Candles are a great way to make your home feel more welcoming and comfortable by adding a fragrance that you love to it. If this is one of the ways that you like to make your house feel more like a home, then you want to make sure you take care of your candles. Some candles come with lids but are using the lids part of taking care of your candles? Should you put the lid back on your candle when you’re finished?
The lid is a great tool to take advantage of with your candle. By putting the lid on your candle, you’re able to retain the fragrance, which extends the lifespan of your candle. Taking care of your candle is essential and preserving the fragrance is one of the most important parts of candle care.
While the lid is a great way to preserve the fragrance of your candle, it’s not the only function that the lid holds. The lid can also be used to put out the flame of your candle. There are also other ways to extinguish and care for your candle besides just using the lid, too. Combine the lid with other methods of candle care and you’ll have a long lasting candle that will have fragrance the whole time.
Using the Lid for Your Candle
A candle’s lid is more than just a decoration piece. While many lids come with eloquent designs on them, they have more than just the purpose of being seen. They are a multiuse tool that comes complementary with your candle and should definitely be used every time you use your candle. By doing this, you’re ensuring that your candle is going to last as long as possible.
A lid can be an essential tool in lengthening the lifespan of your candle. If you leave your candle exposed to the air, the fragrance will start to dissipate. When you leave it exposed for too long, the scent will eventually become hard to smell or disappear completely. By putting the lid on the candle, you’re preventing air from getting into your candle, which helps make the fragrance last longer.
Your candle lid can also be used to keep your candle clean. By placing the lid on your candle after each use, you’re preventing dirt and dust from settling on the top of your candle wax. This is incredibly helpful down the line because as you burn your candle, the dust and dirt can clog the wick, which can prevent your candle from burning helathily.
A candle lid is also great for propping up your candle while it burns. Just place the lid with the top side down and then set your candle jar inside the bottom of the lid. By placing the candle in the lid, you’re creating a shield protecting whatever surface you’ve put the candle on. The lid will absorb the heat, which prevents the surface from being damaged.
Another way to use the lid on your candle is to put the flame out. With this task, make sure that your lid isn’t flammable. Also, make sure that your lid doesn’t have any rubber sidings that can be melted by the flame. If your lid fits either of these descriptions, you won’t be able to put the candle’s flame out.
As long as your lid isn’t flammable and doesn’t have any parts that can melt when exposed to the flame, you’re good to extinguish your candle with it. By placing the lid on top of the flame, you’re essentially suffocating the flame by blocking any new air from getting into the jar. Once the flame uses up all the air available in the jar, it extinguishes itself.
This method is one of the preferred ways to put out your candles flame. By using the lid, you’re preventing the candle from letting off smoke into the air. This, in turn, keeps the fragrance that was given off while your candle was burning in tact. When you blow out a candle, the smoldering wick gives off smoke, which muddies the fragrance that your candle gave off during its burn time.
Using the lid to put out the flame also stops the candle wax from getting dirty from debris being caught in it. Because there’s no wind to shake debris free from the wick, the wax remains uncontaminated. When you blow out your candle, the force of your breath is enough to cause debris to fall into the wax. This can eventually impair the burn your candle gives off because the wick can become clogged.
Other Ways to Care for Your Candle
While using the lid to your candle is a great way to partake in candle care, it’s not the only way. There are other things you can do to care for your candle that, along with the candle care stemming from the lid, help prolong the lifespan of your candle.
One thing that is essential with candle care is trimming the wick. By trimming your wick to about a fourth of an inch every time you burn it, you’re allowing the flame to help burn your candle evenly. This also helps make sure your wick gives off a healthy burn. Make sure that when you’re trimming the wick, though, that the candle is completely cooled.
When you burn your candle, make sure you allow it to produce a complete melt pool before extinguishing it. This means that you want to wait until the top of your candle is completely covered in liquid wax. By waiting for a full melt pool, you’re setting your candle up to burn evenly the next time you light it.
Another tip is to burn your candle away from any flammable object or surface. Candle care isn’t only caring for your candle, it’s also caring for the objects surrounding the candle. By making sure the candle isn’t near or on anything flammable, you’re lowering the risk of starting a fire that’s completely preventable.
Extinguishing the flame is another part of candle care. You don’t have to use the lid to put out your candle’s flame, but it’s highly recommended that you don’t blow it out with your breath. One way to put out the candle’s flame is with a candle snuffer. This bell shaped tool does essentially the same thing as the lid. It prevents any air from getting to the flame and it ends up suffocating and dying out.
Another method is using a wick dipper. A wick dipper is a long skinny stick that hooks at the end. You use the hooked end to dip the wick into the liquid wax, which extinguishes the flame. Once the flame is extinguished, all you have to do is lift the wick back up and straighten it out. After that, your candle is ready to be lit again.
Both of these methods of putting out your candle don’t produce smoke, which means that the fragrance that’s given off during the burn isn’t going to be compromised. Another perk to using these methods is that they don’t produce soot either. When you’re done putting out the flame, your wax will be free of debris and the sides of your jar will be free of the black sooty residue that comes from candle smoke.
Read more about 12 Candle Accessories: (Must-Have + Nice-To-Have).
Final Thoughts
Using the lid is an essential part of caring for your candle. Not only can you use it to extinguish the flame without creating smoke or soot, but you can also use it to prevent the fragrance from dissipating. By storing your candle with the lid secured on top, you’re making sure you have fragrance for as long as possible. A lid is an incredibly handy tool that comes complementary with your candle and should definitely be used.
Read more: 4 Ways to Put Out a Candle Without Black Smoke (Don’t Blow it Out!)