My 7 cm Jar Candle Gives Strong Hot Throw but the Glass Becomes Very Hot After Several Hours — Should I Reduce Wick Size Even if Customers Like the Fragrance Performance?

Why praise and heat are different measurements

A customer who says "it fills my living room" is reporting the first hour or two of a session, usually on the top half of the candle, often from across the room. The heat you are worried about builds later: after several hours in a session, and more as the candle burns down. In the final third of a small jar the pool sits low, the glass above it is exposed on all sides, and the flame is closer to more glass. That is a common pattern, not a rule, and it is why a candle can earn five stars and still be one you shouldn't sell.

The two measurements also pull in the same direction, which is what makes this hard. A bigger wick commonly means a hotter, deeper pool, and a hotter pool can release more fragrance for a while. So the wick that gives the throw customers praise may be the one that makes the glass too hot. Stepping down might cost some throw. The test below finds out how much, before you decide whether it matters.

There is also a cheaper possibility to rule out first. "Very hot after several hours" can be a session-length problem rather than a wick problem: a candle that behaves at three hours may not at five. If the heat only appears past the session length you intend to print, the fix may be a label, and that decision belongs to the soot-after-several-hours label post. This page assumes the heat appears inside a normal session, or in the final third, where a label can't save it.

What "very hot" means when you may not touch the glass

Never judge a candle jar's heat by touching it, during or just after a burn. There is also no honest glass-temperature limit we can give you: CSI's jar pages do not state one, and the "Safe for hot pour up to 85°C" on the Clear Glass Jar with Golden Lid (150 gram) is a pouring figure, not a burn rating. So this test replaces "very hot" with things you can observe and compare between two wicks in the same jar.

Why the jar's shape matters here: the page gives an outer rim of about 7 cm and an outer base of about 6.5 cm. On our 0.35 cm wall assumption that is about 6.3 cm inside at the rim and 5.8 cm near the base, so a centred wick sits 31.5 mm from the glass at the top and 29.0 mm near the bottom. The pool near the base is about 15% smaller in area (26.42 against 31.17 cm²). A wick that drifts 3 mm off-centre near the base sits 26.0 mm from the near wall, about 10% closer. Centre the wick well and check it after each burn; a drifted wick can make a correct wick look like a hot one. The narrowing-jar retest itself belongs to the bottom-zone post.

The throw-preserving step-down

Two cells, three candles each. Cell A is your current wick, the control: C2 in the worked example. Cell B is one rung down: C1. Same wax bag, same oil at the same load on total weight, same jar batch, same 150 g fill, same pour temperature, same cure, same room. Label bases A1–A3 and B1–B3, and have someone else code the lids so the throw scorers don't know which is which.

If your current wick is already C1, there is no smaller sized, tabbed CSI wick to step down to. The only CSI wick whose page names a smaller diameter is the untabbed Eco Candle Wicks Loose, "designed specifically for 2 inch diameters"; the 6 cm fast-pool post covers what that means in practice. Your other levers are a different load or oil, tested as its own pair inside Apple Cinnamon's stated 6–10% (load changes flame behaviour in ways that have to be measured, not assumed; the coffee load step-down shows the method), a shorter burn instruction if the heat appears only late in a session, or another supplier's smaller wick. Ask us on WhatsApp; we would rather tell you what we don't have.

Per candle that is ₹230.78 on C2 and ₹227.24 on C1; the C1 candle is ₹3.54 cheaper. Costs are worked examples and exclude labour, freight, packaging and GST. Cash outlay from nothing is ₹2,043.76 if you already hold C2, or ₹2,138.16 with a fresh C2 10-pack. The four spare jars are your retest capacity if a cell splits.

Scoring throw blind at one and three hours

You are not trying to measure throw in the abstract; you are asking one question: does the smaller wick keep enough of the throw customers like? A simple, repeatable score answers it. The scores are your panel's judgement, not data, and they only compare candles scored the same way.

Burn one coded candle at a time in the same closed room with fans and AC off, light it with nobody inside, and send the scorers in at 1 hour and again at 3 hours. Air the room fully between candles. With one room, that is one candle per session per day; with two identical rooms, two. Nose adaptation is well established, so each scorer gives a score in the first few breaths and leaves. Average each candle's scores, then each cell's.

This is a comparison between two wicks in one jar, not a throw rating for Apple Cinnamon. CSI publishes no throw data and neither should your panel's scores be read as any. If your concern is a candle that smells better only on the larger wick, the masking checklist in the oversized-wick post is the sibling test; this page assumes the larger wick smells better and asks whether you can afford to lose some of it.

The safety-first decision table

Two rows need a word. In row two you are choosing a weaker candle on purpose. That is the rule doing its job: the fix for throw is never "more heat than the jar should take". And in the last row, where C2 passes every gate, the step-down has still earned its cost: you now have a written record that the glass was watched through the final third, which is more than a customer's compliment can give you.

If a 9 cm jar with two wicks has the same problem, the levers are different (both down, one down, spacing, session): that is the 9 cm double-wick heat post. If your candle gets hotter burn after burn rather than hour after hour, read the cumulative-heat post.

What to buy, and what to skip

Five items for the step-down and what follows it, chosen on page statements, price and stock on 29 September 2026. CSI publishes no wick-performance or throw data, so nothing is ranked on burn results. Oil candles are counted at 12 g per 150 g candle.

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