A votive is a small candle, taller than it is wide, designed to be burned inside a holder that it fills as it melts. The name comes from votum, a vow — these were devotional candles lit as an offering long before they were a homeware category.
A votive without a holder is a puddle
This is the part people get wrong. Unlike a pillar, a votive is meant to liquefy completely. It is formulated to melt fully and burn as a pool of wax held by the glass, which is why it needs a holder that fits closely. Stand one on a plate and within twenty minutes you have wax across the plate and a wick lying in it.
The holder should be barely wider than the candle. A votive rattling around in a large glass will burn badly, because the pool spreads too thin to feed the wick properly.
Soy in a votive
Soy suits a votive well: it melts at a lower temperature, so it fills the holder cleanly, and it burns slowly enough that a small candle still gives ten to fifteen hours. It also washes out of the holder with hot water rather than needing to be chipped, which matters when you are reusing the same glass repeatedly.
Expect frosting — the pale crystalline bloom on the surface of soy wax. It is the vegetable wax crystallising as it cools, it is not a fault, and it has no effect on the burn.
Burning several
Votives are usually bought in numbers, and a row of them is where wick trimming stops being optional. Untrimmed wicks soot, and soot on the inside of a line of glass holders is visible from across the room. Trim to 5mm each time.
Give them a few centimetres of space. Candles set too close heat each other, which makes them burn faster and lean.