trimmed down to the right length and this applies to both cotton and wooden wicks.
1. Soot Prevention
By keeping wicks trimmed neatly the candle will burn clean and evenly. When you burn a cotton wick candle sometimes they may produce a “mushroom” which looks like a black ball on the end of the wick. This is an obvious sign that the wick is too long and needs to be trimmed. If you continue to burn your candle like this then you are likely to see a black, sooty residue forming when you burn them. This can leave unsightly black marks on the top edges of the vessel and on nearby surfaces. This is the same for candles with wooden wicks that have not been trimmed. Wooden wicks tend to look charred and may even split from excessive heat when they have not been trimmed. Sooting may affect the scent your candle is producing also. Trimming wicks on a regular basis can stop any soot forming and keeps your candle looking tidy and burning cleanly.
2. Longer lasting candles
Another benefit of trimming candle wicks is that it can help extend the life of your candle so you can enjoy its beautiful scent for longer. This is because longer wicks produce a larger flame, which burns the wax at a faster rate because it produces more heat. Therefore, when you keep the candle wick trimmed short, you can expect to get more use out of your candles overall and save you money.
How to Trim Candle Wicks
To trim candle wicks, carefully cut the wick with a wick trimmer or a small pair of scissors. For candles with cotton wicks, I recommend trimming down to around 6mm or 1/4 inch at all times and for wooden wicks trimming down to around 3mm. If you In addition to trimming wicks, you should also remove any debris that’s on the wax before lighting your candles, since this also helps them burn safely. In some cases, this involves removing trimmings that have fallen onto the wax when you cut the wick. Wick trimmers have a long handle that is perfectly shaped to reach down to the bottom of the candle and easily cut through the wick. Thanks to the circular scissor blades, the piece of wick removed will not fall into the candle. You can get your wick trimmer online. It’s a one time investment that you should always have on hand to save yourself some money in the long run.
So When To Trim Candle Wicks?
As a general rule, you should trim the wick every 4 hours of burn time. For best results and safety purposes, the best time to trim your wick is just before lighting your candle as you need to make sure the candle is at room temperature. If you forget to trim the wick before burning your candle, extinguish the flame and let it cool back down to room temperature before cutting it.
What Happens If I Cut the Wick Too Short?
If you accidentally cut your wick too short, you will notice that the wick's flame may be small and may struggle to stay lit as it could be drowning in the wax. Do not worry. The best thing to do is to take a tissue and gently dip it in to the melted wax to soak up any excess wax around the wick. You will notice the flame immediately grow. Make sure you reach the correct depth of around 6mm for cotton wicks and 3mm for wooden wicks.
Do I Need to Trim a New Candle Wick?
We take extra care to trim our candles wicks down to the perfect length so you can simply open and light up straight away, however it is likely that that you will need to trim the wick on a new candle from elsewhere. If you decide not to trim and light a new candle to find that candle does produce soot, extinguish it immediately and trim it once it has cooled. Relight it afterwards and burn until the entire surface form a melt pool.
