sudsnwicks

they didn't expect anything to be sent on an incomplete order. either they wanted to see just how your site worked. or someone wanted stuff but changed their mind.

Yes, that is what I meant.

My site works the same way - if someone goes until the very last step and stops just before inputting their credit card number, the shopping cart will have recorded their information. The way I tell this is not a genuine order is that no payment came through.

You could replace part of the beeswax with a harder wax. I'm hesitant to have a "summer formula" though, in case people didn't use it until the winter and found it too hard then.

They may have changed their mind at the very end, by which time all the info would have been captured. Or it could have been a competitor checking you out.

No Costco or Sams near me - but we do have a WalMart.

I don't have any of these three. An ordinary supermarket will do too.

Oh and it's just called Freezer Paper. The brand I get is Reynolds. It can be in the canning section, or it can be with the sandwich baggies.

I just get mine at the grocery store. One roll is quite a lot, I don't need to buy that often, so it's not really necessary finding a bulk source.

It depends on how fancy a soap you are wanting to make. Let's say I were to make a basic soap using 100% lard, no scent or color. Well at our grocery store here, the lard is $1.45 for a 1 lb brick. Add to that the cost of the lye needed for it (about $0.40), and it'd be $1.85 for this 1 lb batch.

What's alarming about such a practice is that you might not have enough money in your account to cover the extra charge. Or you might have written checks in excess of what's left in your account. Either way you'll be in trouble when it's not your fault but the supplier isn't going to be so nice as to pay your overdraft fees. Eugenia, I do hope you can get this worked out in your favor.

I think their shopping cart is fairly new because all this while I have been having to phone in my order. I only noticed the cart recently and it looks like they have not worked out the glitches yet. If anyone wants to order from them, it may be better just to call.

Darbla, I wouldn't be surprised if some people do that.

If I already have a company name in mind and just need to go through the motions of registering it, I'd do it. But if I didn't plan on selling, or was nowhere near ready to sell yet, then I'd either order from another supplier or see if I can piggyback off someone else's order.

I've ordered from them about 3 times. Each time, I've had to be very, very careful when finalizing my order. They have a habit of sneaking other products into your shopping cart.

Then you'd need 0.6 oz lavender and 0.4 oz sage.

You add up all the parts, 3 for lavender and 2 for sage, to get 5. Then you take the lavender portion (3) and divide by the total number of parts (5). Finally, take this answer and multiply it by the total amount of EO you're using. That's for the lavender. Now you do the same for the sage. Hope that makes sense.

Eugenia, I'd call them and give them an earful. They should have contacted you for approval instead of simply charging your CC for the higher amount.

Lindsay, I'm not sure how long they've had this feature. This was actually the first time I ordered through their shopping cart. Previously I would call them as I had looked them up through their parent company, Golden West, and that website does not have online ordering capability.

Eugenia, if you have not been charged extra for shipping by now, you should be fine. Just consider yourself lucky whatever special you happened to have hit on. As for the "rumor" about their non-existent east coast warehouse, I'm just quoting what it says on their site. Maybe at some point they did have the east coast warehouse, but no longer have one, and failed to update their website.

Hellen, how thick was the trace when you poured? If the salt sank to the bottom you may have poured at too thin a trace, or maybe not stirred it up sufficiently. Don't worry, these aren't the easiest things to make (my 1st try, the salt wasn't spread out very evenly either) but if you just let it sit and cure a few weeks, it should be fine to use.

Eugenia, I saw on the Dish that some folks who ordered 6 were later charged for shipping. They were told the shopping cart showed $0 because for 6 boxes and up, shipping was manually calculated (which I suspect is due to the hundredweight discount for purchases 200 lbs and up). In your case, I wonder if it was free because you're on their truck delivery route and so they didn't have to use UPS. If anyone wants to get 6, I would advise calling them just to make sure the shipping is really free.

Mystical Angel, if you're on the east coast, it seems you should get a reasonable rate for shipping as the store apparently has warehousing on both the east and west coasts (unless that has changed and they did not update their website). The parent company is Golden West and here's where I saw the info about their east coast warehouse: http://www.goldenwestsf.com/info.html

You could always give them a call to see if you can get a better rate than what the shopping cart shows.

Lisa, I found this page:

http://www.cierracandles.com/descriptions.aspx

The description for White Sands is:

Like being on a deserted tropical island! A clean, calm, summery fragrance.

Grumpy, this is the one I get: http://www.honestfoods.com/topricbranoi.html

But I think you may be better off getting from Columbus due to your being closer to them.

Circle, it isn't a requirement, so it's all up to you. But you should be able to give an estimate if someone were to ask.

Hellen, I pretty much just dump my salt in too. I didn't read the tutorial and didn't know there was a better way for it. Since my salt bars have worked out, I guess it must be okay?

I don't think there is anything wrong with superfatting these at 15%, neither do I know for sure if most of us here are doing only 5-10%. Personally I chose 5% (after trying higher superfats) but that's because I have hard water from a well, and the higher superfat simply didn't produce sufficient lather. I don't need a whole lot of lather, and found it to be enough especially if I use one of those netted sponges. But DH likes to have a lot of lather and he doesn't like to use those sponges.

Angi, perhaps yours didn't harden as quickly compared to what others have experienced, due to their not gelling? When my salt bars don't gel, it can be a few days before they're even firm enough to unmold, let alone cut.

I have not soaped any of the FOs/EO on your list but have heard others saying Green Clover is a difficult one. My solution for difficult FOs is to do a 100% lard soap, as lard is slow to trace. You could always give that a try if this particular scent blend is something you want to keep.

I have gotten several of these emails. I've been deleting them.

I should think this would be fine to soap - provided the package gives the breakdown by percent of what's in it, or if you are able to find out this info from the manufacturer.

Some of the ones I've seen are already more than $90 a case. *faint*

You need more than half. Check this thread:

http://www.craftserver.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54778&highlight=salt+bar+mold+volume