How Do I Diagnose Tunnelling, Mushrooming, Soot, Drowning, Excessive Flame and Deep Melt Pools Systematically Before Buying a Different Wick Size?
शेयर करना
Which way do I buy? Too much heat (deep pool, tall trimmed flame, mushrooming, soot on a trimmed wick) means one rung down. Too little (a ring at burn 3, drowning) means one rung up, and from Cotton Braided, CSI's top tabbed rung, a double-wick arm. Double wicks with a hot centre and a cold edge go to a spacing test first.
What does each branch cost? At CSI's smallest in-stock packs: nothing for the free branches; ₹350.00 for a fixture; ₹118.00 to buy down (C1 20); ₹94.40 or ₹120.00 to buy up (C2 10, Cotton Braided 10); ₹462.40 for a double arm with holders. Plus three test candles, which cost more than the wicks.
When do I buy production wicks? Never from the tree directly. Every purchase branch ends in three confirm candles and a full-life burn; only a pass releases a production order sized by candles × wicks per candle × (1 + allowance).
- Straight answer: three gates, then one purchase
- The three gates before any wick purchase
- Six symptoms, their evidence thresholds and their branches
- The five branches, priced
- Running the diagnosis on three candles
- What the wrong branch costs
- From a passing branch to production
- What to buy, and what to skip
- Frequently asked questions
The three gates before any wick purchase
The worked example behind every figure on this page is the cluster's candle: your 8.0 cm inside jar (about 8.7 cm outside on a 0.35 cm wall; CSI lists no 8 cm-wide jar), 200 g at 8% Gardenia in CSI 464 (16 g + 184 g), house wick Eco C2. Swap in your own; the gates do not change.
Gate 1: consistency
One candle is an anecdote: an air pocket, a tab knocked sideways, a fan someone switched on. A wick purchase needs the same symptom on all three candles of a configuration, on at least two sessions. Two of three is "not decided": pour three more of the same configuration from oil and wax you hold before buying anything. Standard conditions matter as much as the count: cured for the same time (Gardenia's FAQ says "cure time of 48-72 hours" for soy; many makers wait longer), trimmed to about 5–6 mm, still air, 3–4 hour sessions (a very rough hour-per-2.5 cm guide puts an 8 cm first burn near 3.2 hours).
Gate 2: free causes
Each symptom in this cluster has a cause that no wick fixes. A long wick smokes and mushrooms. A ceiling fan or AC vent makes a flame flicker, soot and melt one-sided (the airflow discrimination test). Five-hour burns deepen any pool. Label wording that lets customers burn for an hour leaves a tunnel. In a double-wick candle, two wicks set too close make one hot centre (the spacing-ladder bill). Fix these first; a wick bought for any of them will move the symptom, not cure it.
Gate 3: fixtures
Look at an unburned candle from the same pour. A wick that set crooked, off-centre, or a pair whose tips set closer than their tabs, produces an uneven pool, a one-sided tunnel or a hot centre. That is a fixture problem, priced in the single-wick centring post: buy the holder before the wick.
Six symptoms, their evidence thresholds and their branches
The thresholds below are our judgement, chosen to be readable from a log and a photograph; depth (about 0.5–1 cm) and flame height (about 2.5–5 cm) are commonly cited rules of thumb, not CSI data. "All three" means all three candles of the configuration, under the standard conditions above.
| Symptom | Evidence that releases a purchase | Free causes to rule out first | Branch | New purchase | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tunnelling | Ring of 2 mm or more at burn 3 on all three candles, centred wick, still air, 3–4 h sessions; ring not shrinking | First burn too short; off-centre wick; draught | Up one rung (on Cotton Braided: double arm) | ₹94.40 / ₹120.00 / ₹462.40 | 5543 |
| Mushrooming | Large carbon cap returns after every trim on all three, in still air | Wick left long; heavy oil or high load (try a load or oil arm first) | Down one rung | ₹118.00 | 5549 |
| Soot | Soot on a trimmed wick, in still air, inside your printed session length, on all three | Long wick; draught; sessions past the label | Load-down arm first (oil grams only), then down one rung | nothing, then ₹118.00 | 5548 |
| Drowning | Flame shrinks and dies on all three after debris, trim and fallen carbon are ruled out | Trim too short; match or carbon debris in the pool | Up one rung | ₹94.40 / ₹120.00 | 5553 |
| Excessive flame | Trimmed flame persistently above about 5 cm (rule of thumb) in still air, on all three | Untrimmed wick; flicker from airflow | Down one rung | ₹118.00 | 5551 |
| Deep pool | End-of-session depth well past about 1 cm on all three, at standard session length | Long sessions; warm room; second burn on warm wax | Down one rung; double wick: spacing first | ₹118.00 / candles only | 5544 |
| Leaning or off-centre wick | Wick crooked in the set wax before the first burn | None: this is the fixture | Fixture | ₹350.00 | 5552 |
Symptoms that point both ways
Two combinations confuse the tree, and both have an answer. A fast full pool with no other symptom is not yet "too much heat": warm rooms, second burns on warm wax and shallow fills all speed a pool up, and the fast-pool confounder checklist sorts them out before you buy down. A tall flame with a pool that still falls short of the edge is the one case where the wick type, not its size, may be wrong; that order is in the type-swap post linked from the cluster box below. And soot with a trimmed wick in still air, inside the printed session, can still come from the oil or the load rather than the wick, which is why the soot branch starts with a load-down arm that uses oil grams only (12 g per 200 g candle at 6%).
