how to get a candle to burn evenly. When a candle is lit, the wax should gradually melt across its entire surface in a consistent manner. When you put out the flame and let the wax cool, it will flatten out and become smooth.
Make sure the melt pool of your candle reaches the outer edge of the container to determine if it is burning evenly. It’s important to maintain a steady flame and a flat, unmelted wax base.
To rephrase, if your candle is burning evenly, it is not tunneling.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term, candle tunneling occurs when only the wax in the candle’s center melts. In spite of the heat from the flame, the outermost layer of wax on your candle will not melt. Therefore, a narrow hole or tunnel is formed as the center wax sinks below the surrounding wax.
Therefore, a tunneling candle will burn out much faster than expected and look very unpleasant as it does so.
A candle that burns evenly, on the other hand, will last longer without losing its shape or appearance and will not experience any tunneling problems.
Paying close attention to the initial burn is the single most important thing you can do to guarantee an even burn throughout the candle (the first time you burn a new candle).
That wax has “memory” is key to grasping the reasoning behind this. Not at all; it can’t even recall what it ate for lunch! Due to a phenomenon known as candle memory, a candle’s wax will always melt more quickly in the same spot if only a small portion of it has previously melted and hardened.
That’s because wax loses some of its ability to absorb heat once it’s melted and refrozen. It’s like trying to inflate a balloon for the first time; you’ll have a hard time stretching out the rubber, but the second time around, it’ll be a breeze.
The memory of a candle functions similarly. The wax pool will grow vertically deeper (forming a tunnel) if the first burn is incomplete, as the “stretched out” portion of wax will melt much faster during subsequent burns (burning evenly).
Make sure you give a candle enough time to melt the entire surface layer of wax the first time you burn it to avoid this. If there is still unmelted wax on top, don’t blow it out.
