LOTS of mushrooming. I don't know how to fix this and I now have to try different wicks. Kind of a waste of money, sadly.

The CSN 12 works well in tea lights using 100% pure beeswax, that is after I cut and re tab the wick using the 15 x 3.8 tabs (sadly Candle Science has discontinued these). I pour the beeswax in two pours, one to set the wick, let cool, then pour the rest. Burn pool is about 90-95% complete, leaving a safety margin so the plastic cup doesn't melt. If so desired, you can use the CSN 14 wick, cut and tabbed to tea light size to get a complete burn pool and seems to work well with a scent added too. I added about 5% CS fragrance.

After a couple of rounds of testing, I concluded that the CSN 12 wick performs well in Golden Brands 444 Soy Container Wax candles. For me, these pair well in containers with 2” diameter. From my experience, the HT (“Hot Throw” means the scent emitted from a lit candle or the scent emitted from the liquid wax pool of a recently extinguished candle) is great when used in 444 wax with a FO (fragrance oil) load in the 5% - 7% range using no dyes. I have noticed that the manner in which dyes and FOs interact with wax and wicks varries dependent upon the type of dye (liquids, dye blocks/chips, powders), the amount of dye used, as well as the type and amount of FO. The type of wax is another variable that others may provide more input on. For the purpose of this review I am speaking only in regards to Golden Brands 444 Soy Container Wax.

As stated in the product description, this wick has a tight curl. In comparison to an ECO series wick, the CSN 12 curls tighter- meaning it does not bend as much or lean over too far after lighting it. However, this wick does sometimes mushroom (“mushrooming” is the formation of a ball on the tip of the wick causing it to resemble the shape of a mushroom). I’m not sure if the ball is the result of carbon build up or something else. What I do know is that these balls can break away and fall into melt pools as candles burn which looks bad when the wax cools and hardens. I’m unsure, but I think that debris from a burning wick falling into hot liquid wax may possibly present a fire hazard if not removed. In a 4 hour burn I’ve had several sizes of these wicks mushroom in plain soy 444 wax, but I’ve also seen the wick mushroom, then burn off (the mushroom ball) in scented soy wax so the mushrooming has been “sometimey” for me. I have had good burn times with these, the wick doesn’t seem burn through the wax too quickly. I am still experimenting with them and this has been my experience thus far. They are relatively easy to fit into wick clips for centering and have a decent amount of rigidity for a cotton wick. Again, I recommend these for containers with a 2” diameter

I rate CSN 12 wicks at 4 stars overall. If it weren’t for the unpredictable mushrooming, I would rate the CSN 12, 6” pretabbed wicks 5 stars. I hope you find this review helpful in eliminating time, wasted wax, containers, wicks and frustration when trying to pair wicks and containers.

I have tried four different brands of wicks in the last two years of candle making, and I keep coming back to the CSN series. These wicks just work for me. I use GB 444 soy wax in 2.5 diameter glass containers, and the CSN 12 does the trick. It's a good starting point to see whether or not I need to wick up or down for my different fragrance oils. Small mushroom, but that's definitely okay because the scent throw I get with these wicks is phenomenal. A+, CandleScience.