What is a Baseline Wick and Why Should You Care? • Armatage Candle Company

A baseline wick is one or more wicks that burn perfectly with a specific container and wax combination.

Taking time to find the baseline wick for your candle might add some overhead on the front end of your design process but will ultimately save you a lot of time and headache down the road.

In this guide you’ll learn:

1. What a baseline wick is
2. The process for finding a baseline wick for any container candle
3. How to use the baseline wick

Let’s dive in!

What is a baseline wick

The baseline wick is the specific wick that burns safely in the wax and container without fragrance oil or dye.

Why would anyone want to figure out which wick burns best in a candle without fragrance oil?  Because fragrance oil changes the entire relationship between the wax blend and the flame.

Buckle in – we’re about to dive deep into candle theory!

The basic idea behind combustion

Candles are really just small combustion systems where the melted wax serves as fuel for the flame.  Wicks regulate the rate of flow from the main candle upwards to the fire.

Too much “fuel” and the flame will be too hot and might even form mushrooms or give off black smoke.

Not enough fuel won’t sustain the flame. It might go out or be too cool to properly melt all the wax and may even tunnel.

Basically, the wick is the most important component in balancing the system.

Why does fragrance oil matter?

When it comes down to combustion, there’s a MASSIVE difference between naked wax versus wax with fragrance oil.

Candles burn whatever fuel the wick passes to them.  For a naked, non-fragranced candle the fuel is simply melted wax.

For a fragranced candle, the fuel is a BLEND of wax and fragrance oil.

We’ve talked before about how fragrances, whether they’re synthetic or essential oils, have widely varied properties.  Every single one smells different and has a different cocktail of chemicals that make it what it is.

When you add fragrance oil to wax, the blend will BURN differently compared to just bare wax.  Since there are so many different types of fragrance oils on the market, this means every possible blend could potentially burn differently than any other blend, even in the same wax and container.  All of that variety means a different wick may be needed to handle the specific properties of the fragrance oil blended with your wax.

The constant variable through it all?  Your wax and container.

Taking advantage of the constants

If you created a product line of 5 different candles that used:

• the same wax type
• the same container

…you’d find each one would probably require a different wick to burn safety and perform well.  The wick might be the same series, but the size could vary by a significant amount for each fragrance.

If you can identify the wick that works with no fragrance, it enables you to:

1. Quickly find wicks for any fragrance by removing the unknowns of your wax and container
2. Establish proper quality control practices to identify changes in your supply line that could potentially interrupt every design using that wax and container combination

Finding a baseline wick is key to scaling your work and making your processes more effective.  More on that below, but first let’s talk about how to FIND the baseline wick.

Wicking process

Ultimately you just need to find a wick that passes a SAFETY test – commonly referred to as the STANDARD BURN TEST in the Armatage Candle Company dictionary.

The goal of this process is to find the wick that works best in a non-fragranced candle.  You’ll notice this process is similar to our guide to selecting a wick because it is.

Important!

Before you start, identify:

• The container
• The wax blend

These items have to remain the same throughout the entire process!  If either one changes you’ll have to start over and find a completely different baseline wick.

For example, if the baseline wick for Wax 1 and Container 1 is an LX 16, don’t assume an LX 16 is ALSO the baseline wick for Wax 2 + Container 1, even though they share the same container.

With that out of the way, here’s the step-by-step process for finding a baseline wick.

1. Identify the wick SERIES for your chosen wax

Wicks are braided and created to handle different elements of wax.  One of the most notable properties is viscosity – how well liquid wax flows along a surface.

Vegetable-based waxes, like soy, have a higher viscosity than basic wax like paraffin, and therefore need a wick capable of drawing it up enough.

CD and ECO wicks are typically best for wax like soy, but candle makers sometimes have preferences or experiences that differ from common knowledge.

In any case, here’s a basic recommendation list for wick types for several waxes.

“Wick 1” is our main recommendation, and “Wick 2” is also feasible if you can’t use Wick 1 for some reason.

If you’re unsure where to start, reach out to your supplier or check the manufacturer’s information for recommendations.

2. Select starting wick sizes based on your container diameter

Use a wick guide to identify at least three starting wick sizes:

• Recommended size
• One size up
• One size down

You can choose as many wicks as you want, but if you can limit the number of batches you have to create you can save a bit of time.

For example, for Golden Wax 464 using an ECO wick in a 2.5” diameter container Candlescience recommends using an ECO 8 wick.  Therefore, my starting wick sizes are:

• ECO 8 ← recommended size
• ECO 6 ← one size down
• ECO 10 ← one size up

Many suppliers have wick guides you can use:

3. Create non-fragranced candles with the chosen wicks

Perhaps the most straightforward step in the process – it’s time to create 1 candle for every wick you chose in the last step.

