The Hearth Candles: Three Wicks, One Dough Bowl

The short answer: the Hearth Candles are three cotton wicks poured into a hand-carved wood dough bowl, nine inches long and only two inches tall. Our Heirloom candles are also three-wick, so the difference is not the flames. It is the shape, the wood, and the footprint. $44, currently in Yorktown and Ona Judge.

Why the shape matters

Fragrance throw comes from the surface area of melted wax, not from the flame. That is the single most useful thing to know about candles, and it explains almost everything about how we build ours.

A tall, narrow vessel gives you a small melt pool no matter how many wicks are in it. A wide, shallow one gives you a large one. Wider and flatter beats taller and deeper every time.

The Hearth bowl is nine inches long, six wide, and two tall. Compare that to our Heirloom bowl at seven inches across and three and a half deep. Same three wicks, but the Hearth spreads them across a longer, shallower surface, which is why it carries across an open-plan room in a way nothing else we make does.

It also looks better at a table. Two inches tall means people can actually see each other over it, which is more than most centerpieces manage.

The bowl

The vessel is a hand-carved wood dough bowl, which is worth a sentence of its own.

Dough bowls were working kitchen objects, carved from a single piece of wood, used to mix bread dough and give it somewhere to rise. They were made shallow and wide because that is the shape the job needed. Every one is slightly different, because carving by hand does not produce identical results.

We did not choose them for the history. We chose them because the shape is exactly right for what we wanted, and then noticed afterward that it was a nice coincidence.

Hearth or Heirloom?

Both are three-wick. Here is the actual difference.

The Hearth is $44, sits low and long, and throws furthest. The bowl is wood, so it wants gentler cleaning. Best on a coffee table, a dining table, or anywhere with a lot of open air to fill.

The Heirloom is $56, eighteen ounces, and comes in our blue and white bowl. It is the one built to be kept and reused after the wax is gone. Best where you want the vessel to earn its place afterward. More on that in The Blue and White Bowl.

The two scents

Yorktown Hearth Candle, $44. Sea salt, jasmine, and lemon. Fresh and marine. This is the one for kitchens, open-plan living spaces, and summer. The full story of the town is here.

Ona Judge Hearth Candle, $44. Citrus, bergamot, lavender, camphor, eucalyptus, powder, and cedar. Cool and herbal. Better for bedrooms, bathrooms, and evenings. Her story is here.

How to burn one

Light all three wicks, every time. Burning one or two creates an uneven melt pool that the candle will remember and follow for the rest of its life. This applies to the Heirlooms too.

Trim all three wicks to a quarter inch before each burn. Give the first burn two to three hours so the pool reaches the edges. Never go past four hours. The full explanation is in our candle care guide, and our Keeper's Candle Care Kit makes trimming three wicks considerably less annoying than scissors do.

Frequently asked questions

How big a room will a Hearth Candle scent? It is our furthest-throwing format, built for open-plan spaces where a smaller candle would get lost.

Do I have to light all three wicks? Yes. Lighting fewer creates an uneven melt pool and permanently tunnels the candle.

What are the dimensions? Nine inches long, six inches wide, two inches tall.

How is it different from the Heirloom? Both have three wicks. The Hearth is wider, shallower, wooden, and $44. The Heirloom is deeper, ceramic, keepable, and $56.

Can I keep the bowl afterward? Yes, though wood needs gentler treatment than our blue and white bowls. Scrape rather than soak.

Keep reading

More stories: The Blue and White Bowl, How Long Should You Burn a Candle?, and The Keeper's Collection.