I absolutely love making candles and it gives me great satisfaction to burn one that spreads a beautiful aroma around my home.
Being a candle maker I am always up for a challenge and trying new techniques. Whilst browsing the Web looking for topics to write about here, I saw a question.
The question was “Can you use a toothpick as a wick in a candle?”.
It really got me thinking if it could actually work. We already use wood wicks but these are thin and wide wicks not a cylinder shaped pick.
There was only one way that I could find out the answer to this question and that was to try and test it myself.
So below you will see my experiment with pictures as I tried to make and test a candle with a toothpick wick!
Why would you want to use a toothpick as a wick?
I just want to give you my thoughts on this question that I also saw. So why would you want to use a toothpick as a wick in a candle?
Toothpicks are so cheap and easy to come by, most people will have some in their home and it’s makes them a great choice to try in a candle if you are making it at home.
The question is does a toothpick work as a candle wick?
let’s find out.
My experience of making a candle with a toothpick wick.
So I wanted to do this experiment at home using items that many people will have in their homes.
The reason for this is because I think most of the people who are searching for the answer to this question are doing so in a non commercial manner.
Below are the ingredients and equipment I used in making the candle.
The ingredients and equipment.
If you want to test and try making your own toothpick wick candle yourself, these are the items that you will likely need.
- Toothpick (kinda obvious)
- Wax (I chose Soy wax as this is what we use for our candles)
- Wick holder
- Fragrance oil (I used coconut as its my daughters favourite)
- Pan and bowl (for bain-marie)
- Candle container (I used a 90ml rose gold tin)
Apart from the stove to boil the water and melt the wax that is all I used for making the candle.
Making the toothpick wicked candle.
The process of making the candle was the same as making any regular candle.
My first job was to think of a way to get the wick to stand safely in the container. I did this by borrowing the wick base of a real wick and removing the wick and pushing the toothpick into it. If you do not have a base you may need to get a little more creative to get you toothpick to stand upright.
Next up I melted the Soy wax over a Bairn Marie (pan with boiling water and a bowl) until the wax wax melted at the correct temperature.
I then added the coconut fragrance oil once the wax had cooled enough. It was at this point that I dabbed the wick base on the hot wax and stuck it to the centre of my rose gold container.
Now I was ready to pour the wax into the container. One thing I will note is that using a wooden toothpick as a wick makes this process so much easier.
If you have ever made a conventional wicked candle before you will know that the warm wax can cause the wick to droop and move about. This was not the case with the toothpick, it stood strong and tall.
Now all I had to do was allow the candle to cool thoroughly and trim the toothpick wick.
How well did the candle burn?
I want to be totally honest with you all about my experience of making a candle with a toothpick wick.
It was fun, but…
It turns out in reality that it is not very good at burning. In actual fact I found that the only way to get it going was to melt a shallow crater around the wick first.
Once I managed to get it to light and stay lit the flame was ok, possibly not large enough, even in my smallest container tin.
The wax pool reached nowhere near the sides of the container and I have no doubt that it would tunnel completely in no time at all.
To me it seems that the toothpick is just too fine to be able to be used as a good dependable wick.
Have a look at the photo below and see what you think?
As you can see the flame is quite small and the wick that has not burnt away is just a tiny little bit of toothpick.
This also caused problems when I tried to relight the candle, it just did not work second time round.
Should you use a toothpick as a wick?
So here we are at the end of the experiment and I just want to sum up what I found out so that you can decide yourself if it is worth trying.
Can you use a toothpick as a candle wick? From my experience a toothpick is just too fine to be used as a candle wick. The flame does not produce enough heat to sufficiently heat the wax into a large enough pool to release the scent. Also it is almost impossible to relight the toothpick wick after its first burn.
So that’s my sum up of the experiment and although I thoroughly enjoyed the process the end result was a bit of a let down to be honest.
I really hope you have enjoyed reading along and if you have why not check out some more of my candle guides.
I started Scents and Aroma as a way to share my knowledge from owning a candle, wax melt, diffuser and bath bomb business so that you can make your home smell lovely too.
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