YOUR PERSONAL GUIDE
How to live with a Neev candle.
नींव — the foundation, lit slowly.
Every candle we make is hand-poured in small batches, with a coconut-soy blend wax. This page is for the rest — the part that begins the moment your candle arrives. Sizes, scents for the rooms you actually live in, and how to make each one last as long as it should.
01 — SIZES & BURN TIMES
Three formats, made for different lives.
The same scent. The same wax. What changes is how long each one lasts, where it sits, and how big a room it can fill. Here is what each format is good at.
Tealight
14.5g · 4-hour burn
Net weight
14.5g
Burn time
~4 hours
Best for
One sitting
The smallest entry point. Four to a set, three sets — Core, Summer, Monsoon — so you can try a whole edit in one evening, or use them as single-occasion candles for a dinner, a bath, or one quiet hour.
Tin
100g · 25–30 hours · Single wick
Net weight
100g
Burn time
~25–30 hours
Best for
Small to mid rooms
The everyday Neev. All twelve scents are available in tin — including the seven that don't come in jars. The tin lid keeps the cold throw in when not lit, so you can keep it on a desk or bedside table without losing the scent.
Jar
320g · 50–60 hours · Two wicks
Net weight
320g
Burn time
~50–60 hours
Best for
Living rooms, statement spaces
Our longest-burning piece, poured into a wide glass jar with two wicks rather than one. The double-wick design pulls a wider, more even melt pool — the candle reaches the edges of the vessel faster, throws more scent into the room, and burns more evenly all the way down. Five scents come in jar form: Pehli Baarish, Masala Chai, Mango Lassi, Gajra, and Aangan.
Which scents come in which size.
All twelve scents are available as tins and as part of tealight sets. Five are also available as two-wick jars.
| Scent | Collection | Tealight | Tin | Jar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pehli Baarish | Monsoon | |||
| Masala Chai | Monsoon | |||
| Filter Coffee | Monsoon | |||
| Gajra | Monsoon | |||
| Mango Lassi | Summer | |||
| Malai Kulfi | Summer | |||
| Shaadi Wala Ghar | Summer | |||
| Nani ka Ghar | Summer | |||
| Aangan | Core | |||
| Halwai ki Dukaan | Core | |||
| Spice Bazaar | Core | |||
| Phool Market | Core |
02 — YOUR HOME
Finding the right scent for the room you're in.
A candle is not a perfume. It works on the air, not the skin — which means the room matters as much as the scent does. Here is what we'd light where, and why.
Living room
Bold throw · Jar recommendedThe room people walk into. You want the scent to arrive before the guest does. Jars do this best — the larger melt pool fills the room within minutes of lighting.
Aangan
Pehli Baarish
Halwai ki Dukaan
Gajra
Bedroom
Calm, low-stimulationQuieter scents that read warm before they read intense. Burn one to two hours before sleep — never while sleeping. Tin or tealight is the right size here.
Nani ka Ghar
Aangan
Malai Kulfi
Gajra
Kitchen & dining
Pairs with foodScents that share a vocabulary with cooking. Not so loud that they fight what's on the stove. Light during prep, snuff while eating, light again with coffee.
Masala Chai
Filter Coffee
Halwai ki Dukaan
Spice Bazaar
Bath & powder room
Cool, clean, floralSmall rooms reward scents that aren't trying too hard. Clean florals, water notes, and anything green works better here than anything sweet.
Gajra
Phool Market
Pehli Baarish
Workspace & study
Grounding, not distractingEarthy, woody, or quietly spiced. Avoid heavy florals — they pull attention. A 100g tin within arm's reach is the right scale.
Aangan
Spice Bazaar
Filter Coffee
Pehli Baarish
Entryway & hallways
First impressionWhat people smell before they take off their shoes. Sets the tone for the whole home. Scents with distinct personality work better here than safe ones.
Shaadi Wala Ghar
Halwai ki Dukaan
Phool Market
Aangan
Or — pick by the moment.
Scent works on memory faster than thought. Sometimes the room matters less than the hour.
Mornings
A slow start. The kettle is on, the floor is still cool, no one is asking for anything yet.
Pick: Filter Coffee · Masala Chai · Nani ka Ghar
Long afternoons
The middle of the day, light through one curtain. Working alone, or doing one thing for a long time.
Pick: Aangan · Spice Bazaar · Mango Lassi
Evenings with people
Friends over, food on the table, someone laughing too loudly. The candle on the sideboard.
Pick: Shaadi Wala Ghar · Halwai ki Dukaan · Gajra
Just before the rain
When the air shifts and you can feel it coming. A few degrees cooler, a darker sky.
Pick: Pehli Baarish · Aangan
Quiet alone
A bath. A book. The end of a long day. Nothing more.
Pick: Nani ka Ghar · Malai Kulfi · Phool Market
A small celebration
Nothing requires a wedding to feel like one. Anniversaries, promotions, Sundays.
