Party candles brighten celebrations with their cheerful flames, but some types hold a little secret: they can relight themselves after being blown out!
The Basics: How Any Candle Burns
Before diving into the trick, let's look at the standard process. A candle, whether for a party or not, works by a process involving fuel (the wax) and a wick.
- Wax Melts: The heat from the flame melts the solid wax near the wick.
- Wick Absorption: The liquid wax is drawn up the wick through capillary action.
- Vaporization: The heat vaporizes the liquid wax at the top of the wick, turning it into a gas.
- Combustion: This wax vapor mixes with oxygen in the air and ignites, creating the visible flame.
The flame's heat sustains the melting and vaporization cycle, allowing the candle to continue burning.
The Self-Reigniting Trick
Special party candles designed to relight use an extra element embedded within or near the wick, combined with the residual wax vapor.
The key involves a small amount of reactive material, often magnesium. When you blow out a regular candle, the flame is extinguished, and the process stops. However, with these trick candles:
- A tiny piece of magnesium is present.
- The reference explains the mechanism: By igniting magnesium inserted into the wick of the candle, the paraffin vapor given off when a candle is blown out can be set alight, allowing the candle to reignite itself.
Here's a simplified step-by-step of the relighting process:
- The candle flame is blown out, but the wick may still glow slightly, and a plume of hot paraffin vapor surrounds it.
- The magnesium element in the wick is ignited, often by the dying ember or residual heat. Magnesium burns very brightly and is easily ignited.
- This ignited magnesium sparks or glows intensely.
- The spark or glow is hot enough to reignite the lingering paraffin vapor around the wick.
- The ignited vapor then relights the wick itself, causing the candle flame to reappear as if by magic.
This ingenious mechanism turns a simple act of extinguishing a candle into a surprising and often humorous part of a celebration, much to the amusement (or frustration!) of the person trying to blow them out for good.
