My Double-Wick Candle Creates an Extremely Deep Melt Pool After Several Burns — Should I Reduce Both Wick Sizes Rather than Return to One Large Wick?

The retest order, arm by arm

The worked example: your jar measures 9.0 cm across the inside (CSI lists no jar at 9 cm; its nearest wide vessel, the Apothecary Glass Candle Jar with Dome Lid, is about 10 cm on the page). It is filled to 300 g with 8% Autumn in CSI 464, and it burns on two Eco C2 set 4.5 cm apart. The pool reached the glass by burn 2 but, a few burns later, measured about 2 cm deep at the end of a session: well past the commonly cited 0.5–1 cm. The single you started on was one C2, and it tunnelled. Your figures will differ; the structure of the order will not.

Most readers already hold the oil and wax, because they are making this candle; then the order is the three small packs, ₹356.00. From nothing, it is ₹3,235.20 before your jars. Without the control, six candles need 144 g of Autumn (100 g + 50 g, ₹814.20, leaving 6 g) and 1,656 g of wax (two bags, ₹1,014.80, leaving 344 g); we would still pour the control.

Which arms you actually need

A deep pool in a double-wick candle has two families of cause: too much heat for the jar (both flames too big, or too many flames) and too much heat in one place (a pair set too close together, sessions run too long, a warm or draughty room). Only the first family is fixed by buying a different wick. The second is fixed with what you own, and the deep-pool-at-three-hours post owns that method: measuring depth and width together and moving the pair outward in small steps. This page owns what to buy once those are ruled out.

The last row is the honest edge of CSI's range. Below a pair of C1 there is no smaller sized, tabbed wick to step to; the Eco Candle Wicks Loose is sold untabbed and its page describes it for "2 inch diameters", a different job. If two C1 is still too hot, the next moves are spacing, load and session length, then the gap-filling options for a jar between CSI's rungs, then a message to us.

The free checks, before any purchase

Four things make a pool deep without the wick being wrong: session length (test sessions of 3–4 hours; a very rough rule of thumb of an hour per 2.5 cm puts a 9 cm first burn near 3.6 hours), trim (about 5–6 mm; one CSI trimmer page says "Trim your wick to 1/4 inch before every burn"), spacing (a pair 4.5 cm apart sits 2.25 cm from the glass; set closer, two flames heat the centre as one) and depth in the jar. That last one is the "after several burns" in your question: heat commonly builds as a candle burns lower, so a pool that was fine at the top can deepen in the lower half (why wick behaviour changes as the candle burns lower). That does not excuse it, but it tells you the retest must go to the bottom too.

Per-candle money: why it cannot decide this

CSI's C1, C2 and Cotton Braided are each flat per wick across every pack, so the per-candle wick cost is fixed by the configuration alone:

Each candle is ₹130.27 of oil plus ₹140.04 of wax plus its wicks: worked examples that exclude your jar, labour, freight, packaging and GST. Two C1 cost ₹0.20 less than one Cotton Braided per candle. Over a production month the gap stays small (see the production table below), and it can be overturned by things this page does not price: placing two wicks takes longer than placing one, and pairs need a holder that spans the jar. That labour and fixture cost at the design stage is the two-small versus one-big costing post; here it is enough to know that price is a tie-breaker, never the decider.

The number that does matter is the candle. A wrong arm costs three candles of ₹282.11 in materials; a wrong production order costs a month of them. The arm with the safer burn wins even if it costs a few paise more.

Pouring the nine candles

Materials consumed: Arm A ₹846.34, Arm B ₹846.94, control ₹867.58; ₹2,560.87 for all nine, excluding jars. Each configuration's three candles must all burn to about 1 cm left; how far down a test candle must go before it counts is the acceptance-depth post.

Reading the arms: five outcomes, five purchases

The thresholds are our judgement, readable from a log and a photo: "full width" means the ring has gone by burn 3; "back in the band" means end-of-session depth at or under about 1 cm on the standard session, through the final third.

Whichever arm wins, run all three of its candles to the bottom before ordering. A pair that holds the band at the top and then runs hot in the last third has not passed; the jar-heat side of that is the late-heat post. And once a winner is approved for Autumn in this jar, the approval is for that configuration: a different oil, load or wax is a new question.

From the winning arm to production

Once one arm passes the full life, size the wick order from your production: wicks = candles × wicks per candle × (1 + allowance). The allowance (5% in this worked example) covers rejects and retests. Because the three tabbed rungs are flat per wick, pick packs that add up to the number and stop.

Either win saves roughly a thousand rupees a month on wicks here, against ₹19,540.80 of oil. The saving is real, and it is the smaller benefit: the bigger one is a candle that no longer runs a 2 cm pool in a customer's home.

The bridge: the C1 50-pack

If Arm A wins, you already hold 14 C1 from the test pack. Add one C1 50-pack (₹295.00) and you have 64 wicks: 32 candles on two C1, enough for a first production run while you set the standing order. That is the one place a bigger C1 pack makes sense on this page, and it saves nothing per wick: the 50-pack is ₹5.90 a wick, like the 20.

Reorder point

At 315 C1 a month you use about 10.5 a day. With a 10-day order-to-bench time and a week of safety stock, reorder when you are down to about 178 wicks. The lead time is your figure: CSI dispatches from Pune and publishes no lead times or stock depth, so confirm dispatch on WhatsApp before a big run. The full reorder method is in the hub post on the 8 cm vanilla ladder.

What to buy, and what to skip

Five items, in the order the retest needs them, chosen on page statements, price and stock on 1 October 2026. CSI publishes no wick-performance data, so nothing here is ranked on burn results. Oil candle counts use 24 g per 300 g candle and the standard 12 g per 150 g candle.

Skip for this retest: Performance Wooden Wicks (₹590.00 for 10): one listing, no widths, and a different construction; it would add a third variable. Eco Braided Wicks (₹472.00 for 5 m) and the Braided Wick Roll (₹706.82): unsized, cut to length, worth a look only if the arms land between rungs. A larger Steel Wick Holder order: your existing pair fixture holds the control and Arm A.

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