: what do people mean when they say candles have “burn-memory”

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So this often comes up when I see people talking about how their candles go fast. There tends to be a comment mentioning that it’s because of “burn memory” meaning that the FIRST time you light the candle, if it’s blown out too soon (before the melted wax reaches the edges of jar), then from there on it might not melt to the edges of the container ever again and will continue to tunnel downward every time you light it. I guess I know what they’re describing, but this makes zero sense to me. When you go to light it at a later time….how would the candle know and why not just continue melting outward 😩

Not trying to zoom through this weirdly expensive Boys Smell I was gifted recently

In: Chemistry

5 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Burn memory is just a fancy way of saying make sure you burn your candle long enough to melt on all sides for every burn. No such thing as burn memory, don’t believe it.

If you do blow out the candle before the wax has fully melted, then it’s not evenly distributed. The next time you light the candle there will be too much wax on one side, which causes your wick/s to drown. This will cause the flame to go lower and lower, and less heat to the wax. That makes it tunnel.

You can easily fix this by soaking some of the wax up if you notice it is starting to tunnel. The safest way is to blow the candle out, use a cotton ball or rolled up paper towel, soak some wax out, and relight.

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