Candle
Care
Safety
Always make sure to burn your candle safely. Never leave a candle burning unattended. Place the candle on a heat resistant surface or in a holder. Keep away from combustible materials, including curtains. Never allow children to burn a candle unless supervised by an adult. Keep the candle out of drafts or sunlight when burning. When the candle has burned to about 1/2″ from the bottom, extinguish and retire the candle. This will prevent the flame from contacting the bottom of the glass which could cause serious damage.
Wick
Care
The proper care and trimming of the wick is essential for a smooth, clean burning candle. If the wick is too long, it supplies more wax to the flame than it can burn. The excess wax results in a dirty flame. If the wick is too short, the resulting flame is too small to generate enough heat to properly pool the wax.
The general rule of thumb is to trim the wick to about 1/4″. What matters most, however, is to trim only as much wick as needed to produce a clean 1″ tall flame after the wax has pooled. As the wax melts, the wax pool will expand, so be careful not to trim the wick too short too soon. Remove wick trimmings and carbon buildup from the candle. Periodically, check your candle and re-trim the wick as needed.
If you trim a wick too short, continued burning will generally recover the wick. You can also remove some of the softened or liquid wax with a spoon.
We are often asked about the persistent myth about lead in wicks. Please feel assured that our wicks do not contain lead. We use many different styles of wicks when designing our candles. Many of our wicks are constructed with cores to keep them rigid in the liquid wax and to provide specific burning characteristics for the different types of fragrances. Cores can be made of different materials including cotton, paper or zinc wire. None of these materials are harmful when burned.
If you should find that the wick has wandered off to one side, keep it centered by moving it while the wax is liquid or soft using the tip of a screwdriver or pencil. Never allow the wick or flame to come in contact with the glass.
When extinguishing the candle, it is best to drown the flame in the liquid wax. This prevents continued smoldering of the wick which deteriorates the wick and affects its burning characteristics.
Burn
Time
All of our candles are designed to burn at an optimum rate. If a candle burns too slowly, it will not replenish fragrance sufficiently to keep an area filled with the rich aromas. Of course, we don’t want our candles to burn too fast, either. That is why we take great care to select the proper size and style of wick to produce the best burning, most richly scented candles available.
When burning, please allow the candle to burn long enough to melt the entire surface of the candle. This will generate the full rich fragrance of the candle. Our typical 3″ diameter candles will need to burn for at least 3-4 hours, especially with the first burn, to melt all the way across the top.
Votive
Candles
Votive Candles are designed to burn in appropriate containers so that the wax pool will form to generate the fragrance. You should never burn votive candles as free standing candles.
Wax Melting
Chips
Wax Melting Chips are scented wax chips which melt on top of melting pots designed specifically for wax. Use as many wax chips as you want to give you the fragrance level you desire and mix different scents if you desire. Door County Candle Company wax chips are especially fragrant and most people find that only a few chips are needed to produce a full, rich scent for a day or more. Once the fragrance has evaporated from the wax, allow the wax to cool and discard and replace the old wax with fresh wax chips. It is possible to control the scent level in your room by the amount of chips used and how often you add or replace with new chips. To learn more about wax melts, visit our FAQ page.
Candle
Warmers
Our candle warmers come in various styles, from pluggable to heat lamps. These use either a 15 or 25 watt light bulbs to melt the wax, whether it's a candle or wax melt. Candle warmers a flameless way to enjoy our scented wax products!
