How Wickless Candle Testing Can Save You Time

Wickless tests aren’t all butterflies and efficiency.  Don’t jump into this trend before understanding the potential shortcomings.

Caution #1: SYSTEM SPEED vs ITERATION SPEED

While the methods allow you to quickly iterate through a lot of wicks, you aren’t necessarily gaining complete acceptance of the design through wickless testing.

Let’s explain.

Suppose you pour a candle and test three wicks that all fail, but the fourth wick you check passes the burn test.  One problem is that you haven’t burn tested the entire candle with that successful, fourth wick.

The way a candle burns depends on the prior burn’s characteristics.  Stated differently, if the previous burn created a deep enough melt pool, that wax reacts different to the current wick because it hasn’t “re-cured” (unless you waited the appropriate amount of time before testing again).

Everything about the melt pool depth and width of the previous burn potentially impacts the next burn; previously melted wax is easier to re-melt which may lead one to believe the wick is hotter than it actually is.  In reality, that same wick may not have created as wide or deep as a melt pool if it was the first time melting the wax.

This doesn’t always mean the “winning” wick is bad.

Iteration speed is how fast you can test between wicks.  System speed refers to how long it takes to identify a winning wick.

Generally speaking, you need to perform a complete burn test with a single wick, start to finish, before accepting it as the right wick for your candle.

In the earlier example, if the fourth wick appears to be awesome, the right follow-up move is to create a fresh candle with that wick (the normal way) and burn test it from start to finish.  This validates that wick was correct since there’s unknowns about how the prior three failed wicks may have impacted the final wicks behavior.

Caution #2: WICK STABILITY

Possibly the largest drawback in wickless testing is the lack of a wick tab.

If you think about how wicks support themselves, they generally have a tab connected to the bottom of the candle jar.  Tabs have a small neck, almost a jacket, that hold the wick upright.

Unmelted wax also holds the wick upright, preventing it from tipping or moving off center.

However, when the candle nears the end of its life and all the wax is melted during operation (full melt pool… like the entire candle is a melt pool), the wick tab is the only thing holding the wick.