A gel candle is not wax. It is a transparent mineral-oil-based medium that sets clear, which is what makes it possible to suspend things inside and still see them.
That transparency is the entire point, and it is also what makes them harder to make than they look.
Built in layers
The flowers cannot simply be dropped in. They float, sink, or drift out of position while the gel sets.
Each vessel is built up in stages: a shallow layer of gel, allowed to set enough to hold weight, then botanicals placed by hand with tweezers, then more gel poured at a temperature low enough not to melt the layer beneath but high enough to bond to it.
A single jar takes several passes across a day. No two arrangements are the same, because placing pressed larkspur by hand is not a repeatable operation.
Do the flowers burn?
No — and this is the question we are asked most.
The botanicals are positioned deliberately clear of the burn path. The flame melts a narrow pool around the wick; the arrangement sits outside it, held in gel that never gets near ignition temperature at that distance.
What you must not do is push a flower into the middle, or let the wick grow long enough that the flame reaches sideways. Trim to 5 mm.
Burning one properly
Keep it level. Gel is more viscous than wax and a tilted jar sets a permanently lopsided pool.
Away from draughts. A pushed flame melts to one side and spoils the symmetry that is the whole reason you bought it.
Expect a slower burn. Gel burns longer than wax of the same volume — often noticeably so. That is a feature, though it means the first burn to a full pool takes patience.
They will change
The gel clouds slightly with use and the botanicals darken. This is normal, not a defect. A gel candle six burns in looks different from the day it arrived — softer, a little amber.
Some people burn them once for an occasion and keep them as objects afterwards. That is a perfectly reasonable thing to do with something that took a day to build.