What Is Candle Throw? Hot Throw vs Cold Throw

Cold throw is how the unlit candle smells when you take the lid off. Hot throw is how the room smells when it is burning. They are not the same test. Shops train you to buy on cold throw. You live with hot throw.

Why they differ

Some notes (citrus, mint, eucalyptus) shout from the unlit wax and then evaporate fast from a hot pool. Some notes (vanilla, patchouli, resins, a lot of our landscape bases) sit quietly on the lid and open when they are warm. A soy-coconut candle is often shyer on cold throw than paraffin. That is the wax, not a lack of fragrance.

How to get a decent hot throw

• Full melt pool. No pool, no throw. Melt pool.
• Right size room. A 20cl jar will not do a barn.
• Still air, but not a cellar with no oxygen. A cracked window is fine. A gale is not.
• Cured wax. We do not ship jar-to-door the night we pour. Cure times.

What we aim for

A Highland room that smells like the place on the label after twenty minutes, not a perfume counter in the first five. If you want that from the hills, Cairngorms and Nevis are the outdoor pair. Close the door. Let the pool form. Then sniff the landing, not the lid.