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Welcome. What a great post. You are an inspiration. Congratulations on your cancer victory, overcoming many life challenges and your engagement! Extra credit bonus points from me for IT and a passion for cooking This candle crafting took me a little off guard. On one hand I was a little surprised at how complex it can be and on the other I am really enjoying the process and challenge. I have a lot to learn yet and I'm glad to have found this community to share the experience with. It's a good group. Good luck and happy crafting! SYN ACK FIN

I thought that may be the case but wanted to be sure I'm still dialing in my ingredients and process, too. I started in mid August and hope to have something to market by spring of 2014. I can't offer much help yet other than basic strategies to try. I learned early on that this craft is extremely personal and it takes a lot of trial, error, patience and skill to make something great. You can give 10 people the exact same set of ingredients and instructions and get 8 different product qualities. That fact seems strange to me but oddly enough it's true :/ Keep at it. You will get there!

I don't work with those wax blends but 1% FO seems pretty light. That would be 0.16oz of FO per pound of wax. A typical starting point to test is about 6% or 1oz of FO per pound of wax.

After 10lbs of wax and several fragrances I finally got a winner with good ct and ht. Woot! I switched to my own blend of waxes so that may be a part of the win. I'm just glad to have my first candle that I can smell from the other side of the room I ordered more FO of the same to do further testing. My jar still has wick problems according to the melt pool (or lack thereof). I've been working with these 3" wide jars and they've been a nightmare for me to wick. I started with ECO wicks all the way up to ECO-16 and I can't get a full melt pool in multiple 4 hour burns. I picked up some HTP104's and no go. I have a selection of CD's on their way so we'll see how those go. I'm almost toying with the idea of double wicking these jars but that seems odd to me not to mention more expense. For now I'm happy to have this one little victory. I will figure the rest out. Cheers and happy crafting!

Alright. Floor is painted. My son had fun throwing down the sparkle flakes. We picked up some lumber to frame up the walls. We'll see if we can squeeze new walls in this week. Might be tough. The work/school weeks are usually jam packed till at least 9pm. I'll try to get a pic of progress.

Floor cleaned and prepped. I've got fans a blowin' to hasten the concrete drying. I might try to get it painted tomorrow. I'm anxious to get the last two walls framed up and run additional power to the room I've been planning a lot for the candle side of things but have come to realize I'm under estimating the space requirements for curing soaps. Contemplating something like a bakers rack that can hold a dozen plus cookie sheets... It's a small room and I'll need to maximize vertical space I think

Looks fantastic. net weight

Last coat of paint on the block walls this evening, yay! Not looking forward to scrubbing the floor to prep for expoxy but I really want to get it done!

It's your biggest competitor and you've never bought anything from them? Why not? This is a 7 year old thread that was controversial at the very least. Maybe you work for pureintegrity? With their advertising methodology I wouldn't put it past them to use a shill. Sorry, maybe that is a bit of a leap but it's uncommon to resurrect a thread that is so old.

Nice re-purpose with the shoe racks, Georgia. Smart!

Ooh, that is a great space! Renovating is an interesting process. More than a few times I've come across things in our home that the previous owner had done that has left me scratching my head in bewilderment, lol.

Amazing. Really nice presentation.

I thought about SS counters too! Then I went to a local restaurant supply store, looked at some prep tables/counters and quickly changed my mind, lol. Cha-ching. Thanks to everyone for the ideas! It is exciting to think about and plan. Speaking of plans I was poking around for counter/table ideas this morning and found a kind of workbench setup that I think I can easily modify a bit to fit my room. http://www.familyhandyman.com/workshop/workbench/simple-workbench-plans I like the idea of the drawers. I might make 2 8 footers with laminate tops and backsplash. One with an open bottom shelf for case quantity supplies and the other with a completely open bottom where I could build an enclosed rolling work table that I could pull out for extra counter space? Does that make sense? Heading over to Craigslist in search of overhead storage/cupbords! That would be slick. Thanks again and happy crafting

Thanks for the feedback! Here is the start of my 10x10. I drywalled the two interior walls a while ago. First coat of concrete sealer paint on the other two. Helps to seal up the brick to control moisture and cover the nasty green paint the previous owner had slapped on in some spots. Next is a final coat on the walls then an epoxy garage floor paint on the floor. After that I'll stud up, wire for electric, insulate and drywall the exterior walls! I need to figure out what to do with the ceiling and lighting. It's low @ 7ft. Probably recessed lights like the main room...

I have a small 10x10 room that I will soon be using as a craft room for candles and soap. It is completely bare right now with two concrete walls, two finished interior walls and concrete floor. There is one small 1x2 window that I will be converting into a vent/exhaust outlet for heat and fumes. I plan on framing/finishing the two concrete walls for a more finished look. What do you really like about your craft space? What can you simply not live without or wish you had done differently (well maybe other than more space, lol)? I would love to hear others' experience so I don't waste money or forget something important. The crafting will be about 70% candles and 30% soap I'm thinking. Most of our materials are spread here and there throughout the house and crafted in the kitchen. Even though it's kinda smallish, I can't wait to have a dedicated room! Maybe I could throw up some pics as progress goes.

