Delightful Discoveries for Gift Givers with Great Taste
We all have them, am I right? Little objects that we don’t want to toss yet are not really earning their keep. They’re either pretty, or have sentimental value, or they are going to be useful for something, someday. Maybe it’s a conch shell on the top shelf of a closet picked up at a cruise port, a stray ramekin from an old set, a single Moscow mule mug you got as a party favor, or a wooden salt cellar, long missing its lid.
Well, someday has arrived. A Foton Pearled Candle kit turns vessels like those into unique candles, ones that are in some ways better than a regular candle. Look, I am not crafty. At all. But the descriptions of this kit made it sound like you didn’t need to be, so I gave it a go.
So what you get are miniscule balls of plant-based wax, which they call pearls – pet-friendly, just so you know – and a pack of 30 wicks. How many candles you’ll get from a kit will depend on the size of the candles you’re making. If you want to make big ol’ candles, or many smaller candles for an event, I’d suggest looking into the 9-pound bulk package.
I first attempted container resurrection with an obvious choice: a bright yellow glass candle jar that I’d cleaned out and saved because it was just too cheery to throw out. I poured in the pearls, like so much sand, to about two-thirds full, erring on the side of caution, added a wick in the center, and lit it. The candle burned cleanly. No soot left inside the glass and no trail of black smoke, two annoyances I’ve had with candles in the past. When I snuffed out the wick, I let the melted puddle underneath it cool off. After a few hours, that liquified wax hardened into a crumbly mass that is easy to take out. (Here’s an analogy for those of you with cats: clumping litter.) Once the used pearls were out of there, I gave the jar a shake, plopped in a new wick, and it was like a never-used candle, just without tunneling like typical candles always seem to get. While I didn’t try this, you can even do floating candles, a somewhat fancier option for dinner parties and such.
As with any source of fire, you need to be careful. You should read the instructions Foton includes in the box, but generally, they recommend a vessel that is at a minimum 4 inches wide and high, so that the wick can be placed at least two inches from all sides and the vessel itself won’t heat up. As with a regular candle, you can’t let the wick burn down to the bottom of the container. If you do leave it burning accidentally, the flame will self-extinguish when it reaches the end of the wick. It will also self-extinguish if the candle tips over.
I can’t say a self-created Foton candle will ever take the place of my favorite candle or the occasional indulgent Diptyque and its posh ilk. But Foton’s come up with a really fun and innovative way to repurpose household objects. I’m still not crafty, but I’m in.
