When you purchase a luxury candle for your home, you look forward to a room full of warm, flickering light and the immersive, alluring scent of your favorite fragrances. That means it can be pretty disappointing to light your wick and realize your candle doesn’t smell like much of anything at all.
Do candles lose their scent over time? The short answer is yes, but there’s plenty more you should know about how candles work and what causes them to expire and become weak, outdated, and odorless. The more you know about proper candle care, the easier it is to prevent your favorite candles from losing their fragrance before you get a chance to use them. Learn more about candle fragrances and how to preserve the life of your candles with this guide.
Do Candles Expire?
Candles don’t spoil the way that products like food and drinks do, but they do still expire. And in doing so, they become less potent or—if enough time has passed—lose their scent entirely.
But why does it happen? It’s a simple case of the ingredients in the candle—the wax and the fragrance—becoming less effective over time. There’s no harm in keeping an expired candle around other than the fact that it takes up space. However, an expired candle may not give you the fragrance experience you’re looking for.
So how long do candles last? With most candles, you want to try to use them within a year and a half of purchasing them. However, that lifespan will change depending on the size of the candle and the type of wax and fragrance oil it uses.
Expired Wax
The lifespan of the wax affects the lifespan of your candles. When the wax expires, it can affect the candles’ scent, clog the wicks, and lead to uneven or ineffective burns.
Hotel Collection’s luxury scented candles consist of a sustainably sourced soy-blend wax that combines the natural benefits of vegan candles with the enhanced performance of our expert formulas. Our candles are healthier and more environmentally friendly than those made of paraffin wax. They also hold more fragrance and have a cleaner, slower burn that releases a gradual, immersive fragrance into the room.
Expired Fragrances
Fragrance oils play a huge role in candle quality. Like with wax type, more natural fragrances degrade faster than synthetic fragrances. However, that doesn’t automatically make purely synthetic fragrances better.
If you want to get the best scent with the best lifespan, choose candles with carefully crafted fragrance formulas that combine natural essential oils with perfume-quality fragrances. This creates a luxurious, aromatic candle experience while still giving plenty of life to your candles before the scent fades.
Signs Your Candle Is Expired
Expired candles lose their scent, but that’s not the only way to know that yours have run their course. Discoloration is another way to identify expired candles. Over time, heat and sunlight can cause yellowing or other discoloration in candles. If a candle uses dyes to achieve a specific wax color, those dyes can also fade.
Wick and burn performance are also indicators of the quality of your candles. Expired candles don’t burn as well. If you struggle to light the wick, or if the candle’s flame is small or constantly flickering out, it’s a sign that the candle has started to degrade.
Can You Burn an Expired Candle?
Technically, there’s no harm in burning an expired candle. But there’s not really a point for it, either. Once a candle loses its scent and struggles to burn consistently, it doesn’t provide the same luxurious ambience it once did. It’s better to replace it with a new luxury scented candle that will fill the room with warmth, comfort, and elegance.
Proper Care To Extend Candle Lifespan
You can preserve the shelf life of your candles and prolong the lifespan of their fragrance with proper care and maintenance. A few small habits help you take good care of your candles to ensure a better burn and more potent fragrance every time you use it.
Storing Your Candle Safely
Proper storage is an essential part of preserving your candles when you’re not using them. Always keep your candles in a cool place away from windows, heaters, and other sources of direct heat or sunlight. Avoid storing your candles in places with high humidity, too; you can burn your candles in the bathroom, but store them in a separate room where the moisture won’t affect them.
Finally, if your candles are on display, cover them with their lids or candle toppers to preserve the fragrance and keep dust away.
Cleaning Your Candle
Cleaning your candles can also help keep them beautiful and effective. Between burns, wipe away any soot or dust that gathers on the wax or glass.
You should also cut the wick with a candle wick trimmer before every burn to keep it about a quarter of an inch above the wax. This helps prevent soot and promotes a clean, even burn, which in turn preserves wax quality and prolongs the life of your candles.
Tips for Making the Most of Your Luxury Candles
You can get a lot of hours out of a candle before it loses its scent. But dedicating that time can be hard—especially if you have a lot of great fragrances to choose from. If you have a candle collection to get through, try some of these tips to enjoy them more while you have them.
Plan for Long Burns
When you light a candle, you want to leave it burning for around three to four hours. Burning longer than that can cause the wax to overheat and become too thin, while burning for less than that only melts part of the wax and can cause tunneling. Burning for three to four hours creates an even wax melt and fills the room with the perfect amount of fragrance.
Add Candles to Your Routine
It can be hard finding the time to dedicate to a long candle burn, but that’s exactly what you need sometimes in your routine. Whether you’re running a warm bath, getting ready for meditation or yoga, or curling up with a book, lighting a candle reminds you to slow down and take your time.
The scents in Hotel Collection’s Self-Care Candle Gift Set feature soothing fragrances such as Dream On (white tea and cedar), My Way (leather and sandalwood), and Black Velvet (rose and black fig). You deserve the chance to step back and focus on yourself for a while, and a luxurious, relaxing candle helps you unwind completely during those moments.
Shop High-End Candles at Hotel Collection
Hotel Collection’s candles use high-quality ingredients to deliver an elegant fragrance experience every time you burn them. Enjoy high-end candles that are as luxurious as they are lasting when you shop our hotel-inspired fragrances today.
