How To...
...get the best out of your Ike & Gabe products
Candles
​As well as all the usual warning and safety information here are a few hints which will help you get even more enjoyment out of your candles
It’s YOU not the candle!
I hope you love candles as much as I do. I also hope that you burn and enjoy a candle every or at least most days of the week.
A candle once lit is alive, it takes in oxygen when it burns, and the wax has a memory. As it needs fuel to burn it will produce waste in the top of the wick and you need to get rid of this waste every time you light it. If you don’t look after your candles they will burn poorly, smoke and behave badly. SO….
I have tried to specify the size of the candle where necessary but if not specified its simply good candle etiquette!
On the first burn make sure the wick is trimmed to just over 0.5cm. For larger candles, 200g, 400g, etc: On the initial burn, make sure you keep it burning until the top layer of wax melts as far as possible to the edge of the holder. This can take 3 to 4 hours or longer for bigger candles. This will prevent your candle from "tunnelling". Wax has a memory if you only burn it for a little amount of time on the first burn it will always return to that burn.
Every subsequent burn: Trim the wick to being around 0.5cm before each burn. This will encourage a clean and bright burn. Always keep an eye on your lit candle and if the flame or wick get too large extinguish it. Then, when cooled, trim and relight.
Recycled & Vintage Container Candles
Guidance on giving a little extra care for our recycled and vintage pieces
You can pour a candle into almost anything. HOWEVER, there are certain considerations to be taken into account, before I transform them into a candle for you.
Always make sure your pots have no chips or cracks in them.
The container will get hot when you light the candle, can it withstand heat?
Is it Granny’s favourite and will she be sad it’s now a candle?
Keep an eye on the wick and make sure it never comes into contact with the container especially in the case of unusual, shaped containers.
​
ALWAYS leave 0.5cm minimum at the bottom of the candle. In the case of RECYCLED Gin & Wine bottles if there is a dimple in the bottom of the bottle leave a minimum of 0.5cm of wax before the dimple starts. This is to avoid the containers overheating and cracking.
Tea Lights
Ah Yes, the much-maligned Tea Light…. it is an ONLY a Tea Light just bung it in the holder!!!!
Please don’t just bung it in a holder.
Your Ike & Gabe Tea Light has been hand-wicked, hand-poured and wrapped in tissue and carefully put in a hand constructed box. That’s why they are not cheap. They take me the most time to make and we use the most virgin resources on them.
SO, simple steps...
Tea lights can burn 6/9 hours depending on the environment.
We make two sizes of Tea Light large (37.5mm x 22mm) small (36mm x 16.4mm) make sure your holder is the right size this keeps the Tea Lights, so it has a secure place to burn.
Keep the wick trimmed. Even though a tea light candle is smaller than a normal candle, it still can burn for a long time, and the wick can grow. A long wick leads to a larger flame, which will produce more carbon and may flicker and dance. Make sure the wick is trimmed to 0.5cm before every burn, and if it starts smoking or flickering extinguish it.
Candle Snuffers, Dippers & Trimmers
How to best put out that flame, and keep your wick at its best!​
A Candle Snuffer:
Fantastic to stop wax splashing and brings a little bit of theatre with the candle smoke at the end of the evening. Carefully put the snuffer over the flame and leave it over the flame until it has disappeared and gone out.
Wick Dipper:
Tremendous and easy to use, they give a smoke-free, option for extinguishing. Simply dip the lit wick into the melted wax pool, and TaDa! The flame is extinguished without smoke or splashing wax.
Wick Trimmer/Cutter:
These little beauties help the candle burn more efficiently and make it easier to trim once the wick has already been burned. They are also helpful if you are using container and jar candles as their lengths allows to get inside containers and jar candles with ease.
​
I do not recommend extinguishing a candle by putting the lid on it. Yes, the flame will go out. However, it also will cause a lot of black smoke. The smoke will penetrate the wax, and all that lovely fragrance will be tainted the next time you light the candle.
Candle Cupboards
I love a candle cupboard. If you like to have a candle cupboard, brilliant. However, please don’t tell me you have a cupboard full of candles and that you don’t burn them, that’s simply wrong! Let the candles live, burn them, they weren’t made to be an ornament, or stuck in a cupboard in the dark. Let them burn brightly and live!! If you love the pot, I can refill it for you. Easy!
Ceramic Hand-Made Melt Burners
Lovely, wonderful invention.
Ike and Gabe’s 3-in-1 ceramic burners are individually, hand-made, hand painted, by Sam at clay pots and furthermore they can be use either with Wax Melts or Oil and water.
They dissemble, which means that the tea light holder and cylinder can be used independently. As a tea light holder / votive stand or the cylinder as a votive cover.
It also makes cleaning the melt holder a doddle. Just pop the wax holder and spent wax into the fridge or freezer for 30 minutes and the wax should contract, pop out and then pop into the bin.
When you want to clean the other sections, just pop them into a dish of soapy water and they’ll clean up like new.
Ceramic Hand-Made Tea Light Holders & GU Potholders
Hand-made, hand decorated, and individual pots made especially for I&G by the amazing Sam at Clay-pots. They house the tea light and GU pots perfectly and the only care they really need is a wash in soapy water when dusty or a bit waxy.
Packaging & Recycling
Apologies, bit of a rant coming...
Packaging is one of the most overused and useless things in the candle industry. There are many, many chandlers out there, some package their products responsibly and thoughtfully and some in beautiful shiny, shiny, paper and boxes, which are expensive, often useless, which you pay for and mostly throw away.
Please, please, please look at buying your candles from smaller artisan, independent chandlers, who make the candles from scratch, know everything that is in them, as well as putting thought, love, and care into their products. Not ££££ into their advertising and R&D budgets to make you think your life is incomplete without their product. There is nothing wrong with the shiny, shiny chandlers and their huge budgets, and if that’s what tickles your pickle, go for it. Just, please do something with the packaging, use the box as a trinket box, or store buttons in it, line your undies draw with the tissue paper, re-use the bag as a giftbag, not just straight into the bin!
Rant concluded and I hope some of the above tips have helped.
Siobhan X