From my earliest memories, candles had been a component of special celebrations -- normally birthdays and Christmas. They were expected on top of birthday cakes and featured prominently during the season of Advent in the excitement of the lead up to Christmas. The warm, soft light and flickering flame held a fascination for me, verging on the transfixing. Part of the wonder of my childhood.
In teenage years, experiments with home-made candles and miniature hot air balloons caused at least one significant wax spillage on the bedroom carpet -- thankfully without fire! Having had at least one close call, I assume I must have learnt my lesson and candles then became something to be enjoyed only at Christmas (and avoided at birthdays) on visits home. (I am happy to watch manned hot air balloons float above me in fine weather, but untethered Chinese Lanterns drifting above the local countryside fill me with concern!)
IKEA prices seemed so reasonable, that it was easy to add more items to the shopping bag. Apart from the lime-fragrance SOMMAR 2018 candle in glass, I came away with a number of unscented pillar candles (not all shown), and three different packs of tea lights. I could not resist the quirky, stackable chunky glass tea light holder, and grabbed a number of them. (At 37p each, how could I not? They really make a difference with standard tea lights.) It should take me a while to get through this lot!
Most of the candles shown here are made for IKEA in Poland, and all the ones I have tried so far have been good or excellent, and definitely good value for money. (I wouldn't have expected otherwise.) The product labelling shows a number of safety-related pictograms (e.g., Do not leave a burning candle unattended), so it is worth working out what they all mean -- a set of sensible guidelines before lighting. One of them suggests that the wick should be no longer than 1 centimetre (10 mm), but in practice a trim to 4 millimetres before lighting has given me reliable results. (I use a slice of plastic drinking straw as a collar over the wick when trimming with nail clippers to get fairly consistent wick lengths.)
The labelling also shows a burn time in hours, e.g., 4h for a standard GLIMMA unscented tea light. I suspect this is a minimum for continuous burning with a stable flame. I have achieved longer candle life by using shorter burn times, followed by wick trimming before the next session. I suspect that with proper candle care (regular wick trimming and a melt pool covering the entire surface of the candle before extinguishing), it should be possible to extend IKEA's advertised burn times by 20 percent or more.
I have never been a fan of scented candles, and most of IKEA's offerings are sweet-smelling and/or fruity which is not my thing. However, in tea light form I have not found them to be too offensive. (I understand that the size [diameter] of the melt pool influences the strength ["throw"] of the scent.) I am aware that scented candles from other sources can cost big money and are truly luxury items. A case of getting what you pay for, I suppose?Ironically, what set me down this path has been the least satisfactory. Despite trying a number of different wick lengths and burn times, I was unable to get my SOMMAR 2018 lime-scented candle in glass to form a melt pool all the way across, and it has exhibited classic funnelling. Either the container is too big or the wick too small -- a design or manufacturing fault? (I reject the idea that candles have "memory" -- utter nonsense and a feeble excuse!) Additionally, the lime scent took on a different character once heated by the candle, and lost its freshness; to be replaced by a more sickly, creamy fragrance less to my liking. I don't think I will be buying another one of these, but I might just try a peach SINNLIG in the small glass on my next visit to IKEA...
