How to chose candle wax – the burn test

Selecting the materials to work with is a true challenge for established and starting up candle makers.
Not everyone has time and resources to establish a lab, and there are a variety of natural waxes, additives and blends out there. Just have a look at our range.
Yet, product development is a key part of a successful business that wants to leverage a unique selling point.

The number of variables to take into consideration when selecting a wax for your candles is obviously high, including the fragrances of interest, type of wick, type of mould for pillar candles or type of container for container candles, etc.

As our product development team constantly tests our own batches as well as the products we distribute, here is some testing advice based on their experience:

1. Decide what variable you want to test, and maintain the rest constant.
   If you test different waxes with different fragrance loads at different temperatures, you might have to many changing parameters. Whatever results you experience these might not be indicative or repeatable.
   Isolate one or two comparable parameters to test, with a clear control you can refer to.
2. Start documenting before you start testing.
   Take clear notes of the type of materials you are going to test. Once the melting, wicking and pouring starts it might be harder to keep track of what is what. After candles are cured and burned, who remembers?
3. More is more.
   There is a significant amount of parameters to keep track of when testing waxes. Our experts note more than 40 parameters per candle.
4. For example
   Below here is an actual example of some burn testing done by our experts. This spreadsheet has been redacted for readability as the original one included more comments and columns. Please take the results as not indicative. Yet, you will notice that the values that were being compared where wicks, candle sizes and fragrances. You might want to add observations about cold and hot fragrance throw, appearance, etc.

Picture by Ousa Chea – Unsplash