Preventing Wicking When Making Homemade Candles

In making your own candles, wicking is the phenomenon that occurs when hot candle wax cools around the wick. Apparently, when the wax cools, it exerts pressure on the wick, pulling it downward and causing it to be rather serpentine in nature. Even though the wick looks centered on top, the wicking effect causes the wick to "twist" within the candle, pulling it off center and preventing the candle from burning evenly. I figured out pretty quickly that for me to be a successful home chandlier, I had to learn how to prevent the wicking effect. After a little experimentation, I hit upon a method that works almost perfectly.

A few years ago, my daughter got me interested in making candles. After a few sessions with her, I went to Hobby Lobby and bought all the necessities--wax, coloring, scents, wick anchors, molds, cooking vessels, and of course, wicks with thin wire inside. Thus armed, I returned home and started making my own homemade candles. Everything went okay--I melted the wax over low heat, added the appropriate color and scent wafers, and poured my wax into the mold with the wick firmly set in the anchor and centered at the bottom of mold. Everything looked pretty good, and I anxiously waited for the first candle to cool and harden so I could see how my candle-making efforts succeeded.

After about six hours or so, I slid the candle out of the mold and lit it, expecting a nice scent and a relaxing atmosphere while watching my project slowly burn with a nice controlled flame. The first hour or so went as expected, but soon I noticed that the flame would go from the center of the candle to either side as the wick burned. Soon, my candle was burned down on one side, while the other side was for the most part fully intact. Needless to say, my candle didn't burned very evenly, and that's when I learned about wicking.

Here's the trick.

First, set the wick in the anchor and center it in the mold. Pour about one inch or so of hot candle wax into the mold and let it cool and harden, a process that will usually take an hour or so. When the wax has hardened around the wick and anchor, apply upward pressure on the wick and grip it with a pair of needlenose pliers, tightly enough so that the pliers can rest on the top of the mold with the wick centered and firmly in the jaws of the pliers. Finish filling up the mold with hot wax and after the entire candle hardens, you'll have a homemade item that will have the wick almost perfectly centered and guaranteed to burn evenly.

One note--even after your candle has completely hardened, the wicking process will cause a little depression in the top of your candle around the wick. This doesn't affect the way the candle burns, but if you want your candle to look perfect, add just a bit more wax to even the top out before you remove the candle from the mold.

This process has worked pretty well for me, and now my candles burn evenly.