FlamingGlitter Posted March 25, 2020 Share Posted March 25, 2020 Hey everyone! I've been testing and researching like a maniac and thought I was getting so close! My small container candle (diameter: 67,5 mm, height: 80,5 mm; 150 g burning material) with RCX wax (coconut & rapeseed mix), no dye and a 9% FO load is burning (what I thought) wonderfully with a CL 6 wick. Cold and Hot throw are amazing, the melt pool diameter reaches edge to edge after about 3 hours, melt pool depth never exceeds 1 cm. I've been burning in intervals of 5-6 hours (due to my schedule), the flame doesn't exceed 2,5cm and the container temperature are what I thought to be moderate (hour 1: 42,3 degrees Celsius; hour 2: 42,7; hour 3: 45,7; hour 4: 47; hour 5: 47,6; hour 6: 50,5); average consumption rate lies at 3,13g/per hour and the after glow time average is 7,27 seconds, no mushroom.. In order to test for realistic circumstances (ie forgetting a candle, leaving it unattended etc.) I also did a powerburn without trimming the wick and this is when the container temperature exceeded 60 degrees and a mushroom formed, would that be reason to fail this specific candle system? The glass didn't burst and the surface the candle was placed on didn't get damaged. Do you guys have any suggestion on what I could do? Wicking down to a size 4 instead of 6 doesn't work as the size 4 tunneled a lot; I've also tried V and VRL wicks in various different sizes but I've had mushrooms as well; also tried at 6% FO load; same thing- unless it has been way underwicked, there's always been a mushroom. Are issues like this to be expected when ‚misusing‘ a candle instead of properly handling it and is it acceptable as long as they don’t pose a threat? If there are any other parameters necessary to make a judgement/give advice please let me know. Thank you so much for reading. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crafty1_AJ Posted March 25, 2020 Share Posted March 25, 2020 My advice is that you can't cover every single variable in how a candle will be burned. Some people will light it and forget it until 8 hours later. Others light it and 10 minutes later, get called away, so they extinguish early. Some people burn in a room that's 68* F, and others burn in a room that's 78* F. Some never trim, others accidentally trim the wick way too short. (Oops, I've done that myself, and I know better!) You can't possibly cover all situations, scenarios, and human error. So aim for the middle/average. I include burning instructions with every candle order I ship, so if the candle gets messed up, at least the customer had fair warning. LOL I once had a customer complain that the candle I made was faulty, so I pulled a candle from the SAME BATCH and test burned. Nope, it was great. Another time, the customer was right -- we had likely grabbed the wrong wick size for that batch. At any rate, I'd say don't kill yourself trying to account for every single deviation from good burning instructions. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BusyBee Posted March 26, 2020 Share Posted March 26, 2020 Hi, I am in US, and I am not familiar with your wax nor your wicks, so I cannot write with 100% confidence. But, what I can tell you is that your candle is one of the best I have ever seen. The mushroom is very minimal for power burnt candle, and I say your container temperature is so much better than moderate. In US, temperature of container should not go over 77C per ASTM standard. I believe you have look into CLP compliance over at your place. I as a candle maker, my goal is to keep the temperature of container below 63C. I think you have great candle. Thank you for showing us your candle! I might look into those wicks that you have used. It looks like they are more advanced wicks than what is available to us in here in USA. We don't have rapeseed wax either. You got me interested in that, too. Attached picture shows real mushroom of famous name brand candle! This happened in about 3 1/2 hours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlamingGlitter Posted March 26, 2020 Author Share Posted March 26, 2020 14 hours ago, Crafty1_AJ said: My advice is that you can't cover every single variable in how a candle will be burned. Some people will light it and forget it until 8 hours later. Others light it and 10 minutes later, get called away, so they extinguish early. Some people burn in a room that's 68* F, and others burn in a room that's 78* F. Some never trim, others accidentally trim the wick way too short. (Oops, I've done that myself, and I know better!) You can't possibly cover all situations, scenarios, and human error. So aim for the middle/average. I include burning instructions with every candle order I ship, so if the candle gets messed up, at least the customer had fair warning. LOL I once had a customer complain that the candle I made was faulty, so I pulled a candle from the SAME BATCH and test burned. Nope, it was great. Another time, the customer was right -- we had likely grabbed the wrong wick size for that batch. At any rate, I'd say don't kill yourself trying to account for every single deviation from good burning instructions. Just trying to be as safe as possible, guess I‘m getting too caught up in it. Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlamingGlitter Posted March 26, 2020 Author Share Posted March 26, 2020 4 hours ago, BusyBee said: Hi, I am in US, and I am not familiar with your wax nor your wicks, so I cannot write with 100% confidence. But, what I can tell you is that your candle is one of the best I have ever seen. The mushroom is very minimal for power burnt candle, and I say your container temperature is so much better than moderate. In US, temperature of container should not go over 77C per ASTM standard. I believe you have look into CLP compliance over at your place. I as a candle maker, my goal is to keep the temperature of container below 63C. I think you have great candle. Thank you for showing us your candle! I might look into those wicks that you have used. It looks like they are more advanced wicks than what is available to us in here in USA. We don't have rapeseed wax either. You got me interested in that, too. Attached picture shows real mushroom of famous name brand candle! This happened in about 3 1/2 hours. Oh wow thank you so much, I‘m flattered by your judgement! It doesn’t have any mushroom when it’s been burnt properly, but when it‘s power burned it has developed a moderately sized one. I just couldn’t find any real solid guidelines for how a candle should test in a power burn. Just found this video for regular 4hour testing (+ a testing procedure in the video description) I get the wax and wicks from a UK website (candle-shack.co.uk) and I‘ve been happy with it (take my opinion with a grain of salt, I haven’t used soy or paraffin as I was specifically looking for an alternative to those). The wick is a cotton and linen one suggested by the wax manufacturer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmc Posted March 26, 2020 Share Posted March 26, 2020 Your candle looks great...no soot, wick looks very good, think you're off to a great start. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlamingGlitter Posted March 26, 2020 Author Share Posted March 26, 2020 40 minutes ago, lmc said: Your candle looks great...no soot, wick looks very good, think you're off to a great start. Thank you so much ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BusyBee Posted March 27, 2020 Share Posted March 27, 2020 @FlamingGlitter Not that many (if not none) has been successful with coconut and coconut blend waxes in US. You just have showed me that Rapeseed might be solution for coconut blend. Even though I am in US, I know a lot of European suppliers, manufacturers & other candle related resources. I know Candle Shack, British Wax, Kerax, Sasol, RCX wax, CL, V, VRL, PGS, TG, etc. I just don't have any experience with them since none of them are available in US. I didn't bother to order any of them over seas because I did not have high hope justifying the expensive shipping cost. I am a soy wax user(GB 464), and I was thinking V or VRL might be the wonder wick for my soy wax. And, I have very strong interests in Kerax 4105 & Sasol 6213. Now I am seriously considering trying them out. If you are concerned about safety & regulations, then you might want to check out these websites & see how real professionals do candle testing. It does not show a way to do candle testing, but you can kind of back track regulations from these websites and figure out a way to do your own testing until you can afford to hire them for testing. By the way! May I ask which country you live in? If you are in one of European county, then I guess you will need to look at EU regulations. https://www.contractlaboratory.com/labclass/industries/industry-details.cfm?candles-and-wax-testing&industry_id=62 https://www.intertek.com/hardlines/candle-testing/ https://sealimited.com/capability/candles-fragrance-analysis There aren't that many candles that can impress me, but yours in one of them. 👍 Thank you for the show and good luck! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NightLight Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 VRL wicks are wedo csn wicks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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