crvella

We have these in Australia. I can also get the floppy ones and I plan on doing a side by side test with these to see what the difference is. My focus is really the mushrooming

wow that is compelling! nothing like a good example to hammer a point home 8-) I will have to get my hands on some of these! thanks so much for this!

haha yes I think I have the same broke sniffer! Thanks so much for your help! I have both C3 and 464 laying around so I might do a side by side comparison. What size wick would you recommend starting at for a 3" jar?

Thanks for that. I've checked and I can get my hands on pretty much any Soy here. Paraffin is limit, but Soy is good to go!

That's a great help thanks Moonshine! I have been told 464 too, but I've seen the level of frosting and it's not great 8-) I do have a soy additive that one of our local guys sell. it's apparently unique to them and their own blend, though it's a liquid so not sure what it is. I'm guessing something like coconut oil. What would 1.5 oz per pound be as a %? Also, we only have CDN wicks here. What is the difference between CD or CDN? (Sry for all the questions)

Hi all! I probably haven't met most of you before because I've been posting in the General Candle section. I've been working with paraffin, and playing with blends, for 18 months and I've decided it's time to take the plunge over to straight Soy. I have 3 main reasons for this 1 - I use tall jars, and this causes a lot of sooting by the time the candle gets to the end. I'm hoping with Soy I will reduce or eliminate this 2 - With paraffin I find that the wax gets a little dirty looking over time (from the carbon), and discolors, giving a cheaper look to the end product 3 - I find using a wick big enough to get a decent melt pool, in paraffin, results in more mushrooming than it does for an equivalent melt pool in soy. I realize this could come at a cost to the hot throw. Though I read here that this isn't necessarily the case. The reason for my post is I'm struggling to determine the right soy wax to start with and I really need some help because my head is in a spin going through this whole process again after 18 months! The main things for me to consider are (and was hoping people could comment on each); 1 - Hot throw is by far the most important aspect of the product for me 2 - Cold throw is a close second 3 - I do not want glass adhesion. I'm happy that it does not stick at all, but not at the cost of the hot/cold throw 4 - I don't want frosting. All clients we've spoken to don't like soy candles because of frosting, and for that reason alone they do not buy soy. 5 - I would like to use CDN or premier wicks if possible as I have thousands of them 6 - I'm not adverse to adding %20 paraffin if it means eliminating frosting or other issues, though would be good to avoid if possible 7 - I have no access to USA where I am, so addition of that is not possible. I can get other basic vegetable oils. 8 - I start with %6 FO normally. Should we start with %6 or do you typically need more with soy I know there is a lot of questions there. It's a scary change since we've spent 18 months developing a product with paraffin I read all the time that people give up on soy and move to paraffin, so this scares me, a lot. I don't have much time to perfect this as we've got to have product out by the end of June (7 weeks) and we'd like it to be the new soy based product. I'm hoping our knowledge is transferable from paraffin to soy(?) 8-) Sry for the brain fluff! had to get it all out 8-)

Hiya! I'm new to bath and body, and I'm considering doing bath salts as I've had some friends ask about it. I'm curious, as I dont use them; what's the difference if you bake them or dry them out vs bottling them straight away? Is it purely a texture thing and what do most people tend to do? I really want to keep it a simple blend of salts and fragrance. Nothing too fancy. Thanks so much!

Hi all I've been doing all my testing with a Dangerous Goods version of a reed base (Lots of alcohol). I've been dosing at 12-14% and found it is working great with everything. The supplier I use has now said I need to buy 200kg at a time; which I'm not ready to do just yet. The only other oil base I have access to it a 0 or low alcohol version (non Dangerous Goods). My question is this. Am I likely to be able to get away dosing at the usual amount, or does a lesser qty of alcohol generally require greater fragrance to work. And is there really a massive difference from one base to another. Surely the variables can't be like that of making a candle? I've never actually switched between reed bases. I've always used the first one I found as it works great. The only reason I'm asking is because I have an order of reed diffusers to fill in a week, and I don't have sufficient time to test like I normally would.

My partner and I have been at it for 18 months and only just ready to put stuff to market; but are still learning something new every day 8-)

One thing that got me in the beginning was that going up a size doesn't necessarily mean you will get a proportionate result. I.e If an 8 is ever so slightly too small, a 10 wont necessarily be your given wick; it might be a 12. Let me give you an example. In my 3" Jars; I have a 'harder to burn' fragrance that requires me to wick up from a CDN 8. In my testing, I find a 10 was waay too big, and that a 12 was in between the CDN 8 and the CDN 10. The 10 produced massive mushrooming, got loads hotter and burnt through the candle quicker than the 12. So I had to go up 2 sizes to get an ever so slightly bigger melt. In the votives, I typically use a CDN 6 for most fragrances. One of the fragrances I had was causing the CDN 6 to burn hotter than I'd liked; so I went to a 5 and found the 5 burnt even hotter than the 6; and had to reduce to a CDN 4 in the votive. So keep in mind than the wick size is not always proportionate to the burn.

