So you just bought a beautiful new candle. You go home, light it up, and enjoy the amazing fragrance. Heaven! Eventually, you blow it out and do some other things with your day. The next day, you're walking by your candle and something is off. You notice that the surface is rough like cottage cheese and there may even be a few small holes.
Immediately, you ask yourself "is there something wrong with my candle?!" The short answer is no. In fact, this phenomenon is actually an indication that you are burning a natural soy candle. Here's what is happening: The wax melts and releases fragrance when your candle flame is lit. The melt pool cools and solidifies slowly. There is some variation in the rate at which the individual wax molecules solidify based on factors like distance from the glass. That inconsistency is what causes the rough appearance that you see.
As a culture, we have gotten accustomed to highly processed products without realizing it. From the 1930s to the 2000s, this trend has been on fire. So since before most of us were born! The shift in priority to natural products has only gained real steam in the last 20 years. And most of the progress made has happened in the last 5 years alone. A lot of candles that you find at department stores are still made with paraffin wax or sometimes a combination of paraffin and soy. The manufacturers put a lot of thought into how to create products with strong fragrance, homogenous consistency, and low cost. I'm not knocking you if you have these candles. What I am saying that you can't have the same expectations when you opt for a more planet-friendly candle made entirely with natural ingredients.
- Zaid