What makes candles/matches smoke?

Question

When you first light a match, all you see is a wisp of black smoke come out of the stick (If you're lucky). But once you blow out the match, greyish-white smoke comes out for quite a while, and same goes for the candle. Why does this happen instead of all the time?

Answer 1

Smoke is the result of incomplete combustion. You can best observe this effect in fuel fires. When you see a "ball" of flame above a fuel fire it is the gas that evaporated without combustion catching fire. When the match goes out pinch it between your fingers, it burns because it is still hot enough to continue burning the paper even after the fire is out. That is where the smoke is coming from.