Depending on how many candles you make at a time, you can try throwing a blanket over the kids once they are made. I put 4 pillars at the corner of all the candles and throw a wool blanket over mine in the winter. This helps a little.

Thanks everyone for this, I'll wick up and go from here. Will come back and let you know how it goes

Personally I use mineral oil to tackle this, but I've also had an issue which I noticed on the week that my current source of mineral oil, when burnt, had a touch of 'tiki torch' smell to it (kerosene) I've never had that 'tiki' problem that I noticed previously, and I'm waiting on the company to get back to me as to whether the oil has been contaminated with kerosene. Give it a go. Start with %5 and go up to 10 if need be.

Not sure what you consider mineral oil in the US. But here in Australia it's Baby Oil; also sold in our supermarkets as Paraffin Oil which is used as a laxative. In the hardware, it's sold as water tank sealant.

Hey JCandleattic I used mineral oil in 4630 when the penetration point is low (The wax is hard); as each batch that ships has a different penetration point. If it's hard, I use it to soften it up and help get a better melt pool. It also helps with glass adhesion I find. Makes paraffin very stick. I've been using it without any 'tiki' smell, and it seems this new batch of paraffin oil I get now has that Tiki smell. I've decided to remove it last minute from the batch we are doing for the wedding. Now I"m just hoping since I've changed the recipe (by removing the oil) that they will still burn. The recipe I'm using is 2 x CDN 6 in a 3.5" diameter straight edge jar, using 4630.

Hey all I was wondering if anyone else uses mineral oil as an additive? I did a test the other day where I made two plain candles. one with and one without. I noticed the one with mineral oil (when you put your nose over the top of it) had a bit of that tiki torch smell. Has anyone else noticed this? If you do use Mineral oil, and you don't get a touch of that tiki torch smell; would you mind sharing what brand and where you get it?

That's great thanks Steve. I do think the wax is fully incorporated with the FO. I will definitely try wicking up some more. Can I ask you what wick you use with this wax? And what size would you recommend starting at for a 8cm diameter container? Thanks everyone, as always such a great help!

Thanks Jcandleattic - Some good advise as usual! I'll have to re-think the questions I've put on the survey to include a little more detail. I do have a sneaky suspicion that they are all under wicked, as a few people who trimmed their wick did complain about heaps of hangup; where as we designed them for no trimming.

Hey! I didn't think so when we were testing it, but I guess it's possible. We do edge toward the smaller wicks (CDN 6 for 7.5cm wide jar). I find if we go much higher then it mushrooms and soots waaaay too much otherwise. Thanks for this. I'll put a couple of other testers out to the same clients with a larger wick and see how they feel about those.

Hi all I've been getting some feedback of late that our 8cm wide, single wicked CDN 6, 4630 candles @ 6% seem to lack scent throw after the 3rd burn. I'm told they have great scent throw on the first 2 but by the 3rd it is 'questionable' and a little lacking. I've read that fragrance can sink to the bottom of a candle but never that it sits on the top of the candle. Just wondering if anyone else has had feedback like this before, and if so could anyone suggest some focus areas? Some things I've thought of; - Vybar - Poor temp - Cooling speed - Stirring time - Additives? I do stir until I see that the fragrance is blended i.e not milky or cloudy and no odd heat swirls in the wax. Approximately 25-35 seconds. It's not just the one fragrance either.

HTP wicks or CD/CDN wicks only I find. The 4627 does require wicking up so you can also get a burning smell if you wick too high. When wicking mine, I wick with the smallest wick that gets to the bottom of the jar with little to no hangup. I don't wick for a melt pool

These look really good! I used to use the 6006 and found it gave the same scent throw as other straight paraffin waxes so I don't think the wax is your issue. I was using Eco's with it. Are these wicks trimmed through each burn? I think these are great, no problem with mushrooming that I can see. Though purple would tend to mushroom more than the lighter colours I would imagine.

I'm not sure how much use this information would be to you guys, but in Australia; most people these days buy their jars from natural candle supply (naturalcandlesupply.com.au). They apparently run their own glass manufacturer in China, and they call it lotusglassware. (lotusglassware.com/). It could be worth writing to them and buying from them direct if a few of you are interested.

Yeah I thought that was a bit big! I've done 3 candles. Double CDN 6,7 & 8 so I'll let you know how that goes.

Thanks everyone! Its really nice of everyone to jump in and give advice and their experiences. I think we are going to try one more time with the paraffin blend, but wick up from the CDN 3 / HTP 41. After talking with the local candle store who recommend two CDN 10's to 16's, and talking with someone else who is recommending two CDN 7 for 3.5 inch; I think we were heavily under wicking. If this fails I'll give a soy blend a go, or maybe the 6006a. Does anyone else think 2 x CDN 10 to 16 is heavily and dangerously over wicking? Its not a tough fragrance!