My wife Sarah loves to light a Yankee Candle (UK) every now and then. All I know is that they are fierce expensive but they last for a good while. When Sarah threw one out the other day I spotted it before it made it to the bin and saw that there was still about a half inch of wax left. Not being one to waste things I lit it up and put it in our bathroom to let it burn up the last of the wax.
A few hours later we were sitting on the couch downstairs and heard a loud pop, I thought nothing of it but a few minutes later I decided to go and see what it was. I went up to the bathroom and there was the Yankee Candle jar with a hole in the side of it and the flame spread right across the base of the jar (not just the wick light!).
What I believe had happened was that over time as the candle burned down from new small bits of the wick dropped off into the wax, as the candle burned down this sank to the bottom untill there was a layer of these small bits of burnt wick lying on the bottom. When the wax had just about ran out the many small bits acted as one large wick and the whole base of the jar went alight causing the glass to heat rapidly and shatter.
UPDATE: I have checked the base of the candle and there is no mention of not letting it burn to the end of the jar… see photo below.
UPDATE 2: My wife was not aware that it needed to be thrown out for safety she was just tidying up.
