Pillars and the topping pour

A pillar is a freestanding candle poured into a rigid mould, and beeswax gives pillars one problem the smaller candles rarely show: as it cools it shrinks noticeably, more than paraffin or soy, and that shrinkage pulls the wax away from the wick as it sets. The pillar mould this book works to is seventy-five millimetres across, wide enough that the chart in chapter three puts it two sizes above a votive.

Left alone, that pulling leaves a visible sinkhole around the wick once the candle has come out of the mould, a crater that also throws off how evenly the candle burns.

The fix is a second, smaller topping pour: once the first pour has skinned over but is not yet fully hard, pour a thin layer of the same wax over the sunken area to fill it flush.