Some symptoms only appear in the second half of a candle's life: flame growth near the bottom, late drowning, late soot bands. A three-session screen cannot see them. The catalogue of which ones and when is the second-half problems post; the purchase consequence of a jar that runs hot near the end is the late-heat post. The tree still applies; the evidence simply arrives later.
The five branches, priced
Costs per branch at the worked example's 200 g candle: ₹69.28 of Gardenia (at the 100 g price, ₹4.33 a gram) plus ₹93.36 of CSI 464 plus the wick. Three confirm candles are the unit of every branch. All costs exclude your jars, labour, freight, packaging and GST.
| Branch | New purchase | Count it covers | Three-candle materials | Per-candle change in production |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buy nothing (trim, airflow, sessions, label) | nothing; a cutter at ₹177.00 or care stickers at ₹0.83 each if you want them | — | ₹516.24 (re-test on C2 from stock) | nothing, or ₹0.83 a label |
| Buy nothing yet (double wick: spacing) | nothing; stickers to hold the new spacing | — | candles only, on wicks you own | ₹5.00 of stickers per pair |
| Buy a fixture | Steel Wick Holder 5 (₹250.00) + stickers 40 (₹100.00) = ₹350.00 | 5 holders, 40 tabs | ₹766.24 including the holders | reusable holders; ₹2.50 a sticker |
| Buy down (C2 → C1) | C1 20-pack, ₹118.00 | 3 candles, 17 spare | ₹505.62 | saves ₹3.54 |
| Buy up (C2 → Cotton Braided) | Cotton Braided 10-pack, ₹120.00 | 3 candles, 7 spare | ₹523.92 | adds ₹2.56 |
| Buy up (C1 → C2) | C2 10-pack, ₹94.40 | 3 candles, 7 spare | ₹516.24 | adds ₹3.54 (against a C1 house wick) |
| Buy a double arm (from Cotton Braided) | C1 20 + C2 10 + holders 5 = ₹462.40 | 3 on 2 × C1, 3 on 2 × C2 | ₹1,067.89 for six candles | 2 × C1 adds ₹2.36; 2 × C2 adds ₹9.44 vs one C2 |
Two things stand out. The wick packs are the small line: ₹118.00 against ₹505.62 of candles for the buy-down branch. And the free branches are not quite free: re-testing three candles still uses ₹516.24 of oil, wax and wicks you hold. That is the price of not buying a wrong wick, and it is lower than any wrong production order. Oil for a three-candle branch is 48 g, one 50 g bottle of Gardenia (₹223.02, 2 g spare); for the double arm's six candles, 96 g from a 100 g bottle (₹433.00, 4 g spare).
Running the diagnosis on three candles
This is the purchase layer only. The full commercial test sequence, from jar diameter through wax, oil and load to wick, spacing and full life, with what is fixed at each gate, is the master wick-system post. Use that to build a new product; use this tree when an existing one misbehaves.
What the wrong branch costs
A worked example of skipping the gates: a C2 house sees soot and tunnelling under a ceiling fan, decides the wick is "too small" and buys a Cotton Braided 100-pack (₹1,200.00). Three test candles later the symptom is unchanged, because it was the fan. Ninety-seven wicks (₹1,164.00) have no job. If production had already moved to Cotton Braided on the strength of one good session, 300 candles a month pay ₹768.00 more in wicks for a hotter candle and the same draught.
The reverse error costs as much. A deep pool caused by five-hour customer burns, answered by buying down to C1, can leave a candle that tunnels under normal sessions: a smaller-wick production run that fails the test it should have passed. Each branch on this page buys three candles' worth precisely so that a wrong turn costs one small pack and three candles, never a month.
