Michdj

Thank you! I'm new to b/b so I'm afraid I'll have a few questions. The research is fun though!

I've been lucky so far in that I can remember most of the sales, and have only had a couple of votives go missing, and one wax melt - black currant vanilla, too - my favorite! Grrr... But if you're greeting everyone as they come in and engaging in light banter, there's less of an opportunity for theft. I agree with the posters above - pre- and post-show inventory is the way I roll!

I'm pretty new to the B/B stuff, and I was wondering... Do bath salts have to be stored in a special type of plastic? I'm a candle maker and know all about the plastics for that, but this is a whole new ballgame. Does it matter what type of FO or EO I use? Thanks in advance!

So I found this recipe online at BathBodySupply.com and I'm wondering what the cyclomethicone is for? I've seen it in recipes for other products but not bath salts. Can someone with more experience help me?

Recipe: Bubbling Bath Salts

6 oz Dead Sea Salt

4 oz Baking Soda

2 oz Citric acid

4 oz SLSa

1 oz Cyclomethicone

1.5 oz Dendritic salt

5 ml (1 tsp) FO

color

I tested mine on a couple bricks in the street. I absolutely didn't want wax running all over the fireplace, so I kept testing them until I got a 20-minute burn with only a few drops of residual wax drippings. I guess it just depends on what you're looking for in a product.

I actually had a woman take a bite out of a tart that I poured in a christmas cookie mold! Our computer tech at school bought her a bag of tarts from me for Christmas and she opened the bag and bit into it! I didn't believe it until she showed me the gingerbread man with half his head gone and her teeth marks in it! She said she almost never got all the wax out of her teeth! LOL!

Oh my! I always wondered why my husband insisted the first line of our warning label was "DO NOT EAT."

My farthest show this year is 2 hours away. I've seen people drive cross-country but that's not me - at least not now. My first one next weekend is 1.5 hours, and is my second-farthest. HTH

It would probably blow the hair off your head to have more than an oz pp! LOL (like Amish Quilt)

Lol - I just poured this yesterday and was sick to my stomach every time I walked in the kitchen while they were cooling! Gotta remember to back down on that percentage for Amish Quilt!

Thanks for the input. I decided on cello bags from PaperMart and gift baskets. Here we go!

I use mostly CS FOs and get a really good throw from them in 4794. I made lilac for a client and was nauseated every time I walked in the room once they were packaged. It's strong!

I was just nosing around for something to supplement my firestarters and saw some small pine cones dipped in wax that's supposed to make the fire change color...? I saw a list of chemicals that make different colored flames but I'm a little leery of adding it to wax and expecting something to happen. Has anyone ever done this?

I would caution you to take what you think you'll need to spend and double it. Just getting my online/craft fair/wholesale business going I easily spent double what I thought I would - and I had a business plan! If you can afford that, then I say go for it! Enjoy!

It's that time of year again and I've been saving my scraps all summer for firestarters. How do you package them? What works really well? I've reviewed old threads but was hoping someone would say they package in net bags and have a really wonderful supplier, since I'm really out of ideas online. Anyone use mesh bags? Or make baskets? What works best for you?

Pecan Praline from BCN

Cinnamon Bun from CS

Amish Harvest from Peak

Hansel and Gretel's House from CS - strangely enough, my best seller

CS's Orange and Chili Pepper was strong enough to make me gag the whole time I was pouring, but I use 4627. Their web site says it's strong in soy. All I can think is that if something THAT strong in paraffin is held back THAT much by soy, there's a problem!

Thanks guys - I'm placing an order with CS today!

Maybe my nose just isn't a fan of mulberry in general. (I think I bought the BCN mulberry off a recommendation in one of your earlier posts, as a matter of fact Ravens!) I'll have to check out Cajun and see if it's any different. Or just get over the Bubblicious smell!

Hi all,

I tried the UV inhibitor from Peaks but my blues and ivories faded out after 5 hours near the sun - ick. Peaks doesn't say what types of UV it works with. Does anyone swear by their UV inhibitor?

Oh no! This is terrible. I agree with Chefmom, it's next to impossible to be completely environmentally friendly. I was at a wholesale show recently, and had several people just walk away when I told them I didn't use soy. Now you have someone nitpicking the soy itself. Sometimes we just can't win. So sorry to hear about this. Keep your chin up - knock on a few more doors and see if you can get a better contract with a bigger distributor! (Trying to remain optimistic is the only way to go sometimes.) Good luck and keep on keeping on!

Hi y'all,

I'm trying to find a mulberry that doesn't smell like grapes or grape bubble gum. I've researched the forum but didn't find quite what I'm looking for. I always think of mulberry as a kind of generic fall-ish berry but BCN and CS provided me with grape popsicles. Is there anything better out there?

Thanks in advance!

So here's a random question that has probably been asked before: When figuring fragrance oil percentages (and dealing with maximum recommended percentages), do you aim for a percentage of the total weight of wax + FO, or for a percentage of the weight of the wax alone? For example, in the chart upthread, it suggests that 10% FO for a pound of wax is 1.6 ounces. But if you were to add 1.6 ounces of FO to 16 ounces of wax, the FO would only make up about 9% of the total weight (which is actually 17.6 ounces once the FO is added). If you wanted 1.6 ounces of FO to be 10% of the total weight, you'd need to add it to 14.4 ounces of wax.

So which is the "officially right" way to do it? If you have a wax that maxes out at 10%, which of the above methods (add 1.6 oz. of FO to 14.4 oz. of wax, or add 1.6 oz. of FO to 16 oz. of wax) would you use?

There is some debate to the "correct" method. Personally I use the percentage of total weight once the whole batch is together, which is your second example. I believe you'll find different people do different things, but in my research from this forum I found the percentage of total weight was what manufacturers were suggesting. But that's JMHO, not gospel. Testing is the best answer!

This is great. I was a little hesitant to call that supplier but I certainly will. Thanks for your help!

These candles are really beautiful. You don't get the full "picture" until you see them burning - wow!

I'll have to call them - their web site is quite wonky. Thanks for the info though!

I would call either Impact to see if you can work around that, or UPS if you really want your own UPS account. I have a feeling you might have hit the wrong button, because I'd think a company like Impact would have their own shipper number to use. When I tried to get a FedEx account, it seemed so easy at first but I ended up on the phone with them to get it all set up. Good luck with this!