Wax has a memory. The first time you light a candle, the flame melts a pool outward from the wick, and wherever that pool stops, it tends to stop every time after. Put it out after half an hour and you get a narrow well down the middle with a wall of unburnt wax around it. That’s tunnelling, and it wastes a good part of the candle.

So the first burn is the long one. Light Low Light when you have an evening ahead of you, and let it go until the melted wax reaches the edge of the jar. For a candle this size that usually takes two to three hours. After that, shorter burns are fine, because the candle will melt back to the same edge.

Two more habits

Trim the wick to 5 mm before every lighting. A long wick makes a tall, restless flame and leaves soot on the glass. And don’t burn for more than four hours at a stretch. Let the wax cool and set, then start again.

If it has already tunnelled

It can usually be rescued. Wrap a loose collar of foil around the rim, leaving the centre open, and let it burn for a long session. The foil reflects heat back onto the wall of wax until the surface levels out.

Low Light is poured from a blend of coconut and rapeseed wax. We chose it for how it burns and how it looks.

Both are plant waxes. Rapeseed is grown widely across Britain and on its own makes a firm, slow-burning wax. Coconut is softer and creamier. Blended, they set with a smooth, pale surface and melt at a low temperature, which suits a scented candle: the pool forms evenly and gives off its scent without the flame having to work hard.

Ten per cent

The fragrance load is the share of the wax that is scent. Low Light’s is ten per cent, a generous amount for a blend like this, which is why it fills a room without being lit for long.

Small marks are normal

Plant waxes can show small cosmetic marks, like a slightly uneven top after burning. They don’t change how the candle burns.

Smoke is a hard note to get right. Too much and a candle smells like a bonfire; too little and it disappears under anything sweeter. In Low Light it sits behind the other two, as a dry edge rather than the headline.

The fig gives the scent its depth: dark, slightly jammy fruit with some green from the leaf. Beeswax sits in the middle, warm and rounded, the smell of polish and old wood. Woodsmoke holds the two together and keeps the sweetness in check.

It’s a scent for autumn and winter evenings, for rooms with wood and books in them. That’s what we wanted the name to mean: the hour when the day is done and the light is low.