WELCOME TO MY CANDLE PAGE STORY BOARD I'VE TRIED TO COVER THE BASICS AND INCLUDE SOME INTERESTING
TIDBITS
OF INFORMATION FOR YOU TO PERUSE. Enjoy!
Candle History
Early candles were made of vegetable waxes produced from plants such
as bayberries, candelilla leaves, candletree bark, esparto grass, and
various varieties of palm leaves such as carnauba and ouricury. They
were also made of animal tissue and secretions, such as spermaceti (whale
oil), ambergris, and beeswax (insect secretions). Sometimes entire animals
such as the stormy petrel and the candlefish of the Pacific Northwest
were threaded with a wick and burned as candles. Tallow candles were
made of sheep, cow, or pig fat. All these candles were rather crude,
time-consuming to make and smoky.
Of the two kinds of candle fuel, beeswax was considered the better since
it burned cleaner than tallow and had a lovely odor compared to tallow's
rancid, smoky smell. Being scarce, beeswax was expensive. Only churches
and the wealthy could afford beeswax candles.
By the 17th century, European state edicts controlled the weight, size
and cost of candles. In 1709, an act of the English Parliament banned
the making of candles at home unless a license was purchased and a tax
paid.
Matches were invented in 1827, using poisonous phoshorus but were improved
by the end of the century, eliminating the need for sparking with flint,
steel, and tinder, or for keeping a fire burning 24 hours a day.
Probably most important of all, Paraffin was refined from oil around
1850, making petroleum based candles possible. The combination of paraffin,
which burns clean and without odor, and stearins, which harden soft
paraffin, with new wick technologies developed in the nineteenth century,
revolutionized the candle industry, giving us the tools and materials
we still use for candle manufacturing.
Candle Shapes
Container: Any candle that is poured into a container
and intended to be burned in the container is a container candle. These
candles are often made of soft wax and would not be able to stand on
their own outside their enclosures. The container also prevents soft
wax from dripping. Since these candles are safely contained in a vessel,
they are often used in restaurants and in religious rituals that require
long-burning candles.
Pillar: A thick candle with a geometrical cross section
such as a circle, oval, or hexagon is called a pillar. It is usueally
referred to by its diameter followed by its height. For example, a 3-by
6-inch pillar would be 3 inches in diameter and 6 inches high. Some
pillars come in standard sized for commercial and religious use but
you can make many variations of pillars by using molds.
Novelty: These are irregularly shaped candles made
by molding, sculpting and/or pouring.
Taper: These are the long cylindrical candles that
kindle memories of historic candle-dipping. Tapers can be made by dipping
wicks into melted wax, by pouring wax into a mold, and by rolling wax
around a wick. No matter the method, the result is always candles made
to fit into a holder. Tapers are generally made 1/2 inch or 7/8 inch
in diameter at the base because most holders are designed to fit these
two sizes. There are, of course, exceptions, such as birthday candles
(3/16 inch) and Danish tapers (1/4 inch). Some specialty candleholders
are designed to hold a taper larger than 7/8 inch.
Votive and Tea Lights: Although these candles originated
in the church, the term now refers to small plug-type candles that are
1 1/2 inches in diameter by 2 to 3 inches high. This shape has become
popular for scented candles because their small size allows them to
fit easily into small rooms, such as bathrooms. As votives melt and
become liquid in their containers, the wick uses up all the liquid fuel.
If you burn a votive on a plate, the burn time will be shorter because
the wax will drip and the wick will be unable to use it. Tea lights
are small votives used to warm pots of potpourri and to heat foods.
They fit in smaller-than-standard votive cups.
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