Why is my candle wick drowning?
What you see: the flame shrinks, gutters, and dies in its own melt pool — sometimes relights, then dies again.
Why it happens: the melt pool is delivering fuel faster than the wick can vaporize it. Usual suspects: wick too small for the fragrance load, fragrance load too high for the wick, or the wick trimmed too short to establish a proper flame.
The fix: pour off some melt pool and relight with a properly trimmed (¼") wick. For the next batch: wick up one size, reduce the load slightly, or both — especially with heavy oils.
Don't guess your next batch.
Run your exact wax, fragrance, and wick numbers through the free calculator so this doesn't happen again.
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