From a passing branch to production
When the three confirm candles of the new configuration pass a full-life burn, size the order with the series formula: wicks = candles × wicks per candle × (1 + allowance), with a 5% allowance in this worked example. Because C1, C2 and Cotton Braided are flat per wick in every pack, choose packs that add up to the number and stop. The full method, with reorder points, is in the series hub.
| Approved configuration | Wicks a month | Packs that cover it | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| C1 single (after buying down) | 315 | three 100 + one 20 | ₹1,888.00 |
| Cotton Braided single (after buying up) | 315 | three 100 + two 10 | ₹3,840.00 |
| 2 × C2 (after a double arm) | 630 | six 100 + one 50 | ₹6,136.00 |
Reorder point for a single-wick line at 315 a month: about 178 wicks, using a 10-day order-to-bench time and a week of safety stock (worked example). CSI dispatches from Pune and publishes no lead times or stock depth; confirm dispatch on WhatsApp before a festive run. A double-wick line also needs holders counted for the candles setting at once, not for the month.
What to buy, and what to skip
Five items, one per kind of branch, 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 16 g per 200 g candle and the standard 12 g per 150 g candle.
| Pack | Price | Per unit | What it covers here |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thin (C1) / 10 | ₹59.00 — Out of stock | ₹5.90 | Out of stock on 1 October 2026 |
| Thin (C1) / 20 | ₹118.00 | ₹5.90 | the buy-down branch (3 candles) and half the double arm |
| Thin (C1) / 50 · 100 · 500 · 1000 | ₹295.00 · ₹590.00 · ₹2,950.00 · ₹5,900.00 | ₹5.90 | production, after full life only |
| Thick (C2) / 10 | ₹94.40 | ₹9.44 | the buy-up branch from C1, and half the double arm |
| Thick (C2) / 20 · 50 · 100 · 500 · 1000 | ₹188.80 · ₹472.00 · ₹944.00 · ₹4,720.00 · ₹9,440.00 | ₹9.44 | production, after full life only |
| Pack | Price | Per unit | What it covers here |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pack of 10 | ₹120.00 | ₹12.00 | the buy-up branch from C2 (3 candles, 7 spare) |
| Pack of 50 · 100 · 500 · 1000 | ₹600.00 · ₹1,200.00 · ₹6,000.00 · ₹12,000.00 | ₹12.00 | production, after full life only |
| Pack | Price | Per unit | What it covers here |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pack of 5 | ₹250.00 | ₹50.00 | the fixture branch, or the double arm in one pour of 5 + 1 |
| Pack of 10 | ₹500.00 | ₹50.00 | all six double-arm candles at once |
| Pack of 25 | ₹1,250.00 | ₹50.00 | production: one per candle still setting |
| Size | Price | Per gram | 200 g candles at 8% (16 g) | 150 g candles at 8% (12 g) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 g | ₹105.02 | ₹7.00 | none (a sniff sample) | 1 |
| 50 g | ₹223.02 | ₹4.46 | 3 | 4 |
| 100 g | ₹433.00 | ₹4.33 | 6 | 8 |
| 500 g | ₹2,166.00 | ₹4.33 | 31 | 41 |
| 1000 g | ₹4,332.00 | ₹4.33 | 62 | 83 |
| Pack | Price | Per unit | What it covers here |
|---|---|---|---|
| Candle Wick Cutter (3 cm blade) | ₹177.00 | ₹177.00 | the trim branch: the tool, not a new wick |
| Candle Wick Cutter (5.5 cm blade) | ₹295.00 | ₹295.00 | longer reach for deeper jars |
| Candle Wick Trimmer (debris catcher) | ₹588.82 | ₹588.82 | page: "Trim your wick to 1/4 inch before every burn" |
Skip until the tree sends you there: Performance Wooden Wicks (₹590.00 for 10): one listing with no widths, so it cannot be a "one rung" step; it is a construction change with its own test. Eco Braided Wicks (₹472.00 for 5 m) and the Braided Wick Roll (₹706.82): unsized and cut to length, worth testing only when a result lands between CSI's rungs.
CandleMakingSuppliesIndia sells the wicks, holders, oil and tools named here, and does not sell finished candles. This page still tells you that most branches buy nothing, to buy one pack rather than two, that bigger packs save nothing per wick, that CSI's tabbed range has no step between C1 and C2 or above Cotton Braided, and that we list no 8 cm-wide jar.
Every price was verified on CSI's live store on 1 October 2026. Stock was checked per size: the Eco C1 10-pack and the 100-sticker sheet are out of stock on that date and are flagged where they appear; every other size shown is in stock. Product wording is quoted from the pages; where a page is silent in the text we captured, we say so.
The gates, thresholds and branch directions are our judgement; pool depth, flame height and session length are commonly cited rules of thumb, not CSI data; the 8.0 cm jar, 200 g fill, house C2, 300-candle month, allowances and lead time are worked examples. For bulk pricing, GST invoicing, and MSDS and IFRA documentation on request, message us on WhatsApp at +91 7397976926.
