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Replacing your wicks is an incredible time saver because you no longer have to cycle through several candle design iterations in testing. Reusing and recycling candles is easier too because you can adjust wick size on the fly without melting an entire candle down.
To increase your testing bandwidth, pour wick-less candles. Once they’ve cooled, place a pilot hole down the center (or various locations if multi-wicking the candle) using a skewer or chopstick. Place a wick of any size in the pilot hole for testing – heat gun treat the top layer if necessary. Additional melting is usually not needed because the lit wick will melt the wax evenly enough anyways.
If the candle doesn’t pass your safety and performance standards, use the Pliers Method to replace a candle wick with a different one.
Let’s say you have to swap out the wick 2-3 times over the course of burn testing. Even if you land on the right wick, best practice says you should create a brand new candle with it and start the test over. A partial safety test with a wick, even if it passed with flying colors, doesn’t substitute as a valid safety test.
Always safety test your candles from start to finish. If you replace a candle wick it should only be used to salvage candles that are otherwise useless, not shortcut safety testing.
Good luck with your future wickectomies!
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