My Reworked Candle Is Stable but Now Tunnels — Could the Lower Fragrance Load Have Changed Wick Behaviour?
Aktie
What else changes when a batch is reworked? Every wick is new, the cure restarts, the wax may include a new lot, and overflow is sometimes poured into a different jar. Any of those can cause tunnelling on its own.
Should I raise the load back up to stop tunnelling? No. The load was lowered because the candle sweated. Fix tunnelling with the first burn, the wick or the configuration, not by restoring the load that failed.
Can I rewick candles that are already poured? Sometimes. A needle or drilled channel with a new, larger wick keeps the wax and cure, but the channel and seating must be burn-tested before you trust it.
Four things changed, not one
You remelted a sweating batch, diluted it from 10% to 8% and poured it again. The new candles stay dry in storage. Then the burn test shows a tunnel: the wick burns down the centre and leaves a wall of unmelted wax around the edge. The question in your head is whether the lower load did this, and whether the cure is to put some oil back.
Hold that thought. Compared with the candles you approved before the problem, four things changed in the rework, and the load is only one of them.
A tunnel can come from any of these. Diagnose before you act, because the fixes are different and one of the tempting fixes — more oil — undoes the rework.
How a lower load can affect the wick
Fragrance oil is not inert filler; it is drawn up and burned with the wax. A candle at a lower load is, in effect, a slightly different fuel. In some wax-oil pairs that makes almost no difference. In others the melt pool forms more slowly. If your wick at 10% was only just opening the jar — a borderline fit — the change at 8% can be enough to leave a ring of wax at the wall.
No published figure tells you how big this effect is, and CSI publishes no flame height, burn rate or melt-pool diameter for any of its wicks. That is why the diagnosis below relies on your own burns rather than a chart. It is also why a wick that was borderline at 10% deserves suspicion first: a comfortable fit rarely tips into tunnelling after a two-point load change; a marginal one can.
Diagnose with a burn log
Burn two reworked candles, cured for at least the oil page's stated minimum from the re-pour, and log each session. The session length is your own set figure; long enough for the melt pool to reach the wall on the first burn is the usual aim, but treat any duration as a starting point. Never leave the candle unattended.
| Session | Your session length | Melt pool reached the wall? | Width of unmelted ring | Tunnel depth | Wick centred and upright? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (first burn) | Yes / no | mm | mm | Yes / no | |
| 2 | Yes / no | mm | mm | Yes / no | |
| 3 | Yes / no | mm | mm | Yes / no | |
| 4 | Yes / no | mm | mm | Yes / no |
Read the log in this order.
Fixing it: wick first, never the load
Here is an illustrative case. A maker's 250 reworked candles are 200 g fills in CSI's 200 ml matte jars, about 7 cm wide, wicked with Eco C1 as before the rework. The log shows full first burns, centred wicks and a persistent ring of wax. C1 has become too small at the new load.
The next CSI step is Eco C2. On the whole batch the wick cost difference is 250 × ₹3.54 = ₹885.00, from ₹9.44 − ₹5.90 = ₹3.54 per candle. Two Eco C1 in one jar is the other option for wider containers; it costs 2 × ₹5.90 = ₹11.80 per candle and is usually unnecessary in a 7 cm jar unless C2 overshoots. Cotton Braided Wicks Ready Made are positioned on their page for candles wider than 8 cm, so they belong to wider jars.
Test before switching: pour three candles with C2 from the same reworked wax, cure them, and burn them through to the bottom of the jar. Watch the final third especially — a wick that cures tunnelling but runs the glass hot near the bottom is not an improvement.
Candles already poured with the small wick
If the batch is already poured, you have two routes. Remelt and re-pour with the larger wick, which restarts the cure again. Or rewick in place: make a channel with a wicking needle or drill beside or through the old wick, insert a larger wick and reseal. Rewicking keeps the wax, fragrance and cure untouched, but the channel and seating must be burn-tested on a few candles first; no rework method is guaranteed. The Premium Candle Wicking Needle is ₹472.00 and the steel straw Wick Inserter ₹59.00.
Catching it before the next rework
This tunnel was found after 250 candles were poured. The cheaper place to find it is in the rework pilot, before the batch is committed. Build three habits into every future rescue.
Treat the old wick as unproven. When the load changes, pour the pilot with the existing wick and one step up side by side. If the existing wick passes, you have lost nothing; if it falls short, you found out on six candles, not 250.
Use wicks from one pack for the whole batch. Mixing an old part-pack with a new one makes it impossible to tell a wick change from a load change. Write the pack and purchase date on the batch sheet.
Plan the jar count before diluting. Dilution always creates extra candles: the 10%-to-8% rework of 200 candles makes 250. Buy matching jars for all of them before you pour, so no overflow ends up in a wider container that nobody has wicked.
Why the fix is never 'add oil back'
Raising the load to 9% or 10% might, in some pairs, nudge the melt pool wider. It would also walk the candle straight back towards the sweating that started all this. The rework was done because the wax would not hold that oil at 10%. A tunnel is a wick problem with a wick solution, and the wick solutions cost a few rupees a candle.
Once the new wick passes, update the formula sheet: wax, oil, load on its stated basis, jar, the re-confirmed wick, cure and the date approved. A load change and a wick change belong on the same line, so the next person who touches the load knows the wick has to be re-tested with it.
