my candles needed thicker wicks
happy july! how incredible is it that june simply did not exist? wasn't expecting that! anyway...remember in may (a month that did happen) when i made candles and they burned a tunnel instead of all the way through? my hypothesis was that i needed thicker wicks. before i get into that adventure, i first want to tell you a tale of the ultimate betrayal of friendship.
a tale of the ultimate betrayal of friendship
one night when i was streaming with potch, he told me to try putting a paper cone over my tunneling candles in order to get more of the wax to melt. so i did just that.
of course, i got carried away and decided to cover the whole cone with hot pink tape. it was a lot of effort that, unsurprisingly, i was not given in return.
i will give potch and his betrayal cone some credit, the wax around the tunnel did melt a bit. i imagine this is more a tool for prevention of tunnel than for treatment.
anyway, here is andy giving pumagreg a massage:
for my second batch of candles, i purchased a couple of bigger sizes of wicks from bramble berry. i was feeling pretty confident that these wicks were big enough and high quality, and so this batch would melt all the way out.
the left-most wick is clearly the thinnest and the one i used for the previous, tunneling batch. i'll use this for tea light candles if i make those in the future. oooh, maybe i'll dip them to make birthday candles! i just got that idea as i was typing this, wow, the power of blogging.
andy and i started saving our condiments jars for me to make candles out of. they're usually the perfect size, come with lids, and it's simply funny to light up a b&g jalapeno jar only to fill the room with the scent of tobacco and bay leaf. we are living, we are laughing, and – my friends – we are loving.
i used that middle-sized wick in both candles and am happy to report that there was no tunneling between either of them. i still encountered some cratering as the wax cured. next time, i'll heat the jars so that the wax doesn't cool too fast. i love how the blue wax matches the cobalt glass jar, which was from another candle i had burned through. the color of that blue candle is my favorite color, by the way! many folks think purple is my favorite color but that is offensive to folks whose favorite color actually is purple.
i hope you enjoyed this episode of "jenn makes candles!" since it's not going to be 95 degrees fahrenheit every single day this week, i'm going to finally be able to make a couple more soon. stay cool and hydrated, wear spf, and don't leave lit candles unattended!
xoxo jenn