Frequently asked questions
- My Candle Tunnels During the First Burn but Catches Up During Later Burns — Does That Necessarily Mean the Wick Is Too Small?
- My Candle Flame Is Very Tall but the Melt Pool Still Does Not Reach the Edge — Could the Wick Type Be Wrong Rather than Simply Too Small?
- My Candle Has a Large Flame and Deep Melt Pool but Excellent Fragrance Throw — How Do I Wick Down Without Destroying Performance?
- My Candle Smokes When the Wick Gets Long but Burns Normally After Trimming — Does That Indicate Over-Wicking or Customer Maintenance?
- My Wick Mushrooms Only with Dark Gourmand Fragrances — Why Might the Same Wick Behave Normally with Fresh Fragrances?
- My Candle Burns Perfectly Until the Final Third and Then the Flame Becomes Too Large — Why Is Full-Life Wick Testing Necessary?
- 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?
- My Two Wicks Lean Toward Each Other and Create Excessive Heat in the Centre — Should Wick Spacing Be Changed Before Wick Size?
- My Candle Has Good Melt-Pool Diameter but Weak Hot Throw — Why Might Buying a Larger Wick Be the Wrong Solution?
- I Use an 8 cm Diameter Jar with Soy Wax and 8% Vanilla Fragrance — Which Wick Sizes Should I Buy for My First Burn-Test Ladder?
Customer reviews: The six reviews at the top of this page are genuine, published Judge.me reviews left by CSI customers on the product pages named on each card — Bamboo Wick Holder, Eco Candle Wicks, Gardenia Fragrance Oil, Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 (Flakes Form) For Container Candles. They are general product reviews, not assessments of the wick-purchase advice on this page. Names, star ratings, dates and products are as recorded by Judge.me and wording is unedited. "Verified buyer" appears only on reviews Judge.me recorded as verified — Monika Deep, Subhankar Roy, Sraddha, Jaya Sawlani. The reviews from Ashwini, Lalitha Jagan are published but not recorded as verified, and carry no badge. Reviews below five stars are included as published, not filtered out.
Figures verified 1 October 2026, CSI live pricing: Eco Candle Wicks Thin (C1) 10 ₹59.00 (out of stock), 20 ₹118.00, 50 ₹295.00, 100 ₹590.00, 500 ₹2,950.00, 1,000 ₹5,900.00; Thick (C2) 10 ₹94.40, 20 ₹188.80, 50 ₹472.00, 100 ₹944.00, 500 ₹4,720.00, 1,000 ₹9,440.00; Cotton Braided Wicks Ready Made 10 ₹120.00, 50 ₹600.00, 100 ₹1,200.00, 500 ₹6,000.00, 1,000 ₹12,000.00; Steel Wick Holder Pack of 5 ₹250.00, 10 ₹500.00, 25 ₹1,250.00; Wick Centering Device (Pack of 5) ₹118.00; Candle Wick Stickers 40 ₹100.00, 100 ₹236.00 (out of stock); Candle Care Stickers Roll 500 ₹413.00; Candle Wick Cutter ₹177.00 and ₹295.00; Candle Wick Trimmer ₹588.82; Performance Wooden Wicks 10 ₹590.00; Eco Braided Wicks 5 m ₹472.00; Braided Wick Roll with 100 wick tabs ₹706.82; Gardenia Fragrance Oil 15 g ₹105.02 (₹7.00/g), 50 g ₹223.02 (₹4.46/g), 100 g ₹433.00 (₹4.33/g), 500 g ₹2,166.00 (₹4.33/g), 1 kg ₹4,332.00 (₹4.33/g); Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 500 g ₹260.00, 1 kg ₹507.40, 5 kg ₹2,537.00, 10 kg ₹5,074.00. Every size listed is in stock on 1 October 2026 except the C1 10-pack and the 100-sticker sheet. Per unit = price ÷ units or grams, two decimals.
Non-price figures: load is a percentage of total candle weight (200 g at 8% = 16 g oil + 184 g wax; the standard 150 g candle at 8% = 12 g oil + 138 g wax). The 8.0 cm inside diameter, 0.35 cm wall and 200 g fill are worked-example inputs; pool area = π r² on the inside radius (50.27 cm²). Ceilings are as the pages state (CSI 464 up to 10%, pour 80–90°C; Gardenia up to 10% for soy): formulation limits, not regulatory ones. Pool depth (about 0.5–1 cm), flame height (about 2.5–5 cm), session length (3–4 hours) and the hour-per-2.5 cm guide are commonly cited rules of thumb. The gates, thresholds, branch directions, allowances, 300-candle month and lead time are editorial judgement and worked examples. Costs exclude jars, labour, freight, packaging and GST. Diwali 8 November 2026 is a calendar fact.