Trim Your Wicks!! Candle Care 101.

Are all wick trimmers the same? Nope! They certainly aren't. I will admit that I didn't own a wick trimmer before I started making candles. I burned tons of them but never invested in a trimmer. I would simply grab some scissors or use my fingers to snap the burned portion off. However, once I actually learned about trimmers, and started using them, my entire candle experience changed.

As you can see in the photo, trimmers come with a different thickness at the bottom. Another thing I didn't know lol. That's how I ended up with so many different ones. I would buy and then realize it didn't do what I needed and then go buy another. Let me save you that headache. The thickness will have a direct impact on how your wood wick candle will burn. It may not make much difference with cotton wicks but it does with wooden ones.

You see the black trimmer and the thickness? That will stop you from trimming your wick low past a certain point. This is not the best trimmer for wood wick candles as the wicks should be trimmed pretty low for optimum performance. Wood wicks like to be low, otherwise you will simply burn wood until the wick burns low enough to interact with the wax. I have found this trimmer leaves the wick too high which results in a large/high candle 🔥. That can be dangerous.

The thickness of the middle trimmer is best for new wooden wick candle users. It gets just low enough where you are not at risk of drowning your wick in the wax. It may start with a higher than ideal flame but quickly burns down to where the wax interacts with the wick and the flame lowers.

Now the last trimmer is my favorite. There is essentially little barrier. It may be hard to see, but that slight difference from the middle one allows you to go extremely low. I would only suggest this one if you are used to trimming wood wick candles or else you can certainly trim it too low and find yourself digging a hole so your candle can burn without the wick drowning. Yup, been there before too 🙃. But now it is my absolute favorite.

There you have it. Hope I've saved you from making my initial mistakes!