Short answer: Ctrl+f is a shortcut to the 'find' function in many programs. It's super handy and I use it a ton, even for web browsers to find keywords on a page. If you are spreadsheet challenged you may simply want to try sorting your paper sheets differently. Maybe just by name so that all types and sizes are together. If you don't have the 8oz you could quickly see if you have the 10oz or 12oz available right there on the fly. Offer a small discount on the upsell to make the sale and capture the customer? I'm a tech head so anytime I can use tech to help me sort, calculate and track I'm in! :whoohoo: I use a lot of Google docs and spreadsheets that I can access from anywhere which works well for me. It's good to keep an eye out for ideas and learn how others operate but ultimately you've gotta make your solution fast and easy for you to use or it will cause more frustration than it's worth. Good luck and happy crafting!

I switched from AVG to Avast about a year ago. In my real world experience Avast out performs AVG considerably. Avast isn't quite a resource hog like many others and doesn't impair some of our aging computers as much. Avast has caught a lot more email trojans that AVG passed right on through as well. Is it the best available right now? I do not know. I haven't researched any yet this year. What I do know is I haven't had to clean an employee PC in a long long time. That makes me happy.

I'm pretty sure http://www.naturesgardencandles.com/ has small wick packs. If you're concerned about spam setup a specific Gmail or similar account just for the purpose of supplier adverts.

I am pretty new as well but I will share my experience and thoughts so far. You are right on track. Testing is expensive. Mainly because you are not buying in bulk. The best thing you can do right now is try to combine your purchases as often as you can. Wax/fragrance/wicks/dye/additives/containers. Even though the sample or test size quantities are small and expensive you'll save a little on shipping and over all cost of goods by purchasing as many supplies as you can with each order. If you've run out of a test wick in a particular size there are online shops that sell individual size 5-packs as test packs rather than a big bag of 80 with 5 of each size (many of which you may never need). These smaller test packs can usually be found for about $0.99 each or so. If you've narrowed your wick selection down to a size +/- that may be a better route to go until you are ready to buy in bulk of 100/each or 1000/each. Once you've got your recipe down and only need a size or two of wicks it's time to go big and get a better value for your dollar. Shop around for your brand/size and compare prices delivered to your door. Even then, you're still going to want to combine purchases when you can to get the best ROI. Get a spreadsheet going and set up a tab for each supply and record suppliers cost. You'll see at a glance which supplies/suppliers combine for the best price. Hit every supplier site you can find and sign up for their email newsletters/promos. Watch for specials on samples and other supplies that can save you a bit if cash. Especially the % or $ discounts like "save x amount when you spend y amount or more" coupons. You need every savings you can get when buying small. Hope this helps. Happy crafting!

It's called being human Even though we strive for 100% perfection, we are prone to error. It sounds like you handled it very well but it can be hard to shake the feeling of letting a customer or yourself down. Find comfort in the fact that the error was caught, brought to your attention and you did what you could to make it right. We can be our own harshest critic. I know I am. Sometimes to a fault :/

Sweet! We make home-made Yankee candles and Dove soap!

444 is a blend. 98% soy and 2% soy based additives.

Could you explain your experience little more? I'm trying to wrap my head around it. Are most of the members here only wholesale? No retail or mail order? Maybe that's where I am missing something. The only extra work I can see would be getting extra packages to the shipping center. Higher volume would decrease that cost. Enough volume and they will come to you. One downside I could imagine is that you would be out the cost of packaging and a shipping label. However, the retailer would be assuming the advertising costs/website hosting fees and payment processing fees of 1%-3%. I understand many of you are against it. That's fair. I'm just trying to understand where all the extra work is coming from and how you are losing money to the wholesale client. Help! What am I missing?

A description that makes your mouth water. If you go to a new restaurant I'd bet you're going to select something that sounds tasty. Chances are that delicious sandwich on the menu has a better description than: meat and bread $9.99

I'm gonna play devil's advocate. I hope this comes across as conversational. In some circumstances drop ship can work very well. The company I work for (an unrelated motorsports industry) utilizes drop ship regularly. In fact I know of at least two of our mail order competitors who carry very little inventory but sell millions of dollars worth of product from the very same distributors we use. Many of the same principals of entering a wholesale agreement still apply. Rather than a minimum order quantity you can use a minimum buy in. Let's say you require an up front $1000 buy in for one year of wholesale prices and apply that money to their customer account as credit. This places an amount of risk on the retailers shoulders. They will need to order $1000 worth of product from you within one year to keep their wholesale status. They will need to advertise the products and sell through enough inventory to make it worth their investment. If they have used up their $1000 credit within the first year give them the grace to purchase $1000 more within the next year, and every year after, to keep their wholesale status. If they fail to do so they will lose their wholesale status and have to buy in again. I think this model could work provided you are set up to ship orders. When your wholesale customer calls in an order with you you would first debit their account until their $1000 credit is used up. After that, send them a monthly invoice to collect payment. This theory probably has more holes than swiss cheese but I'd like to see what others think. Thanks for reading and happy crafting!