How to choose good quality candle holders

A candle holder is a piece of jewelry that will add the perfect finishing touch to your interior decor. Hallways, entryways, living rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms or outdoors areas are ideal to place candles and create welcoming spaces with a cozy touch to your home.

The good thing about candle holders is that they have become a trendy and versatile piece of decoration that can be used throughout the year! For this reason, it is important that when making a purchase we understand well what qualities we are paying for and what is the durability that we can expect from them. At the end of the day, we want a product that looks nice but that can last over time as well.

No matter if you are looking for taper candle holders, hurricane lamps, rustic candlesticks, candle-holding lanterns or candelabras, this article will help you to understand prices and qualities. Here we go!

1) Ceramic Candle Holders

Ceramic returns! It has gone from being something old to becoming, together with the raw trend, one of the most sought-after material trends in interior decoration. But it is worth making a clarification: Not all of the home decor products you can find these days on sale under “ceramic” are the same quality, basically because ceramic is the art of making objects made of baked clay, hardened by firing, and decorated or glazed.

The difference in quality (and of course, price) will be on how they are mixed with other materials, the temperature of the fire and design. From higher to lower quality ceramics (and more expensive to cheaper material): porcelain candle holders, stoneware candle holders and earthenware candle holders. If you want to know more about how these materials are processed and how this impacts the quality you can read our last article where we talk about ceramic dinnerware. 

White Ceramic Candle Holder

Of course, it is a more fragile material than other types of candlesticks, a simple fall can break them. However, we cannot ignore the fact that ceramics bring a lot of elegance to our homes.

2) Metal Candle Holders

Here it is important that we talk about different types of metal because, even if they are part of the same group, the type of metal used to make them will drastically impact the quality of the product (and the price).

• Aluminum candle holders: "Bauxite" is the source of aluminum. This ore is ground into a thick paste called alumina, which is then melted into "cryolite." Without going into too many technical details, it is a soft, light and malleable metal. The layer of aluminum gives it resistance to oxidation and corrosion, although over time and exposure to extreme temperatures it can corrode to holes and loss of material. That is why aluminum products usually tend to be cheaper than other kinds of metals.
  
  
• Stainless steel candle holders: Aluminum is the most common element in the earth's crust, while stainless steel is not a natural material. In fact, it is obtained by combining iron with manganese, nickel, copper and, in some cases, chromium oxide. The mixture of these elements makes it very resistant to corrosion, its most outstanding property. While aluminum is light and malleable, steel is much stronger, heavier, less deformable and more durable. Furthermore, producing steel is much more expensive than producing aluminum, since it requires a longer process. You can also find really good quality cutlery sets made of Stainless Steel.
  
  
• Iron candle holders: The primary difference between iron and steel is that the former is a metal, whereas the latter is an alloy. Iron is simply a metal element that occurs naturally on Earth. Steel is lighter and cheaper than iron, which gives steel a big advantage for the construction but when it comes to buying products for home, it could be the other way around, as they are heavier, stronger and when it comes to corrosion, iron has better corrosion resistance than steel

Black Iron Minimal Candle Holders Set

3) Iron Candle Holders with Antique Brass Effect

If you have been looking for candle holders, you might have surely seen some candle holders described as “brass antique”. Basically this means that the product is coloured to be given the "vintage" appearance that has become so popular in recent years. However, it is not a production material but rather a painting process that will cover the iron surface of the product to give it a different appearance than the raw material.

Brass Antique Candle Holders Set

4) Wood candle holders

The warmth of the decoration products in wood is indisputable. They bring nature closer to our home interiors. In this case, it is not necessary to focus on the weight of the candle holder, but the most important thing is to analyse the base for its stability. On the other hand, when buying a wooden candle holder we have to think about where we are going to place it since, among its main disadvantages, they require different care since they can be affected by extreme weather conditions such as rain, snow and sun if placed outside. Also, if wood is not treated properly, it can rot over time, losing its shape and structure

Jolene Wooden Candle Holders Set

5) Glass and crystal candle holders

• Glass candle holders: Glass is another material that we can find in candle holders. In general they stand out for their transparency although, in some cases, they can also be opaque and made of different colours. Glass decorative objects are timeless and very likely to combine with any deco style. Like ceramic, glass candle holders are extremely fragile. The price will vary according to the size and thickness of the glass.
  
  
• Crystal candle holders: Although glass is often confused with a type of crystal, it does not actually possess the molecular properties necessary to be considered as such. While crystal is a perfect solid with a regular atomic structure, glass has an irregular structure. If instead of glass we want to buy crystal candle holders, the price will increase drastically. However, glass is usually much more fragile than glass, so its use is much more limited.

In any case, the most important thing is to consider the use that you are going to give to your candle holders, the money that you are willing to spend and where you want to place them. As a final recommendation, we suggest that before buying your candle holders you carefully check the size to place the candle, since there are many varieties on the market.

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Melanie.-