Care · 3 min

The first burn is the only one that matters

Everything a candle will do for the next seventy hours is decided in the first three.

Wax has memory. The first time you light a candle, the melt pool sets the diameter every future burn will reach, and a pool that stops short of the glass leaves a wall the flame will never climb. This is called tunnelling and it wastes as much as a third of a luxury candle.

The rule

Light it when you have three hours. Do not blow it out until the melted wax touches the glass on every side. For a 260 g Désir Signature that is between two and three hours; the Grande, with five wicks, reaches its edge in about ninety minutes.

After that

Trim the wick to five millimetres before every burn; a long wick makes a tall flame, soot and a scorched vessel. Keep each burn under four hours. Stop when a centimetre of wax remains, which is also the moment to order the refill. One more thing. The lid is not a snuffer. Blowing a candle out sends smoke through the room and into the wax; a wick dipper, or the tip of a spoon, folds the wick into the pool and puts it out without a trace.