When is a candle burning properly? With the wick trimmed within 1/4" of the wax before lighting, the flame should be about 1"-2" high, and the tip of the wick should bend into the outer oxidation zone of the flame (towards the outer edge of the flame) or stick straight up into the upper oxidation zone. Impurities in the wax or inappropriate pigments and additives can clog the wick and keep it from burning. A flickering or sputtering flame means that a draft may be blowing through the room disturbing the flame, or there may be pockets of air or water in a poorly made wick. Not until the nineteenth century, did the chandlers implement the plaited or braided wick, which finally allowed candle users freedom from snuffing the wick, i.e., trimming the wick with an unusual type of scissors (without extinguishing the flame) down to 1/2" from the wax to keep the candle from smoking. The newer, braided wicks would predictably bend about 90 degrees toward the outer edge of the flame, where they would be decomposed and completely consumed, thus taking away the necessity of constantly trimming (snuffing) the wick. (Yes, there were snuffers with a hollow cone on the end of a long handle that were used to entirely extinguish the flame, but that was a different kind of snuffer.) The braided wick was mordanted or soaked in a solution to retard the wick from burning, until it had efficiently delivered the melted wax from the pool at the top of the candle -- like a soda straw drawing the liquid wax up the wick -- to the end of the wick to be vaporized and oxidized in the flame. We now call that marvel of efficiency, a mordanted wick.
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