What our first fifty pours taught us.

Fifty candles, logged one by one

Before anything went up for sale, we poured fifty candles and kept notes on every one — wax weight, fragrance load, pour temperature, room humidity, how the top looked after curing, how it burned. Most of what we now do as habit came from mistakes inside that batch.

The wrong wick, twice

The first wicks we chose were sized for a narrower vessel. In the wider glass we were using, the flame stayed small and the melt pool never reached the edge — the candle tunnelled down the middle and left a wall of unused wax. We sized up, tested again, and the second wick ran too hot, curling and smoking.

It took a third size, and a proper burn test on each one, before the flame behaved the way it should for the vessel's width.

Sunken tops and what caused them

Several early candles cooled with a visible dip in the centre of the surface. This came from pouring at too high a temperature and cooling the vessels too quickly afterward. Warming the vessels before the pour and letting them cool undisturbed, away from drafts, fixed it in the next batch.

Lighting them before they were ready

We burned a few of the fifty on the day they were poured, out of impatience more than anything. They threw fragrance unevenly and the wax behaved unpredictably. A cured candle — rested for a proper stretch after pouring — threw more consistently and burned cleaner every time.

What actually changed after batch one

• Every wax and vessel pairing is now burn-tested before it is sold, not assumed
• Vessels are warmed before pouring, every time, without exception
• A rest period after pouring is now a fixed step, not a suggestion
• Wick size is chosen for the vessel's width first, fragrance load second

What we would tell ourselves at the start

Small batches are not about scale, they are about attention — fifty candles, watched closely, taught us more than any specification sheet could. Every wrong pour told us something the next one needed.