Pick: Shaadi Wala Ghar
03 — BURN TIME & LONGEVITY
How to get every hour your candle was made for.
The numbers we quote — 25–30 hours for tins, 50-60 for jars — assume the candle is treated with a little care. None of it is hard, but it changes how long the candle lasts and how strong it smells. The first burn is the most important one. Start there.
01
The first burn is the one that matters.
On the first lighting, let the wax melt all the way to the edge of the vessel before extinguishing. For a 3.5 oz tin, that's about two hours. For a 11 oz jar, closer to three. Wax has memory — if you snuff the candle early on day one, it will burn down the same narrow tunnel forever after, wasting most of the wax around the edges.
Set a timer the first time you light it. It's the only burn that needs one.
02
Trim the wick before every burn.
Down to about 1/4 inch — the length of a grain of basmati. An untrimmed wick produces black soot, a tall unsteady flame, and the small mushroom of carbon at the tip that drops into the wax. A trimmed wick gives a clean, steady flame and a candle that lasts noticeably longer.
A wick trimmer is ideal, but small scissors will do.
03
Two to three hours per session. Never longer than four.
Soy and coconut waxes are at their best in the first three hours of a burn. After that, the vessel heats up, the wax pool deepens, and the fragrance throw begins to fall off — the scent compounds evaporate faster than they should. Snuff the flame, let everything cool, light it again later. The candle will last longer and smell stronger each time.
04
Stop when 1/2 inch of wax is left.
The bottom of every candle has a small reserve of wax that's there to protect the vessel. Once you can see the base through it, stop burning. Continuing past this point overheats the container — the glass jar can crack, and the tin can scorch the surface it's resting on.
05
Store it like you'd store ground spice.
Away from sunlight. Away from the stove. Away from anywhere it gets hot enough to soften the wax. A drawer or a cupboard is better than a windowsill. Heat and light degrade fragrance oils over time, so a candle that sits in a sunlit room unlit for six months will not smell the same as the day it arrived.
Keep the lid on tins between burns — it protects the cold throw.
04 — CARE, TIPS & SMALL THINGS
The handful of things that change everything.
A candle does very little — burns slowly, smells like something, fills a room. The care it needs is small, mostly habitual, and almost entirely about paying attention once and then forgetting about it.
Re-centre the wick if it drifts.
While the wax is still molten and the flame is out, gently nudge the wick back to the middle with a chopstick. A drifting wick burns one side of the vessel hot and the other side untouched.
Keep the wax pool clean.
If a piece of wick falls in, scoop it out with a teaspoon once the wax has cooled. Debris in the pool will burn black and produce smoke the next time the candle is lit.
Avoid drafts.
A flickering flame is a flame burning unevenly. Keep the candle away from open windows, fans, and air-conditioner outflow. A flame that bends to one side will pool the wax there and leave the other side standing.
Snuff, don't blow.
Blowing out a candle sends melted wax airborne and pushes smoke across the room. A candle snuffer or even a quick dip of the wick into its own pool with a chopstick puts the flame out cleanly — no smoke, no smell of burnt wick.
Burn on a flat, heat-safe surface.
Stone, ceramic, or a trivet. Never on plastic, polished wood, or fabric. The base of a burning candle is warmer than it looks, especially in the last third of the burn.
Reuse the vessel.
Once the candle is finished, warm water and a little dish soap will clear the last of the soy. The tin becomes a brush holder, a planter, a kitchen catch-all. The jar holds anything from spices to wildflowers.
If something goes wrong.
-
The candle is tunnelling — burning straight down the middle.
The first burn was too short. To recover: burn for three to four hours the next time, which should re-melt the wax around the edges. If it's gone too far, wrap aluminium foil loosely around the top of the vessel, leaving a small hole over the flame — this traps heat and helps the surface re-level.
-
The flame is producing black soot.
The wick is too long, or there's a draft. Snuff the candle, let it cool, trim the wick to 5mm, move it somewhere still, and relight. If the soot continues, the wick has built up a carbon mushroom — trim it off completely before the next burn.
-
The scent feels weaker than before.
Two common causes. First — your nose has acclimatised. Step out of the room for ten minutes and come back. Second — the candle has been burning too long in one session; the upper fragrance compounds have evaporated and the deeper base notes have taken over. Snuff it, let it rest, light it again tomorrow.
-
The wax surface looks uneven or pitted after cooling.
Normal. Soy and coconut waxes are natural and don't cool perfectly flat the way paraffin does. The pitting disappears at the next full melt. It is not a defect.
-
The wick has drowned in the wax.
Carefully tip out a little of the molten wax (over a sheet of newspaper) so the wick stands clear of the pool. Re-centre it, let everything cool, relight. If the wick is broken at the base, the candle is at the end of its life.