Acceptable Container Sooting

[wakeylad]

I had two old YC Apothercary Candles that were pretty dirty looking (22oz Apothercary). One had been previously been burned with a lamp-shade style top and and had thick black soot at the top of the container. Anyway, I cleaned them both up and they were both sparkling. I figured I'd use them for comparison purposes. Candle #1 has about a third wax left and #2 about a quarter. Candle #1 which, was actually the cleanest of the two, has soot deposits after two 4-hour burn sessions while Candle #2 still looks clean.

Some of my test burns are still cleaner than candle #1 after six 3-4 hour burns but they do have dustings of soot. Am I being too much of a perfectionist to expect no soot all the way to the last 1/4" of wax or is is acceptable to have a slight dusting (or even more) soot on a used candle? I'm using 4630 wax which is know to be smokey. If you guys are getting clean burns all the way to the bottom, what wax are you using? Anyone getting completely clean burns with the 4630?

Thanks for the input.

Neil