Portland

The shop is in Portland, Maine, at 71 Market Street, ZIP 04101. Market Street runs up from the waterfront. In winter the wind at the door is harbor wind. The phone is area code 207, (207) 555-0133.

We pour here because the room can be held at a known temperature and because the people who burn the candles live with the same cold we do. A jar poured for a mild, open room misbehaves in a Portland January. The failures are ordinary: soot, tunneling, a scent that suddenly seems louder. They are not a mystery of the city. They are draft, heat, and a wick left long.

The street in winter

From late autumn into April the sidewalk holds salt, grit, and ice. The front glass is colder than the back room. We do not pour against that glass. A fresh jar skinned by a cold pane sets with a bad top, so the bench stays in the back, near 20°C, and the thermometer stays on the bench rather than in the window.

The door does not seal tightly. When it opens, a thread of air crosses the counter. A flame in that thread leans toward the street. We keep any lit jar back from the swing. Customers bringing a candle home should do the same with their own doors and windows. A whistle at the sash is enough.

Rooms above the street

Apartments along this part of the city run the heat for a long season. Windows stay shut. The air inside gets dry. A candle that burned clean in October can soot in January in the same corner, because a ceiling vent now cycles for hours and the wick has not been cut since the first night. The stain shows on plaster, usually a gray oval above the flame.

Closed rooms also hold scent. People think the jar got stronger in February. The oil load did not change. It is still 7 percent in our coconut-soy. Less air left the room, so the same scent sat still. Cracking a window beside the flame is the wrong correction. It bends the wick and trades smell for soot. Open a door to a hall instead, or burn for less time.

The longer version of the ceiling problem is the note from 28 January, soot on the ceiling. The longer version of dry heat is dry heat on Market Street.

Cold wax

A car parked on this street in February will take a jar down to the temperature of the metal around it. Lighting that jar for twenty minutes when you get home makes a small well and teaches the wax to tunnel. Bring the bag inside with you. Let the glass come back to room temperature before the first burn, and let the first melt pool reach the glass.

We cannot pour a candle that ignores a Maine winter. We can name the wax, keep the wick at 6 mm, leave the dye out, and tell you when the room is at fault. If you want that conversation in person, the hours are on Market Street hours. The vessels are on Poured.