Beeswax Candle Care & Safety Tips

Candle care and safety tips for beeswax candles:

Enjoying your favourite beeswax candles is as simple as lighting the wick and watching the delicate light dance around your living room. However, we have a few simple candle care tips to prolong their burn time and enhance your candle-burning experience. 

At Happy Flame, our candles are handcrafted in Australia using 100% local beeswax, including our Certified Organic beeswax range for a truly chemical-free experience.

Our candles contain no additives and use cotton wicks with no metal, ensuring there are no toxic fumes. Beeswax is also the only sustainable candle wax, making it a planet-friendly choice while filling your space with beautiful candlelight and a gentle natural aroma from the beeswax.

Candle Care Instructions

We know each of our candle's are unique, so we've segmented our candle care guide, helping you take care of candles depending on their height, size and burning type.

General Tips

Regardless of your candle type, these general candle care and safety tips can be applied to pillars, tapered and other designs. 

Self trimming wicks: We use self trimming wicks. Unlike traditional candles, you do not need to trim the wick before or between uses.

Don't drain hot wax: Once you blow out the candle, the hot wax will cool and harden, ready for the next time you light the wick. 

Use a heat resistant surface: We recommend placing your candle on a heat resistant surface or plate as the candle burns all the way to the bottom.

Keep wick centered: If the wick bends to one side while burning, gently straighten the wick using a stick or wick dipper to ensure an even burn.

 

Pillar

Burn to the edge (every time): Tunnelling is a common challenge with pillar candles. For pillar candle care, ensure you're burning the candle to the edge every time you light it, which could take 2-6 hours, depending on the width. 

Keep them apart: Keep at least a 2cm gap between your pillar candles to prevent heating from the other candles so there is no overflow/drip, reduce mess and prolong their burn time. 

If wax walls build up: If you can’t burn the candle until the melted beeswax reaches the edges and walls build up around the flame, you can either gently push the walls toward the flame so they melt or carefully trim the walls with a sharp knife.

 

Tea Lights

Choose the right-sized holder: Burning tea lights and votives for a minimum of 2 hours to ensure you use all the wax. Burn the candles in one of our tea light holders. This ensures they allows burn brighter, longer and use all the beeswax.

Glass holders required: Tea Lights, Happy Lights, votives and triple wick candles are made to burn in the glass holders supplied. These candles are designed to overflow, so if they are not in the holder they may run, drip or overflow onto surfaces.

 

Tapers

 

Reduce any breeze: Don't light underneath the ceiling fan or in rooms with a breeze so your tapered candles don’t overflow and drip wax. 

Airflow warning: Overhead fans or strong airflow may also cause the candle to burn faster than normal.

Safety first: Be mindful of nearby flammable objects and use a properly sized candle stick holder before lighting your tapered candles. 

 

Candles in Glass

Check your candles: While our glass candle holders are designed to withstand the high heat of burning beeswax, ensure the flame doesn’t touch the glass for a long period of time or it may cause the glass to crack. Burn your candle until the melted wax reaches the edge.

Using alternative glass holders: If you use a glass holder wider than the holder we supply, the candle may not use all the beeswax. Our wicks are designed to burn to a specific width, so if the beeswax spreads too far the flame cannot melt all the wax.

Triple wick candles: Triple wick candles should be burned until all melted beeswax pools meet and form one single wax pool.

 

Candle Lanterns

 

Use the right candle: Our beeswax tea lights are the candle to use with our lanterns. Ensure the candle is in the centre of the lantern so the flame doesn't touch the side. Also ensure the tea light is in the glass holder provided.

 

Candle Wick Care

At Happy Flame, we use self-trimming wicks. Unlike traditional candles, you don't have to trim the wick between each use. Fuss-free candle wick care so you can have more time to sit back and enjoy.  

Dip your wicks.

Dip and then lift the wick out of the melted beeswax. Extinguish your candles by dipping your wick in the melted wax. This ensures the wick doesn't smoke and re-coats the wick ready for next time.

 

Cleaning

How to clean glass candle holders:

If you're left with a small amount of residual wax in your glass candle holder, we recommend the following:

1. Fill the holder with cold water

2. Place into the fridge overnight. This will loosen the beeswax from the sides of the glass.

3. Gently tug the wax away from the glass to remove it. 

 

If this method doesn't work or for stubborn wax, we recommend: 

1. Place your glass candle holders into a bowl of hot (not boiling) soapy water

2. Gently scrub the inside of the holder until the wax comes away

3. Dry and they are ready to use again. 

 

White Dust on Your Candles?

Sometimes a white dust may appear on your candles. This is called Bloom and is a natural process that occurs in pure beeswax.

Bloom is one way to ensure your candles are made from 100% beeswax with no additives. It does not affect the candle in any way and can simply be wiped off with a soft cloth.

 

Recommended Burn Times

For the best candle performance, it is important to allow your candles to burn long enough for the melted beeswax to reach the edges.

Recommended burn times may vary depending on the candle type, size, and design.

For detailed burn times for each Happy Flame candle collection, please visit our dedicated Burn Times Guide for more information.

 

General Safety Tips

• Never leave burning candles unattended

• Burn candles away from flammable materials such as curtains and furniture

• Pay special attention while burning candles around pets and children

• Use appropriately sized candle holders for your candles to avoid dripping or falling

 

Have More Questions? Contact Happy Flame for Further Enquiries

Have a specific candle care or safety question? Contact our friendly Happy Flame team by email peter@happyflame.com.au to answer any questions. 

We answer more questions in our FAQ section here.

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