I recently went shopping for some candles to burn in my home. I was looking particularly for scented candles to offer a good aroma while burning.
While shopping at Wal Mart, I came across several types of candles. There were jar candles, pillar candles of various sizes, floating candles, and of course votives.
After choosing a couple of pillar candles, a jar candle and a few votives, I took them home and lit them up. I did trim the wick to 1/4" as I do with all of my candles. After three hours of burning, the pillar candle was burned deep in the middle and when I tried to hug the sides in, the wax just crumbled into pieces and fell apart.
The jar candle extinguished itself due to the fact that it burned so much wax in three hours that it engulfed the wick and put the candle out.
The votive candles were all spent after three hours. Gone!
After all this, for my initial investment I had a jar candle that was pretty worthless because the wick was buried and the glass was all smoky, votive candles that were all gone, and a pillar candle that was all broken and misshapen.
That was my experience with the candles from Wal Mart. I had several conversations with people about candle types and ran into many differing opinions. After looking into some of their claims and trying the products they spoke of just so I had experience with those, I finally ordered some candles online that were hand poured made from high quality paraffin that I wanted to try to see how they stacked up.
I bought a few hand poured candles that were made from high quality paraffin with zinc wicks. What a difference! I burned them the same time frames as the Wal Mart candles. After 4 hours, I had a pillar candle that had burned perfectly to the edges. I mean PERFECTLY. I had only to slightly push down the edge and it was completely flat on top again.
The votives were still burning evenly and had a long long way to go before they were all gone.
The crafter that I ordered candles from didn't make jar candles, so I couldn't compare the burn on those, however, since I always bought jar candles because they smelled so much better, I didn't have to get a jar candle after all. The hand made pillar candles and votives scented my WHOLE HOUSE, way better than any jar candle I ever had.
Here is the scoop on the different candle issues, most of which I tried by trial and error. Some issues were word of mouth:
Wax type matters!
Much ado was made over soy wax candles (au natural and all that) saying they were healthier and so forth. The claim was that they didn't smoke and were much better for you than paraffin candles. I found the soy candles burned about the same as the Wal Mart candles. My personal observation there.
Any candle will smoke. The wick being too long will cause a candle to smoke. The paraffin wax used in some candles is such a high quality, that there is no health risk to burning candles of that kind. All of the impurities have been removed during the purification process of the wax. There are lots of candles out there that use cheap paraffin wax. You just have to pay attention to what you are buying.
Some candles are also made from palm wax. I have found that palm wax is way too hard for candles and hence they do not have an even burn. They look grossly malformed after burning for a few hours.
Wick type matters!
There was a law passed that banned the use of lead core wicks in candles due to high health risk. Duh, lead. Well, this is all fine and dandy, but many candles that are still on the market are leftover inventory that STILL have lead wicks. Check this out: my daughter came home with a fund raising sheet that contained jar candles. When I got them in, guess what they had? LEAD WICKS. Guess I won't buy any more candles from the school fundraiser.
Zinc core wicks were the type in the handmade candles I purchased. These wicks caused the candle to have a nice burn and they have a good flame height. The candle won't flood with this wick due to the even burning.
I guess the moral of this story is that, once again, you get what you pay for.
Anyone who loves candles, I recommend you go find some good hand poured candles from someone who knows what the heck they are doing. Try the kind I bought, they were reasonable in price, but for the time they burn and the smell they give off, they are worth ten times their weight in cheap crappy candles!
