If you love candles as much as I do, you don’t want to waste a single drop of wax. When the flame begins to drop below the top-level of wax into a circle, leaving a dry, hard ring that just won’t melt, it’s called candle tunneling and over time, especially with larger containers, the candle can become harder to light or it will go out, as wax burns from the top, and it might not relight at all.
Start Clean to Burn Clean
The first burn and the size of the initial wax pool sets the stage for everything. The longer your candle burns, the bigger the opening for future use. You might not even want to trim the wick that first time if it’s a wider container because a bigger, hotter flame could be the only way to melt the wax all the way out to the edge. But smoke and soot are never good for the wax, so keep a careful eye out for problems like that. Once the candle has formed a melt pool all the way to the edge of its container, extinguish the candle and trim it back a little using a wick trimmer.