Common Questions

How do you make your candles?

With lots of attention to detail.  We wrote a whole article about it.

How long do the candles burn?

About 55 hours, if you burn it non-stop. But you can get up to 65 or 70 hours by keeping your wick trimmed and keeping your burn time to around 4 hours.

Burning the candle repeatedly for short periods of times creates a "tunnel" for the wick and prevents it from burning efficiently. Burning the candle non-stop causes the wax to be consumed more quickly. It's best to burn it for 4 hours (enjoy!), then extinguish it and let it cool for two hours before trimming the wick to about 1/4" and relighting.

Why a Mason jar?

Mason jars have long been a staple in the country kitchen.  They're cheap, durable, and functional.  They're essential for food preservation, but they quickly transcended that function, and their form soon became a symbol for country living.  Some say the mason jar has jumped the shark, but we respectfully disagree.  We embrace the lowly jar and all it's rural connotations whole-heartedly, and we dress it up with elegance: sustainable materials, custom designed labels, sophisticated fragrances. Fancy, yet hard-working; useful and beautiful.

What's the difference between soy and paraffin candles?

One of our unique soy wax candles.

We use soy wax exclusively for our candles, not only because it's fully sustainable, but also because it's a healthier alternative to paraffin. Paraffin wax is made from petroleum, which is why paraffin wax candles often leave black soot buildup on the inside of a candle jar.  That black soot is made up of particles being released when you burn a paraffin candle, and those particles in the air can often trigger asthma or other sensitivities.  Soy wax burns much cleaner

Sustainable. Soy wax is made from soybeans, so unlike paraffin wax it's fully sustainable.  Soybeans are harvested, de-hulled, rolled into flakes, and the oil is extracted from these flakes. The oil then goes through a hydrogenation process to stabilize it into the wax form you'll find in our candles.  The result is a wax that is softer than paraffin yet burns much cleaner.

What kind of wicks do you use?

We use an all-cotton braided candle wick which provide a hotter burn with less smoking and mushrooming.

Help, my candle is frosted/crackled!?

Don't worry, that's natural. We use an organic soy wax which is much healthier to burn and more sustainable than paraffin wax. But soy wax is also prone to "frosting" or "blooming". This is a natural characteristic of soy wax. To minimize frosting, keep out of direct sunlight.

Whoops, you misspelled gardener.

Our last name is Gardner, hence "The Thoughtful Gardner".  However, we are slowly working on growing our little family farm and writing about it here, which is why there's a spade and pencil in our logo.  Expect pictures of our garden in the spring!

I have another question I don't see here.

Send us a message and we'll try to answer it!