What Makes a Good Candle? - Our Quality Assurance

Making a candle really is as simple as melting wax, adding fragrance and pouring it into a jar with a wick. However, there are some considerations when making a good quality candle.

 

Temperature

When melting wax, the correct temperature must be reached before you add the fragrance oil so that it can bind with the wax correctly. If it's too hot, you risk breaking it down and losing some of the sweeter notes. Too cold, and the scent doesn't bind properly to the wax; it could leech out of the wax to the top (sweat), and you get a poor scent throw (how strong the candle smells). You also need to allow enough time for the fragrance in the wax to bind before pouring your candle.

In addition to the fragrance binding with the wax, temperature impacts the pour, too. Getting the temperature right is important to ensure glass adhesion and avoid sinkholes in the candle. 

 

Fragrance Load

Fragrance load is how much fragrance the wax can hold. Various waxes and blends have different tolerances and can hold different amounts of fragrance—typically 8-12%. However, more oil does not constitute a more potent fragrance; some waxes can hold 8% fragrance and perform just as well as others with 10%. Temperature is a discerning factor that determines how well you can smell the fragrance.

The fragrance oil and how much is used can impact the candle's performance, so it's important to test each fragrance to ensure the best quality for each scented candle.

 

Wicks

Wax gets a bad rep when it comes to candle safety, but it's scientifically proven that good quality candle waxes differ very little in how they impact air quality. That's right, soy is not necessarily cleaner burning than other waxes (that's all marketing spreading misinformation). The biggest risk factor for the safety of a candle is the wick. Over-wicking the candle (choosing a wick too big for the candle) causes the wax to burn too hot, and the chemicals released can get into unsafe levels. 

Additionally, extra heat can cause stress on the glass, and the heat can cause breakages. It's essential to use jars approved for candles (yes, there is a standard for that!). It's also why it's important to leave 2 cm of wax at the end of the candle and consider it finished - you don't want to overheat the glass.

Conversely, a too-small wick causes "tunnelling," meaning as the wick burns, it doesn't get to the edge of the jar and creates a tunnel. While this isn't dangerous at all, as it burns lower, the wax left behind eventually melts, and it can snuff out the wick, meaning it's very hard to light the candle.

The correct wick size is determined by burning the candle for two hours. The wax should have just reached the edge or be close to the edge by the end of that time frame. A little wax is good because it prevents the jar from getting too hot without leaving too much behind to cause tunnelling.

Wax

Waxes have different properties, so manufacturers blend them for the best outcome. Some waxes have excellent cold throws (how strong the candle smells when it isn't lit) but terrible hot throws (how strong the candle smells when burning). That's because it holds onto the fragrance very well. When the wax melts, it doesn't release the fragrance into the air.

On the other hand, the waxes that don't hold onto fragrance too well have an excellent hot throw, but you can't smell them when the candle isn't burning. Yet when the wax melts, the fragrance is released easily, and the scent is powerful.

Other considerations are colour and frosting. Some waxes can be challenging and don't hold colour well, whereas others can.

So by combining waxes, manufacturers can combine the benefits to create a tremendous performing blend for chandlers.

 

Quality Assurance

With all these factors that go into candle making, testing them all and finding the best combination is crucial. The environment is a factor, too, so what works for one chandler won't necessarily work for another, even if they use the same waxes and fragrance oils! That makes testing even more critical.

A burn test involves burning the candle for four hour increments, monitoring hourly, until the candle is used up, or an imperfection is found (there is a criteria to look out for so the candle can actually fail a test!). So you can see, it can take a long time to test a candle. 

The best way to test is only to alter one component at a time. Hence, you know exactly what impacted the candle's performance. So when you consider the temperature for adding fragrance, pouring temperature, fragrance load, and wax hardness, that's a lot of testing! 

At Hushwood, quality is at the heart of our values, and we take great pride in testing to ensure we are making fantastic quality candles that smell beautiful.