Glossary
Hot throw
How strongly a candle's fragrance fills a room while it is burning, as opposed to how it smells unlit.
Hot throw is how strongly and clearly a candle's fragrance fills a room while it is lit, as opposed to how the wax smells when the candle is unlit and cold. It is one of the main qualities buyers judge a scented candle by, alongside burn quality and appearance.
Hot throw depends on several things working together: fragrance load, wick size, wax type, and cure time all influence how much scent a candle releases once its melt pool is established. A candle can have plenty of fragrance oil in the wax and still throw weakly if the wick is undersized and never builds a full melt pool, since scent is released mainly from the liquid wax pool rather than the solid sides.
Hot throw should be judged only after a candle has fully cured and only with a wick size already known to perform well in that container. A common mistake is testing hot throw on an uncured candle, or on a very first prototype with a wick that has not yet been confirmed, then adjusting fragrance load based on a result that had little to do with the fragrance oil itself.