If you're anything like us, you've bought countless number of scented candles and occasionally you'll realize that you've owned some of them for years. While they still look and smell great, are they safe to light and burn?
The short answer is most likely yes they will still be viable and you can go ahead and safely burn them.
Do Scented Candles Expire?
When chandlers (candle makers) make scented candles, they have to 'cure' the candles for at least two weeks in order to give the fragrance oils time to properly bind with the wax, and for the wax itself to set, harden, and contract to its final size. It's not uncommon for independent candle makers to sell candles that are too young and have not yet properly cured. If a scented candle is too young, it will not have a strong fragrance when lit and the wax may burn down more quickly making your candle last far fewer hours than one that is properly cured.
Think of scented candles like fine wine; the longer that they cure, the better they tend to be when they are burned. Of course, wine (and candles) don't get better forever and will start to degrade in quality at some point, however that point is likely to be decades away. Typically a scented candle will be of better quality the longer it has been since it was made.
This is something that we have extensively tested with our own range of scented candles, and we have hundreds of candles from our very early batches that remain in our possession purely for testing purposes. These candles smell amazing over a decade since they were first made!
We also have customers from years ago who have never lighted the candles they have bought from us and they report that these candles still smell amazing years later.
So, in conclusion, when buying scented candles you ideally want to buy from a candle maker who properly cures their candles, and you should have no quality issues with older candles unless they are decades old. Even at several decades old, the quality of the scent is going to be the issue you'll find, while the candle itself should still burn correctly.
