Candle Size
Let's start with candle size. The reason this one is important is because it's the starting point of everything. This is what's creating the amazing smell. The rule of thumb is this, the larger the candle the more scent it will give off. Well, kind of. We're not talking height of the candle (that's burn time), we're talking the diameter of the candle. When you light your scented candle and let it burn for awhile, the top liquifies. This is called the melt pool. The bigger the melt pool, the more scent there is being released into the air. It's why our 13oz coconut soy wax candles throw off more scent than our 8oz or 3.75oz candles. So in a nutshell, bigger melt pool, more scent.
Room Size
The next thing to consider is room size. The bigger the room, the more scent will be required to fill it. In general it just makes sense that a smaller candle will be best located in a small room. Maybe something like a bathroom, or a small bedroom. A medium sized candle will work best in perhaps a large bedroom, or a small rec-room. Lastly a larger candle would be best placed in a living room or a den. Things get real tricky when you start trying to fill open areas.
Many homes have a layout where several rooms share space without walls or doors. By this I mean a kitchen might be directly connected to a dining room, and that to a living room. Then there are the open concept homes where the entire level is pretty much open and connected to everything else. In these scenarios, you're really just dealing with one big room, and rooms that size are so much harder to fill with scent.
The best way to tackle these kinds of scenarios is to place two or perhaps even three candles at strategic locations, so they can work in unison to fill the entire space with scent. It's quite common for people using wax melts to utilise several warmers spread thought the level or home. Over time they find the ideal locations for the warmers to get the best scent throw. If we take that concept over to candles we'll find that we get much better results.
So the candles size when combined with the room size will determine the scent strength. But there's one more thing to take into consideration.
The Human Factor
Here is where everything can get completely messed up. The reason being, everyone is different and not everyone smells things the same. There have been many times that I've thought something smelled fairly weak and someone else in the room would call me crazy saying it was bordering on overwhelming. At the end of the day, it often comes down to each individuals perception of scent.
As you can see, it's not as simple as we might have first thought. There are a number of variables that need to be worked through in order to get the perfect scent experience. The good thing is that once you've figured it out, you can relax, and enjoy all that fabulous fragrance.