In the example above, you would make a batch of wax with no fragrance oil large enough to output three candles,

Even though you’re not using fragrance oil, prepare your candles as if you were to ensure your temperature management plan is secure.  A lot of people don’t think they have to heat the wax that hot if there’s no fragrance oil, but this can make a big difference in the candle’s appearance depending on the wax.

Vegetable waxes turn out best when they’re heated to 185°F (85°C) because it breaks the crystal-like structure down to its smallest form to be remade as it cools.  

Cure them for as long as you would when there’s fragrance involved.

Why?

Curing serves two purposes:

1. Give fragrance time to spread throughout the wax (as the structure hardens)
2. “Harden” up as it cools, on a microscopic level.

When you don’t have fragrance you don’t have to worry about #1, but you still need to worry about #2.  If the wax hasn’t hardened appropriately, your burn tests will be inconsistent because wax that hasn’t cured long enough will typically melt with less heat than harder wax.

You can prove this by pouring multiple candles of the same wax and burn testing them at various points after they pour (day 2, 5, 7, and 10, for example).  Your results will likely vary.

4. Conduct a burn test with all the candles once the curing period completes

Begin safety testing each of the candles you made.

With a proper safety test (AKA Standard Test), you’ll burn the candle in 4-hour increments until either:

• The candle fails (see the list below) OR
• It reaches the end of its usable life – you can’t burn it any further.

Roughly speaking, candle “failures” are defined by ASTM F-2417 when the candle:

• Has a flame greater than 3” (3.5” if it’s a religious candle)
• Tips on its own
• Container shatters
• Damages the surface it’s on (usually by scorching it)
• Has more than one flame per wick (secondary ignition)

And most candle makers also “fail” a candle if it:

• Has container wall temperatures greater than 140°F – 150°F
• Creates significant mushrooms on the wick
• Gives off a lot of soot and black smoke while burning

If the candle makes it through 4 hours of testing, let it cool down to room temperature and restart your test again.  Repeat until complete.

5. Iterate

If all the wicks you chose FAIL the test, read the signals to learn which OTHER wicks to try.  Essentially, your test will give you data to react to and you’ll repeat steps 3 and 4 until you find a passing wick.

If the wick PASSES, congratulations!  This wick can be considered a baseline wick for your candle.  You may find that more than one size will work for your wax and container, but not always.

Occasionally you get stuck trying out every size available in a certain wick series with no luck.  If this happens, use a completely different wick series in the candle and repeat steps 2 through 4.

Two ways to use a baseline wick

Now that you’ve spent your hard earned time and resources on testing a bunch of wicks to find the baseline, it’s time to reap the rewards!

Baseline wicks offer the following two benefits:

1. Establishment of a STARTING POINT when using any new fragrance oil with your wax and container
2. Simplified QUALITY CONTROL for new batches of wax

Let’s break these down.

1. Baseline wicks give you starting points

Starting points are important because every candle design is different.

Different processes.

Different equipment.

Different supplies.

Different habits.

If you think about how much variety there is on the front end of CREATING a candle, it’s no surprise that the outcomes of candles vary so much.

This is why starting points are so critical.

If you have a common variable for the way you work with the wax and container in your system, it makes getting started with additional variables (like fragrance oil) more scientific.  Instead of shooting in the dark off of an antiquated, generalized wick chart you’re actually consuming your own data.

Call it your personal wick chart.

Once you add fragrance oil to a candle, all bets are off with how it behaves.  With a baseline wick, you can easily see how fragrance oil impacts the design.

Since you know the baseline wick theoretically works, if the candle misbehaves after fragrance is added you can make an easy correction with all the blame pointed at the fragrance oil.

Knowing what to blame leads to the second way baseline wicks help…

2. Baseline wicks enable quality control

It’s not reasonable to test every candle you intend on selling – obviously you need to trust what you’re creating works.

“Works” in this case, means passing a safety test.  It may also mean a few other criteria for you, but all candles sold on the market should be safe to burn.

It’s suggested you test roughly 3%-5% of the candles you create, and whenever you introduce a new lot of wax to make sure the candle still operates as intended.

A baseline wick doesn’t necessarily do anything for typical QA, but it comes into play if your candles start failing your QA tests for an unknown reason.

The response?

Pour a fragrance-less candle with your baseline wick.

If it passes tests like it used to, the culprit is definitely anything else you might be adding to the candle (like fragrance oil).

If it fails the tests, the culprit is the actual wax.  Something changed in the supply line for that wax and your new lot will require different wicking.

Being able to rapidly identify which factor in your process is causing problems saves tremendous amounts of time and also works as a bit of an insurance policy with your products.

The last thing you want is to put an unsafe object in someone’s home.  Trust is easily lost, and sometimes the repercussions are too great to recover from.

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