My Wick Develops a Large Mushroom After Every Burn — Should I Test a Smaller Size or a Different Wick Construction?

Every CSI construction, priced per candle

Per candle is the number that matters once a wick is approved, because it repeats in every candle you pour. For the tabbed Eco wicks and Cotton Braided it is the same at every pack size; for wooden wicks it falls with the pack; for cut-to-length braid it depends on the length you cut and on whether you have tabs.

Three things in that table shape the test order. First, the cheapest production wick is also the down-rung: C1 at ₹5.90. Second, the braided roll is cheap per candle (₹7.07) but sold as one ₹706.82 roll, so it is cheap to use and dear to try. Third, the wooden wick costs ₹59.00 a candle in tens and still ₹41.30 in hundreds, 4.4 times a C2; the 50-pack labelled "Save 25%" is really 20% cheaper per wick, and the 100-pack labelled "Save 30%" really is 30%.

The untabbed braids (Eco Braided, Loose) need a tab from somewhere; CSI lists tabs only with the roll, so in practice the roll is the cut-to-length option you can test as a finished, tabbed wick. Longer cuts cost more per wick: Eco Braided 5 m cut at 12 cm gives 41 wicks at ₹11.51 each. Per metre, the 10 m Eco Braided is cheaper than the 5 m (₹82.60 against ₹94.40): unlike the tabbed wicks, the braid does get cheaper in the bigger pack.

Why the smaller size comes first

A mushroom is carbon that builds on the wick tip when the flame is fed more than it burns cleanly. When it appears after every burn on a trimmed wick, in still air and normal sessions, the common suspects are a wick that is large for the jar and oil, a heavy or vanillin-rich oil, or both. The page for Cinnamon Vanilla states "Vanillin content 2.5%", which is why it is the worked example. A mushroom that appears only late in the jar, or only after several long burns, is a different pattern; reading it is the late-mushrooming post.

The smaller size tests the first suspect directly and costs least to find out. A construction change tests something vaguer: a different braid, fibre or wood may carry fuel differently, but no CSI page states a construction spec, so you cannot predict whether the new wick is "smaller", "the same" or "bigger" in effect. Running a type swap first would answer a question you cannot frame. How to design a fair type-swap A/B when you do need one is the wrong-wick-type post; this page owns the order and the cost.

The purchase order of tests

The worked example: your own jar, 7 cm across the inside (38.48 cm² of pool; CSI's 7 cm listings give outer or unspecified figures, about 6.3 cm inside if read as outer on our wall assumption, 31.17 cm², so yours has about 23% more surface), a 150 g fill at 8% of total weight (12 g of Cinnamon Vanilla + 138 g of CSI 468; 8% of total is 8.70% of wax weight, inside the wax page's "Up to 13%" and the oil page's "Up to 13% load for candles" on either reading). Today's wick is Eco C2 and it mushrooms after every trimmed 3-hour burn.

Per candle at production prices: C1 ₹148.46, C2 ₹152.00, roll ₹149.63, Cotton Braided ₹154.56, wooden ₹201.56 in tens or ₹183.86 in hundreds (₹54.66 of oil and ₹87.91 of wax plus the wick), worked examples that exclude your jar, labour, freight, packaging and GST.

When a construction change earns its test

If C1 leaves wax on the glass at burn 3 while C2 builds a mushroom every burn, the flame this jar and oil need sits between CSI's two sized, tabbed rungs, and CSI lists nothing between them. There are three honest ways forward, and two of them are not wick purchases.

If the roll passes, it is also cheaper per candle than C2 (₹2.37 less), with one cost the table hides: you cut, tab and prime every wick yourself, so price your own time before you choose it for production. Priming (waxing the braid before use) is itself a variable; the comparison of raw, hand-primed and ready-made wicks is the pre-waxed wick post. If wooden passes, check the move as a system change, load and pool depth included (the cotton-to-wooden retest post).

From the passing step to production

Size production from your own volume: wicks to buy = candles × wicks per candle × (1 + allowance), with a 5% allowance as our worked-example figure. In the worked example, 150 candles a month:

Because C1 and C2 are flat per wick, choose packs that add up to the need; a 1,000-pack is ₹5.90 a wick, the same as the 20-pack. Reorder at daily use × your lead time + safety stock; CSI dispatches from Pune and publishes no lead times or stock depth, so confirm on WhatsApp. If the step 1 result moves this product off C2, the C2 left on your shelf goes to products where C2 is approved, never back into this candle: the wicking-down transition post times the switch against stock and lead time.

What to buy, and what to skip

Five items, in the order the tests need them, chosen on page statements, price and stock on 1 October 2026. CSI publishes no wick-performance or mushroom data, so nothing here is ranked on burn results. Oil counts use 12 g per 150 g candle at 8%.

Skip for this problem: Cotton Braided Wicks Ready Made: a step up in a 7 cm jar. Eco Braided Wicks and Eco Candle Wicks Loose: unsized and sold without tabs, so they add a tab problem to a burn problem; the Loose page describes it for "2 inch diameters". Steel Wick Holders: centring helps any wick, but it is not a mushroom fix.

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