I was surfing on the internets and somebody’s site had an ad for a Fabreeze Wood Wick candle. Wha? I clicked on it, and saw that it’s a real piece of wood jammed into some wax. You light it and according to the spokeslady on the video, it smooths away your wrinkles, makes your house beautiful, and sounds like a crackling fire!
I immediately thought: I gotta make that.
The cast of characters: A craft stick, and old Advent wreath candle from last year (I write the words on them for the kids), a jar, and some old good-smelling wax to throw in.
I set a pot of water t’boilin’, and broke up the candles into the jar. It was a woefully small amount of wax, so the Joy candle and a few tealights had to go in, too.
Boil boil boil, melt melt melt.
Narrowly avoiding some nasty burns, I took out the jar and inserted half of a craft stick (pre-dipped in wax to be more wick-like). Several things went wrong here, but let’s just say I went through a couple of craft sticks and leave it at that, shall we? I’d like to point out that I didn’t completely melt the candles, and that was cool because they held up my wick.
Next I went to the computer to look up how to do this.
Apparently you’re supposed to use a hardwood wick like ash or walnut – pffft.
You’re also supposed to let the candle cool for 24 hours before you light it. Double pfffft.
I don’t have that kinda time.
Finally I lit it, but realized that the wax had shrunk and now the wick was too tall. The how-to website said you could buy a wick trimmer. I assume they meant wire clippers, which is what I have.
The verdict? Well, if you turn the t.v. off and are very, very quiet – yes, you can hear a little crackling. Also, the occasional tiny spark flies off of it, which adds an element of danger to an otherwise boring candle burning, so there’s that.
All in all, it was an experiment involving fire, so I’m happy.