In this video we show if there is any benefit to freezing candles before lighting them.
Hi I'm Jeff from Keystone Candle Company. We have had numerous customers ask us if putting candles in the freezer will make them burn longer. The idea is by cooling the candle, when you light it, it is going to make the wax melt slower thereby creating a longer burn time.
We are going to do a little experiment today to see if in fact that is true.
One of the things to keep in mind when freezing your candles is that wax could crack either when you put it right in the freezer or when you take it out. I don't know if you can see this one but there are cracks all through the candle. The taper candles seem to be alright at this point.
Here are two identical taper candles one which as been in the freezer overnight. The other one is at room temperature. Both tapers are identical in make up with the same wax and wick both made at the same time and the wicks trimmed to the same length. I shaved a little bit off of one of the candles to make sure the weight was exactly the same. They are both at 68.6 grams.
I don't know if you can see this but the wax temperature of the frozen candle is at 33 degrees, right now. Lets light the candles... and begin the experiment.
Something for you to realize on the outside of the flame, right at the edge, the temperature can reach 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. Near the bottom of the flame the temperature can be about 1000 degrees. The radiant heat of the flame can cause the liquid wax to be about 160 degrees.
We'll let the candles burn for several hours and come back and observe any differences.
Alright, here we are, an hour into the experiment. As you can see both flames seem to be identical. The temperature inside the core of the one that was in the freezer is now at 65 degrees.
Lets do a quick check and see if we can read some wax temperatures at the top of the candle. On the one that is at room temperature we are reading 158, 162, 164, 162. Check the one that was in the freezer, we are reading 162, 164, 160. I'm moving around a little and not getting a very accurate reading but you can see their are both pretty much the same.
Alright, we will come back in a little bit and check it some more.
Here we are at the two hour mark and we see that the core temperature of the candle that was in the freezer has reached room temperature, 69 degrees here and 69 degrees here. So at this point it is not going to do anything to change or alter the burn time. So we are going to extinguish the candles. I'll let the wax cool, then we will weight them and see if there was any difference.
The candles have cooled, lets first weight the one that was at room temperature at the beginning. Alright we got a reading of 26.2 grams and now we will weigh the one that was in the freezer. And we've got a weight of 26.0 so you can see there is no real difference at this point.
As you can see from this video, the weight of candle wax left over at the end for each candle was the same. That means just as much wax burned on the frozen one as the one left out. That means that putting a candle in the freezer does NOT help the candle to last longer.