How to get the best candle fragrance scent throw?

In our experience, scent throw is one of the most important factors to customers when selecting a candle and choosing to repeat purchase. Whether you’re  selling candles in a high street retail space or selling candles at markets or craft fairs, how often do you see that candle being raised to the nose?

To be more specific, scent throw can actually be split into two types: ‘Cold Throw’ and ‘Hot Throw’. Cold throw refers to how the fragrance is released when the candle is at room temperature and unlit. Hot thow refers to the release of the fragrance when the candle is lit. From a business perspective, it’s easy to think that cold throw is the most important (i.e. what customers smell when they place in front of their nose) however hot throw is crucial to developing a good reputation as candle maker of choice.

To help you get the best from cold scent throw and hot scent throw, we’ve put together 5 crucial tips on getting the best from candles.

Choose the right candle wick

As we often discuss on the NI Candle Supplies website and the Candle Makers UK group, choosing your wick is critical to producing high quality candles. Getting a good melt pool on a candle has a big impact on hot throw, and choosing the right style and size of wick can have a big impact on your melt pool. If you’re not able to create a big enough melt pool, your fragrance isn’t being used effectively. To achieve a good melt pool, ensure that your wick gives a steadily burning flame when testing your candles, and check the wick is not too long, indicated by sooting on the wick.

Use high quality wax

As you’ll be familiar with, there is a huge amount of waxes available on the market and wax choice can have an impact on scent throw. A good way to think about wax and fragrance is the same as a dishcloth in a sink of water. When fragrances are added to wax, the fragrance is released. Like a dishcloth, depending on how hard you squeeze it and what its made of, what comes out will be different. Some waxes release a lot of fragrance, whereas others don’t. In our experience soy wax provides great results both with respect to cold throw and hot throw.

Precise processing

Heat is a key factor when it comes to the creation of your candles and the effect on scent throw. Whilst its important to ensure that wax is fully melted so that fragrances disperse, the closer the wax is to its congealing point, the more tricky it can become In our experience, adding fragrance to wax when it’s heated to about 10-15 degrees above its melting point is best practice. We’ve found this is a good temperature to store and pour candles at too. By mixing the fragrance thoroughly to ensure it’s dispersed evenly through the wax will help significantly with your scent throw.

Use Fragrances with care

You’ll notice that the recommended fragrance load for different waxes can be very different, which is why it’s important to check this information carefully. Surprisingly, overloading your wax with fragrance can make you scent throw worse. Overloading can lead to sooting, burning and leaching, which all of course are not desirable for your customers and can result in the candle itself catching fire rather than just the wick.

Curing time

As big fans of soy wax, we always recommend allowing curing time for soy wax based candles. By allowing candles to ‘cure’ or ‘rest’ for 2 weeks post production, this enables the fragrance to fully bond with the wax. The better bonded the fragrance and wax, the better the scent throw.

To get more information, guidance or support on scent throw, we’re always happy to help via our online chat, email or telephone.