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Did you keep the wick trimmed? Not sure if your warning label states to keep the wick trimmed to 1/4 or 1/8 but if you did so and it still produced soot it may be caused by too large of a wick(like others have mentioned). However, I have had certain FO's that no matter what % load I use they tend to produce soot more than others.

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Can someone please confirm this is soot at the top of my container? It is AWE 50/50 LX-16 wick scented sunflower. The container is 8oz straight side. This is after 2 marathon burns of at around 8 hours each. I don't think the wick is too big as is just barely melts the wax on the side of container. Should I be worried about the soot? I attached a photo. Many thanks.

post-3392-139458416455_thumb.jpg

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Your photo is a little dark but that definitely looks like soot! It also appears your MP is bigger than 1/4"-1/2", but it's hard to say in the picture. Have you measured the MP? I would say that your candle needs to be wicked down based on what I see in the picture.

If you light your candles with matches, the matches can cause soot to build up on the rim of the jar as well.

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Can someone please confirm this is soot at the top of my container? It is AWE 50/50 LX-16 wick scented sunflower. The container is 8oz straight side. This is after 2 marathon burns of at around 8 hours each. I don't think the wick is too big as is just barely melts the wax on the side of container. Should I be worried about the soot? I attached a photo. Many thanks.

Holy crap :wink2:. Yup, that is some kind of soot ya got there.....

Let's see. First, did you trim your wick at all through either of the (2) eight hour burns? I don't really see the melt pool as being all that surprising if that's been burning for 8 hours, especially when you get that far down a jar, the heat on the glass really spreads down. It's impossible to tell if the wick is too big not knowing if you trimmed or not, and the jar makes the flame a little unclear so it's hard to tell.

Yes, you should always worry about soot, but any candle will soot if it's burned improperly. If you trimmed, then I'd say yes, drop a wick size and try again. Maybe even regardless, as the soot is excessive.

Too much FO will also cause sooting....how much did you use?

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I made 2 8 oz candles with a 1 oz sample of FO. 15 oz of wax and 1 oz of FO. I think that works out to be 6.6% FO load. I only trimed the wick once, which is probably part of the problem. I might try an LX-14 just to see, but I am fairly certain I have tested that before and it didn't melt the wax off the sides of the container. I will have to check my test notes. Thanks again for the feedback.

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And be sure to give the wick more than one burn before you make up your mind. Often times it takes 2-3 burns before things catch up and burn true. And in taller jars they will burn differently at the top than they do at the bottom, so you have to burn all the way and find a happy medium.

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I made 2 8 oz candles with a 1 oz sample of FO. 15 oz of wax and 1 oz of FO. I think that works out to be 6.6% FO load....

Did you actually weigh the wax? That looks like a jelly jar to me and they may hold 8 ounces of liquid, but they only hold about 6 weighted ounces of wax. That may raise your FO percentage a bit, but not horribly high.

I would definately try going down one size and see what happens.

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