How to Replace A Candle Wick
Spoiler Alert: Despite our best efforts, not every candle comes out perfect. Candle designs are complicated by the various fragrance, container, and wax types, but most issues can trace directly to the wick selection. Some are salvageable if you replace a candle wick with another one.
Candle makers commonly test a variety of wicks for every combination of fragrance type, load, and container shape. Very few successfully pass, and the ones that don’t end up on the Island of Misfit Candles.
Every workshop has some version of this island. These candles aren’t good enough to sell or burn, but disposing of them is wasteful.
Fear not! This article includes strategies for you to replace any wick to breath new life into any candle!
Why you may need a new wick
The greatest candle designs include wicks that safely support the combustion system while providing a pleasant aroma to patrons of the environment. Remember, good wick selection is critical to balancing the rate wax is consumed and “thrown” into the air.
Choosing the right wick ensures the candle burns safely and smells good, but often at the cost of many failed candles. Failed candles are great candidates for a wick replacement operation, AKA, a “wick-ectomy”, which provides a host of benefits.
Some common symptoms or situations where you might want to replace a candle wick include:
- Flame becomes too small or even self-extinguishes
- The max flame height exceeds 3″-3.5″
- Flame begins tunneling – permanently leaving wax on the sides with no late-burn cleaning
- Excessive carbon formation (mushrooming)
- Excessive heat generation (container exceeds 140 °F – 170 °F)
- Sooting/black smoke/incomplete combustion
- Crappy hot throw 😉
- Failed test candles that need re-purposing anyways
Core & Replace Method
The first method to replace a wick is Core & Replace. You’ll need an apple corer (or similar tool) and a needle-nosed pliers prior to starting.
- Gather apple coring device, the candle, and a replacement wick.
- Using the apple corer, twist and push around the wick. Harder waxes may require you to pre-heat the corer with a heat gun to penetrate the wax easier.
- Once you’ve pushed to the bottom, gently pull the corer up – it should have a wax plug with it. If not, repeat step #2 until a wax plug comes out.
- Remove the wax plug from the coring tool.
- If the wick did not come with the plug, which is normal if the wick tab assembly was glued or stuck to the bottom of the candle, use a needle-nosed pliers to pull the wick out of the wick tab.
- Removing the wick tab with pliers is optional, but is often difficult to accomplish when the candle depth is filled too high.
- Place the new wick through the hole in the wax plug. Place the wick in the plug upside down if the wick tab remains in the candle.
- If it’s impossible to slide the wick through a hole on the wax plug, carefully create a new hole with a skewer in the plug.
- If that fails, melt the wax plug into a liquid (we’ll pour this back into the candle in a later step)
- Free-hand slide the wax plug (with wick inside) back into the cored area.
- If not possible, secure the wick to the cleared area in the candle using a clothespin or wick bar to center it (if not replacing the wick tab).
- Replace wick with an entirely new wick assembly in the cleared area if the entire wick tab came out in step #5/6.
- If you weren’t able to slide the wick into the wax plug and had to melt it to a liquid, pour the melted wax blend around the new wick in the candle
- Melt and finish the candle top with a heat gun to melt down and fill imperfections or gaps created by the process.
That’s all it takes to replace a candle wick! Here’s a video of the process:
Pliers Method
The second method is the Pliers Method. It involves brute force and a bit of muscle. You only need pliers and a can-do attitude to begin.
Warning: Although it is possible to replace a wick this way, it is incredibly difficult with a wick tab connecting the wick to the candle. Use this method with post-pour wicks (wick placed into a pilot hole of the wax after it has already hardened).
- Grip the exposed wick with a pliers as far down as you can.
- Pull directly out of the candle until the wick comes out of the wick tab.
- Place new wick through the hole and trim to 1/4″.
This method becomes easier with shorter candles because less friction holds the wick down.
How To Use This
Replacing your wicks is an incredible time saver because you no longer have to cycle through several candle design iterations in testing. Reusing and recycling candles is easier too because you can adjust wick size on the fly without melting an entire candle down.
To increase your testing bandwidth, pour wick-less candles. Once they’ve cooled, place a pilot hole down the center (or various locations if multi-wicking the candle) using a skewer or chopstick. Place a wick of any size in the pilot hole for testing – heat gun treat the top layer if necessary. Additional melting is usually not needed because the lit wick will melt the wax evenly enough anyways.
If the candle doesn’t pass your safety and performance standards, use the Pliers Method to replace a candle wick with a different one.
Let’s say you have to swap out the wick 2-3 times over the course of burn testing. Even if you land on the right wick, best practice says you should create a brand new candle with it and start the test over. A partial safety test with a wick, even if it passed with flying colors, doesn’t substitute as a valid safety test.
Always safety test your candles from start to finish. If you replace a candle wick it should only be used to salvage candles that are otherwise useless, not shortcut safety testing.
Good luck with your future wickectomies!
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