Where this page fits
CSI already has guides that cover parts of this question. This page answers one sweating decision; these cover the neighbouring questions:
Three things to buy for this fix
| Option | Price | Status on the October 2026 pull |
|---|---|---|
| Thin (C1) × 10 | ₹59.00 | Out of stock |
| Thin (C1) × 20 | ₹118.00 | In stock |
| Thin (C1) × 100 | ₹590.00 | In stock |
| Thin (C1) × 500 | ₹2,950.00 | In stock |
| Thin (C1) × 1,000 | ₹5,900.00 | In stock |
| Thick (C2) × 10 | ₹94.40 | In stock |
| Thick (C2) × 20 | ₹188.80 | In stock |
| Thick (C2) × 100 | ₹944.00 | In stock |
| Option | Price | Status on the October 2026 pull |
|---|---|---|
| Needle | ₹472.00 | In stock |
| Option | Price | Status on the October 2026 pull |
|---|---|---|
| Pack of 5 | ₹118.00 | In stock |
CANDLEMAKINGSUPPLIESINDIA supplies raw materials and production equipment, not finished candles. This guide separates general formulation practice from what CSI's own product pages state, converts the pages' wax-weight loads to the total-weight basis used here, says plainly where CSI publishes no figure (wax heat resistance, survival temperatures, oil composition beyond the page), and labels every load step, test temperature, observation day or reject rate as a starting point for your own validation.
Prices are live CSI prices from October 2026; product pages are authoritative. Where a spec is not published — such as the temperature at which a wax starts to release oil — this guide says so rather than filling the gap.
For bulk quotes, GST invoicing, IFRA and MSDS documents, message us on WhatsApp at +91 7397976926.
Frequently asked questions
- How Many Reworked Test Candles Should I Validate Before Remelting an Entire 500-Unit Batch?
- When Is It Financially Better to Scrap a Sweating Candle Batch Rather Than Spend Labour and Energy Reprocessing It?
- How Do I Calculate the Cost of Remelting, Additional Wax, Labour, Jars and Retesting Before Deciding Whether a Failed Batch Is Worth Rescuing?
- My Fragrance Continues Separating Even at a Lower Load — When Should I Stop Trying to Rescue the Formulation and Replace the Fragrance Oil?
- My Fragrance Performs Well but My Wax Cannot Keep It Stable During Indian Summer — When Should I Replace the Wax Instead?
- I Found a New Wax That Fixes the Sweating Problem — What Other Tests Must I Complete Before Buying 25–100 Kg for Production?
- I Found a New Fragrance Oil That Stays Stable at My Target Load — Should I Compare Hot Throw and Wick Behaviour Before Placing a Bulk Order?
- How Do I Compare Two Wax-Fragrance Combinations Using Stability, Hot Throw, Burn Quality, Summer Resistance and Cost per Finished Candle?
- My Candle Is Oily but Still Burns Normally — Is Sweating Only a Cosmetic Problem or Can It Affect Wick Performance and Safety?
- My Candle Has Great Cold Throw but Weak Hot Throw, Sweating and a Drowning Wick — Could All Three Problems Be Caused by Excessive Fragrance Load?
Customer reviews: The reviews at the top are genuine, published Judge.me reviews — Sunita Gupta (5★, not recorded as verified); Biny Abraham (5★, verified); Manasa GN (5★, verified); Suvarna P (5★, verified); Lalitha Jagan (5★, not recorded as verified); Arshad Shaikh (5★, verified). Names, ratings, dates and products as recorded by Judge.me.
Product facts (October 2026, CSI live store): Eco Candle Wicks: Thin (C1) × 10 ₹59.00 (out of stock), Thin (C1) × 20 ₹118.00, Thin (C1) × 100 ₹590.00, Thin (C1) × 500 ₹2,950.00, Thin (C1) × 1,000 ₹5,900.00, Thick (C2) × 10 ₹94.40, Thick (C2) × 20 ₹188.80, Thick (C2) × 100 ₹944.00 — natural cotton and paper fibres · ₹5.90 (C1) and ₹9.44 (C2) per wick at every pack size · no dimensions or burn chart published. Premium Candle Wicking Needle: Needle ₹472.00 — wicking needle; CSI guarantees no particular rework method. Wick Centering Device (Pack of 5): Pack of 5 ₹118.00 — holds the wick centred while wax sets; no wick-size compatibility published.
Assumptions: Fragrance load is a percentage of total candle weight (200 g = 184 g wax + 16 g oil at 8%); CSI wax pages phrase their ceilings as a share of wax weight. CSI wax pages state fragrance loads as a share of wax weight; converted here to total weight with W ÷ (100 + W) (10% of wax = 9.09% of the candle; 13% = 11.50%). A stated maximum is the wax maker's ceiling for typical oils, not a promise for every oil. CSI publishes no wax heat-resistance or survival temperature; every test temperature, observation day, load step, reject rate and labour or energy cost is a suggested starting point or the reader's own figure. Blends with microcrystalline wax, Vybar, paraffin or Soy Pillar Wax are the maker's own to test. Wax prices re-checked 7 October 2026, oil prices 1 October 2026; product pages are authoritative.