In recent years, candles have grown in popularity in households and restaurants alike. Scented and artisanal candles can help enhance the ambiance of your home significantly in creative ways. As a result, it is important to know all about candle tunneling since it can impact your overall experience with candles.
There are a few different ways of fixing your candle tunnel without the use of aluminum foil. Among all the available methods, warming up your candle in an oven and using a candle warmer are the most ubiquitous ways of fixing candle tunneling.
If you are looking for information on what causes candle tunneling and the most effective ways to solve the problem, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, I will go over extensive details as to how you can fix your tunnel without the use of aluminum foil.
Why Does Candle Tunneling Occur?
There are a few different reasons why candle tunneling tends to occur. For the most part, candle tunneling happens as a result of incompatible wick size, the temperature inside the house, and wax memory. I will go through each of these issues and shed light on how they can cause your candle tunneling.
- Incompatible Wick Size
If you happen to get a wick that is not the right size, your candle is never going to burn the right way. Besides, if wicks are larger than necessary, you will end up with soot collecting inside the container if the burning wick is too big for its size.
In addition to this, excess soot can always impair the container to a significant extent alongside the table where your candle is located.
On the flip side, wicks that are smaller than the proportional amount can cause the intensity of the flame to be on the lower side. As a result, the flame risks falling short of burning the sides of the candle. The existing heat will only impact the center of the center, thus, causing the candle tunneling.
- Temperature of the Home
Your room temperature can play a significant factor in deciding how the candle inside your room performs. If the room in question tends to have temperatures on the colder side, your candle will need longer than usual to meltdown completely.
On the other hand, if the temperature in your home is hot enough, it can cause the wax surrounding the wick to melt at a faster pace than the nearby walls. As a result, this can also cause noticeable tunneling in your candle.
- Wax Memory
When you are lighting a candle for the very first time, the heat starts to melt away the wax gradually. However, there are portions of the candle that might melt away faster than the rest of the candle.
In general, the leftover meltaway portions of the wax tend to harden up later and do not necessarily last as long as before since they melt at a relatively low temperature.
These leftover meltaway portions of the candle, which are generally soft, are known as “wax memory.” For the most part, it takes about several weeks before those portions of the candle regain their original density.
If you do not give enough time for the melted portions to stiffen up, those leftover portions will surely burn at a faster rate than usual.
Wax memory is responsible for causing candle tunneling in types such as paraffin wax candles. Since paraffin wax candles are softer in texture than the likes of palm wax candles, it is more vulnerable to issues such as wax memory. As a result, your candle can be susceptible to candle tunneling due to this reason.
Fix Candle Tunneling Without Foil
There are many ways in which you can fix your candle tunnel effectively without the use of foil. If you are facing candle tunneling and want a few quick fixes around them that can address this issue without the use of foil, here are a few tricks that can effectively help you fix the issue of candle tunneling.
Burning Candle for an Extended Period
If you happen to notice tunneling in your candle, that might not be enough to conclude that your tunnel is completely damaged. Sometimes, your candle might burn the way the manufacturer intended for it to burn. As it happens, it is more prudent to give your candle some time to properly burn when it is barely tunneling.
As a rule, a well-built candle tends to melt away all the wax from its sides. Therefore, it is important to let your candles burn for an extended period when they show a negligible level of tunneling. For the most part, this process does help fix your candle tunneling issue on its own.
Sometimes you need to burn up to 4 hours to melt all surface wax.
Heating Up Your Candle
At times, heating your candle could prove to be a good solution to sort out your tunneling issue. For this process to work, you need to put your candle inside an oven and set the temperature to a Fahrenheit temperature of 175 degrees. Once you’ve placed your candle in the oven, set the timer for your oven for a full five minutes.
If you take out your candle after your timer has elapsed, you will be able to see the nice and polished look of your candle with its edges properly melted down. This is arguably one of the most efficient methods of fixing candle tunneling.
Using a Candle Warmer
A candle warmer is a very productive device that allows you to enjoy your scented candles for a prolonged period, even after they have tunneled significantly. Since candle warmers only work on the wax portion, they can make use of the heat source that can burn the wax down and disseminate its scent all over your room.
The device also provides an enduring method of sustaining the scents for an extended time. In addition to this, a candle warmer ensures additional safety since it allows you to melt the wax without ever needing to ignite any flame. You can find candle warmers at attractive prices on e-commerce sites such as Amazon or eBay.
- Using Your Hair Dryer
If you happen to notice a portion of your candle that has seemingly uneven wax, you can always use your hairdryer to spread the wax properly to the edge of the container. It usually takes about a minute or two to fix candle tunneling this way. Using a hairdryer is one of the most expedient ways of fixing a tunneled candle.
The steps to using your hairdryer to fix your candle tunnel are quite simple. Firstly, you have to remove any possible dirt and debris inside the tunnel. Afterward, you need to use a hairdryer to heat the top surface of the candle.
Lastly, after smoothing the surface of the wax, you need to reignite your candle and let it burn for thirty minutes to check for any further tunneling.
Conclusion
There are many easy ways of fixing this problem without ever needing to use any foil. This article has extensively discussed the methods that you can follow to address your candle tunneling problem. You must figure out the best possible solution to your issue, depending on your needs.
Candle tunneling is certainly one of the most common problems that candle enthusiasts tend to face. Since tunneled candles are of no use to anyone, focusing on the proper and efficient way of fixing them is of extreme importance.
I hope this article will help you navigate through the problem and provide a useful solution that suits your convenience.
