I have no experience with dripless candles, but I still have a question about them - what happens to all that wax if it doesn’t drip somewhere? let’s start a poll - dripless
vs. regular candles. or tell me your funniest dripless candle story. something, anything about dripless candles will be just fine…(walking away from thread now, muttering to myself)
Dripless candles obtain their fastidious properties from the use of extremely hard wax. Softer paraffins have an intrinsically lower melting point. This encourages pooling and guttering if the wick burns unevenly. There are also wick treatments that promote even burning as well. Instead of melting inappropriately, the wax is burned in the wick and leaves no residue.
A quick way to convey the importance of dripless candles is to recount a regular scene from my childhood.
Imaging a floor to ceiling Christmas tree, fully trimmed and lit with burning candles. I witnessed this wonder for ten years running without there ever being an accident of any sort. There was always a bucket of water and another of sand in the room whenever the candles were burning. They were never used but a good idea to have around nonetheless.
A dripping or unevenly burning candle could be all that was needed to turn a wondrous celebration into a disaster. The Danish brand of candles that we used always performed to specification and I would never consider buying another brand for the task.
As for where the wax goes, it burns:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_351a.html
A dripless candle burns precisely, as Zenster explained, so all the wax is burned. A less expensive candle only burns part of the wax, so some drips.
Zenster:
Someone I knew had a Christmas treecovered with actual candles, and also with German hand-made straw ornaments. While we were over there for a party the tree caught fire. It didn’t appear to be particularly dry, but it went up in SECONDS, as if it were a torch.
No buckets of sand or water.
Fortunately, it was near a sliding door. We got together, grabbed non-burning parts, and pushed it into the snow. Scary experience.
Next year, he had the tree back up, with candles.