Turns out we’ve been burning candles wrong all these years and minds are being blown (out) everywhere
Turns out there’s a right way and a wrong way to burn a candle, and we’re not just talking about making sure you try to light the end with the wick.
Oh no, it’s a little bit more complicated than that.
It all started when @kktweetshaha – who appears to know a thing or two about this sort of thing (at least, we hope they do) tweeted this.
Just learned that my fiancé, who buys candles all the time and we literally always have candles burning, did not actually know how they work and blew out a medium first burn candle 30 minutes after I lit it when I wasn’t paying attention and ruined it
— kk (@kktweetshaha) March 24, 2024
And it prompted no end of curiosity about what on earth they were talking about. So much so that they did a little public service announcement for all us ignoramuses.
Realizing I’m dealing with an epidemic of candle clueless fools.
FYI If a candle is not burned for long enough on first burn to melt edge to edge it will create a “memory ring.” Once a candle has a memory ring, it will continue to tunnel and never burn all the way across.
Bad: https://t.co/ImdssdpdnI pic.twitter.com/uOkr9OSeIj
— kk (@kktweetshaha) March 25, 2024
All the times your candles looked like this, and you thought it was a bad candle, please know that it was a skill issue and your fault. pic.twitter.com/czb3nbKQ4N
— kk (@kktweetshaha) March 25, 2024
This is why you should not light a large candle at night, which is unlikely to burn all the way across before you need to blow out to go to bed. Allow at least one hour per inch of candle width
— kk (@kktweetshaha) March 25, 2024
So now we know! And it wasn’t just us on the steepest of learning curves.
well that explains a lot pic.twitter.com/nUzrJQ1RLC
— Tropical Seabird Fan Account (@BoobyJargon) March 25, 2024
This literally hurts my feelings
— kk (@kktweetshaha) March 25, 2024
I find w some commercially available candles that they’re just too wide to successfully burn across and I have to help them out with the tin foil hack. alsooo people trim your wicks I should not be seeing carbon embedded into the wax!
— Julia (@Joolia562) March 25, 2024
Some candles are poorly made in wick(s) to candle space ratio or a wick has been cut too short but if I have learned anything from my original tweet it’s that many people are wasting good candles
— kk (@kktweetshaha) March 25, 2024
Is there a way to save a candle once this has happened? Asking because I might have done this to a candle…
— (@CompostTraining) March 25, 2024
There are a few things you can try to improve it even if not fixing entirely. The popular fix is wrapping the candle in tin foil to increase the temperature across the surface.
— kk (@kktweetshaha) March 25, 2024
A bit like this.
you can fix this in the early stages by wrapping the candle in foil and creating a narrow tunnel that traps the heat, forcing the wax to burn to the edges https://t.co/PkhGPn4riB pic.twitter.com/kJV3GDcR2l
— derek guy (@dieworkwear) March 25, 2024
To conclude …
Diving into the world of candles and discovering the whole “memory ring” saga is like stumbling into a secret society of candle lovers who speak in hushed tones about the right way to burn wax. Who knew, right? It’s almost like there should be a candle-burning manual handed out…
— positivity moon (@arrtnem) March 25, 2024
And this.
Don’t be too hard on him, turns out a lot of us had no idea how candles work this has been very enlightening and I feel very dumb
— kim (@thestonedterf) March 25, 2024
Source @kktweetshaha