How long before cure is considered "complete"?

[Timber]

I usually let my candles (6006) sit for 2-4 weeks before burning, sometimes up to 2 months.  After playing around with candles the past year, I now have my zinc wicks pinpointed for the most part with masons & status jars.  However, from all the great info on this forum, I know that the candles continue to cure & the wick that works great at 2 weeks may be under wicked later on. 

 

My question is: at what point can you feel confident that your wick is going to perform & the wax won't cure/change significantly more? 3 months, 6 months, a year?  I'm thinking of starting to make additional candles to test at 6 months to compare to the one month burn.

[TallTayl]

It all depends... veg/botanical waxes are continually oxidizing and changing.  Veg waxes are just hydrogenated vegetable oils to make them a solid at room temp. Crisco has a shelf life before it’s productive time is spent. Have you seen a can of shortening dry out in the pantry? Splits right across the middle. 

 

For most soy, and soy blends, the dramatic changes happen in a week or two. They continue to dry, morph and change slowly for quite a long time. Changes due to candle manufacturing temps, storage conditions, shipping and seasons, can accelerate that. 

 

Soy candles I made last summer using C3 wax are terrible IMO now.  Soy wax grow grains even with additives like paraffin.  It’s the nature of soy. Some 415 candles I made are so dry they break up into grainy particles quite easily.  The burn improvement follows a bell curve, like soap and wine.  There’s a nice window of excellent followed by a downslide to meh. 

 

I discovered a treasure box of soy wax melts a few years old that are turning powdery. They don’t smell “off”, but they sure don’t perform in the melter like when fresh. 

 

Inert ingredients, like most paraffins and petrolatum, don’t tend to change at all.  “Cure” time on those is merely days, with some minor improvement in a few weeks time.  After a year they burn pretty much the same as at the 2 week mark. 

[CandleRush]

Valuable post!🌸

[kandlekrazy]

Really depends on wax and packaging IMO.  I have soy candles uncovered or with a dust cover that the first inch got crumbly and some that are air tight and 6 yrs old and still look and burn great.  Clamshell melts I came across some that were well over 6 yrs old and they still looked great but my individual melts not airtight were dry on the outside.  Bear in mind, I'd never sell anything that old but I keep for myself just for testing purposes.  Every candle/melt gets info and date put on it for testing.  For selling I do the same with a tiny sticker and always pulled ones over 1 year old regardless of how they looked.  I wanted my customers to have fresh stock that I knew would perform as well or better than the day they were put on the shelf.

[Forrest]

Here is my educated opinion based on a reasonable amount of scientific knowledge. I believe that the process of curing continues for a long time, but the rate diminishes over time. So to get from 10% cured to 20% cured only takes a few days, but to get from 80% cured to 90% cured may take years. The point is when we say cured we’re not talking about finished curing, we are talking about being cured enough for our purposes. Let’s suppose this is a half-life situation, which I suspect it is, and that the wax is 40% cured after one month. In this case it will be 70% cured at 3 months, but at 6 months you’ll only be 79% cured, it will take years to reach 90% and centuries to reach 99%. Of course as your wax cures more it need a bigger wick.

I know all of that didn’t answer your question, so here is my best guess. I know from testing that if a candle was wicked right after two weeks it will need a bigger wick after two months. My guess is that you are safe after that.

[TallTayl]

@Forrest in some cases after time, yes,  a bigger wick is needed.  As I discovered in 415, the wick needed was much smaller when the soy was dry.  🤷🏻‍♀️ Without lab testing to know the starting moisture content of the raw arterial we have zero way to tell how time will change the wax. 

 

Brand new cases of 415 and 444 for a long while arrived to my door actually feeling wet.  Tunneled and extinguished as they burned.  Cracked while curing. One thing we know for sure is soy / veg wax is not a constant... at best we are lucky when it all works as planned. 

[Timber]

Thank you for the info!  For my hobby purposes,  I don't think I'll try hanging onto candles super long, but I'd like to be able to pour ahead of time for my own use & gifts without worrying that the candles won't burn well.  Probably gonna shoot for a 6-9 month shelf life & start testing some 2 month & 6 month burns for comparison. 

Edited April 4, 2019 by Timber
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