Hi!
Have you seen beautiful botanical candles on the market? Sprinkled with dried flowers such as lavender, baby's breath, rose petals etc?
Honestly, I, myself, have made such candles as well. As a candle maker with a goal to keep my candles natural and clean burning, some dried flowers would give a more "natural" and "green" touch right?
Hmmmmm... *cough*
That was the thought before the botanicals on my tester container candle went up in big flames. And no, the candle was not overwicked.
The way a candle burns depends on a lot of different factors, the ones we decided to focus on are:
1) Candle components (something that we (BITG) can control)
2) The environment the candle is burned in (something out of our (BITG) control)
We decided that safety is our highest priority for our customers when we were considering the factors above. Thus, our BITG candles have no such flammable components added to them.
A classic soy candle burn as clean, simple and beautiful on its own!
The National Candle Association recently released an article on this issue on 17 June 2022.
A burn test on different botanical candles from different companies showed possible occurrences of secondary ignition due to botanicals. Secondary ignition can eventually led to a candle "flashover" (entire surface of the candle ignited), increasing the chances of a home fire.
You can access the full article here.
The reason we've decided to have this blog post is because we want our customers to make informed decisions when purchasing candles on the market.
You may not know how much testing is done behind the scenes and you'll never know to what extent and difference in environment these candles are tested in.
Safety is always the highest priority when burning a candle. If you decide to burn such candles, we advice you to remove all botanicals before doing so. Or simply just use the candle for decorative purposes only.
A cinnamon candle that I made that is only for aesthetic purposes
Always always always read and abide by the warning label and care card that comes with your candle, so that we can all enjoy a wonderful scent journey safely.