Dustpuuppy

See if you can see a seam in the wick. Like where two pieces were sown together ? Maybe the roll you got was one where they had to join two runs. That's about all I can think of just now, to eliminate. I'm thinking the joint would be a weak point and allow the wick to just flop over. And I was hoping you knew better than to burn a votive like a pillar, but it was something to eliminate.:smiley2:

Sounds kind of like what happens when a pillar has a 'blowout'. The side of the candle melts, the melt pool spills out and a long section of wick is left exposed. Could that be the case here?

1 1/4 would be 1.25. If that's the issue. 1/8 = .125 1/4 =.25 3/8 = .375 1/2 = .5 5/8 = .675 3/4 = .75 7/8 = .875 Overlook me if you knew that already. :smiley2:

Scrap them, I'd say. They only cost about $4 each. Most likely the reason you can't find the leaks with water is that the wax is filling the cracks. Unless you use water that is hot enough to melt the wax out of the cracks, it will seal them. Try pouring boiling water into them to melt the wax. Then use some warm water with red food coloring, so you can see exactly where the water is coming out. Plain water will be virtually invisible on the side of the pot. For the warm water you might run some water through your coffee maker. It will probably be hot enough to melt wax, without being hot enough to get you burned.find the crack and mark the area, then you could probably use JB Weld or silicone to seal the leaks. Trouble is that whatever you buy to seal the cracks will probably cost as much or more than a new pot and it's hard to say how long the repair will last.

I wasn't sure which Julie you were referring to, there used to be 2 or 3.

Scented did them. She used to spend half her life doing some of the wildest votives... I never had the patience to work that hard on something that small.

Nope, not mine. That would have been too easy. LOL

Just to clarify: You've tried it in 4 or 5 different waxes and there was no hot throw from any of them ? I know that some folks have trouble with hot throw in soy, at times. You might do a search for "hot throw in soy". You might learn a few tricks, that way. From where I'm sitting, no HT in 4 or 5 different waxes and I'd probably bypass that one.

Fads come and go. One week you can't make something fast enough, the next week you can't give it away. Funny thing. If you guys had come over here right after the first Crocodile Dundee movie, you could have sold your candles for any price you named. Anything from downunder was worth it's weight in gold. You probably could have sold kangaroo dung for $100 per pound. lol

Booze and business don't mix. Never do business with a drunk. They may be wonderful people when sober. The sober won't last long, though. Yeah. I know it's not politically correct. I know that in our touchy feely society we're supposed to give them a hug and an encouraging word. We have to remember that they aren't drunks and drugies and low life types. They're just people with a disease. You can look at it that way. Or you can stay in business. They never mean to drag everyone down with them... but they usually do.

About 5 years ago you could have made a mint off those cow candles, over here. That cow motif was selling no matter what it was.

Kewl.

Got all nostalgic and went for a tour of the old board. Ran across this from about a century ago. Anyone care to guess who made them?

There could be some legitimate reasons for that question: The person you were talking to might have been in a position to arrange some sort of discount for you. If they have customers canceling orders due to shipping costs, they might want to know what kind of deal they'd have to negotiate with UPS or whomever, to keep their customers. If they do enough shipping, UPS and FedEx will often give them discounts to keep them. They may have just wanted to find a way to help a regular customer. If they were looking at switching from UPS to FedEx, or some such, they'd want to know where their shipping costs would need to be. Also, there are a lot more things in this world that are negotiable than most people realize.

BTW. A little blue, especially a navy blue or cobalt blue, will help make black, blacker. It kinda gives it a sort of depth.

I did OK with paraffin with a good bit of stearic and black dye from Peak's.

Those sugar looking crystals will dissolve back into solution, if you warm the FO and shake it up. Sometimes you have to warm it for up to 30 minutes. It's an old problem that happens with a LOT of the vanilla FOs. Very common in winter. Do the heating as suggested above, in warm water, with the cap on the FO bottle. I always just used hot tap water. If they haven't dissolved in about 15 minutes, pour out the water and refill with the same hot tap water.

Eve; No easy answer, there. You just have to make the leap, sometimes, til you find the right venue for your products. Sometimes you can pay $5 for a booth at a roadside flea market in East WherethehellamI and sell everything including the tablecloth. Sometimes you hit a major craft show and don't make your gas money back. It's pretty much hit and miss, when you first start. Do as many shows as you can afford to. Keep a journal so you can go back and see EXACTLY how you did at each show. Sometimes you go to a show and just like it there for whatever reason, but you don't sell very much. Sometimes you go to a show that you didn't like but you sell a lot. Your memory can play tricks on you. The journal will tell you the truth. Next year hit the ones you did well at. Write off the ones you didn't. Do as many new ones as you can. Try to visit as many as you can, as a 'civilian', just to see what's going on. Make notes. The ones that look promising, you can try to set up at next year. After 3 or 4 years you pretty well know which shows to hit and which ones to avoid like the plague. And it's not always bad to do a show that you like but don't do well at. It's not a sound biz strategy but business ain't everything. If you've gotten into ANY kind of crafting, just to make money, you've already screwed yourself, anyway.:rolleyes2

The problem with your theory comes when you say the words "or close to". If you're keeping the formula EXACTLY the same, you could get by with spot checking them. As I said, most folks will do that just burning their own candles. If you change anything, you need to re-test. Sometimes a small change will make a big difference. Even if you've been doing this for years, you can get a totally unexpected result from a small change.

Once you get everything just like you want it, and you've got the perfect formula worked out, in theory you should never have to test again. As usual, the theory is wrong. Sometimes the wax changes or the FO is reformulated or some such. So you have to test every so often. Most people will do that just burning a few candles for their own use, though. Of course, any time you change your formula, you need to test everything all over again. It's also a good idea to test your work at different times of the year. As there can be changes due to temperature and humidity and such, on occasion. Sometimes the wind blowing from the north, rather than the south will change something... at least it seems that way, sometimes. LOL

Found this. It's not MP, but you might gleen something from it. I'm thinking if she's adding the sea salt at trace, then your idea should work ? Pictures on the site. The recipe: 82.5% Coconut oil 12.5% Avocado oil 5% Castor oil Medium Size Sea Salt equal to the weight of oils 15% Super Fat 20% water discount I added the salt at trace and then poured into a wooden loaf mold and put into the oven preheated to 170*. Turned the oven off and left the soap in there for 1.5 hours then took out and cut. The salts were dyed with FD&C red # 33, which turned the whole bar a pick color.

I've heard people say that they've had candles sitting around for a couple of years, that smelled as good as when they were a week old. Some claim that they smell even better. That was with paraffin, as I recall, so YMMV. The thing about FOs going bad is when they're in the bottle. Most folks say they have a shelf life of around a year. Some might last longer. A year is just the rule of thumb I've always heard. Like bread or milk, it's not going to go bad, exactly on the expiration date.

I found a batch of them at Big Lots, once. It's hit or miss, with them... but every once in a while...

Wow. I'm guessing that there are tariffs/duties on top of that ? And, BTW, I wasn't questioning you on this. I had just never thought of it. I guess I would have assumed that you had your own suppliers.

I wouldn't have thought that shipping to Sydney would be quite so high as you indicate. I'm wondering if your UPS type companies are very expensive ? I'm guessing it would cost a fortune to send things from Sydney to Coober Pedy, or some such place ?