C Dizzle

I know I'm late here, but I use between 1 oz and 1.5 oz typically. The vast majority of my candles I use 1.5 oz on. Most of them use RG dye chips as well as dye blocks in other candles, very few are undyed. I usually test two different 8 oz candles at 1 oz, 1.5 oz, then 1.25 oz in that order and if those don't work, I abandon the scent. A few of my first scents use 2 oz, but I don't really test that high any more. One lesson I learned here was more often is not better. If it's perfect at 1 oz, 2 oz will clog the wick and inhibit scent throw. If you get good results with less FO, you're saving money per candle which adds up if you make a lot (and I do!)

I add at 185 as well. I haven't really tried any other temperature, but I've had great success here. I've both left the heat on and also turned it off and not sure which is better, really. I leave it on now as I want the temp to be good enough to melt dye blocks when I use those, and sometimes even in the low 180s it takes me more than 2 minutes stirring to melt those dye blocks. If I don't leave the heat on sometimes it cools to 175 or so and its harder to melt dye blocks, but that's not as relevant when I use reddig glo chips. Some do it differently, but I do FO at 185, mix 2 minutes (although its likely overkill), mix dye until its fully incorporated (usually more than 2 min for me), then UV inhibitor for a minute. I haven't used too many FOs that have a low flash point, but I just started experimenting with a lemon verbena that has a flash point of 147, and I mixed it the same as I always do. It has an intense cold throw, but the hot throw is a bit less than my usual candles. I suspect I may need to use 1.5 oz rather than 1 oz, and don't feel it's burning off, but need to do more testing to be sure as I've only tested one candle. Btw that scent is AMAZING!

Interesting, and that makes sense. Thank you so much! I want to try my hand at shampoo, shower gel, or liquid soap, but am trying to research and figure out as much as possible before diving in. I bought far too much glass I can't use for soy candles as I didn't research properly how much testing went into it, and have a bunch of glass just sitting around. I guess I'll post it in the classifieds.

Are you supposed to fill up the empty plastic bottles with the 70% and just pour it out, or reuse it? Seems like you'd have to use an awful lot to fill em up, let em sit, and pour it out

I'm guessing isopropyl 91% or 99%?

Do you also sanitize plastic bottles you are putting liquid hand soaps, shampoos, and shower gels in? I would imagine so

I was asking what the favorite bar of those 25 was. I live near Monroe, Louisiana and used to live in Monroe for many years. I'm pretty sure they still keep a tiger at LSU, but I'm not a big football fan and don't keep up with them. If the Saints make it to the Superbowl or even the 2nd round of playoffs I would watch those games, but I have about 1% the interest as your average football fan!

I use GB 464. I stir at 185 uv inhibitor then dye then fo. I've used liquid, dye blocks, and reddig glo chips. I pour at 130 to 125 in 12 oz unheated jars that were cleaned with ammonia. I put a large box over them while they cool. Doing this I have minimal wet spots and frosting. It does occur sometimes but not often and so far about 3 months in no new ones have shown up. My house is also temp controlled at 73 and they are in the middle room which is the stablest in heat. I doubt it's possible to have frost and wet spot free candles but this is the closest I've got.

I don't think the fault was Columbus just due to the fact the bucket couldn't have been busted long before I got it and the two pails I got were in cardboard boxes that you could tell weren't treated delicately. Those boxes were jacked up and UPS is normally good for me. The busted one was barely still even closed due to the stress it went through. She sounded like they would find an excuse to deny the claim and it would just be easier to send me a 7 lb pail. That works for me.

I was wondering how you all clean, and especially, sanitize your buckets/bottles/etc. for oils. I've read many of you melt and stir palm oil and put into smaller containers. Surely it needs to be sanitized. What do you use? I've read a lot of different ideas on here. Some say bleach, others say 91% isopropyl alcohol, others say chlorox or lysol wipes. What have you used with success?

Yeah, I would imagine going with smaller bottles/pails would be better if I have to melt the entire thing and stir everytime I want to use palm. Yikes! But from what I've read about palm, it sounds worth it.

I was actually going to get empty buckets of icing that Wal-Mart and Super 1 were going to throw away anyways. In my town, Super 1 doesn't charge and Wally world used to not but currently charge $1, which is fine. I'm going to research before I do it but I am thinking I need to clean it a certain way with all that sugary stuff in there. For the palm today I guess I'll just buy a few buckets from Lowes and go from there.

Yeah I can only imagine how hard it would be to crack that pail. She said luckily it was palm and you're going to want to melt it and reportion it anyways, so go ahead and do that into other pails and she's going to send a 7 lb for free. I'm 100% satisfied with that. I'm a bit curious though, I am planning on melting it in a double boiler, a 12 Qt stainless steel stockpot in a 5 gallon stainless steel pot as the boiler. Does that sound good? And what do I need to clean the plastic buckets I put it in with? Surely some cleaners are good, some bad, for this purpose. Surely some increase oxidation

It was in a box but no other packaging materials were in it. I would imagine it happened today since not much has seeped out, but it's hard to say.

I was wondering if any of you had this and what the resolution was. I just got home and noticed a soaper's choice pail of oil I received. The bottom was oily and some oil had leaked on the porch. I brought it inside, took it out and found the bottom of the pail was split all the way across. It's only open enough that it's very slowly leaking out, but it is a continuous leak. They are obviously closed, but I did take pictures of it and called and left a voicemail. I also left the pail unopened, turned upside down, and put saran wrap over the entire bottom to prevent air from getting in. What do you think a company might do in this situation? What ought they do in your opinion? I'm not upset or anything as things happen in shipping and I wouldn't expect them to replace the entire 50 lb pail, but it would be nice if they sent me an empty bucket and perhaps a few lbs to replace what spilled out. Also do I need to do anything differently for it to store better while I wait for them to give me a response tomorrow?

Light of Mine, I store mine the same way CandyBee does, but I have them stacked up in my house which I keep at 73 degrees year round, which i believe is an ideal temp for me as well as my candles. Clear Black, if you are referring to 8 Oz Apothecary, don't the same flat top and dome top lids fit? I'm guessing you'd have realized that if they could so you must be talking about another 8 Oz jar? I used to make testers in Status 2 Oz and mainly use Status 12 Oz for my candles, but I quit making testers because I had a harder time getting them to work and it wasn't 100% that both would work.

A few months in most of mine are still wet spot and frosting free. I keep them in a middle room that has no windows and is surrounded by other rooms, very little draft, and the house stays at 73 degrees and this is the most stable temperature room. Surely they won't look as good eventually, but about 3 months most are!

No idea. When I started my wet spots were crazy, almost the entire jar every time. Doing my method differently made improvements, but none as dramatic as cleaning the jars with ammonia. I actually am about to clean some and I wish I remembered what I did, I think it was 1 part ammonia to 3 parts water but the clear ammonia bottle I got says 1/2 cup to one gallon (I know I didn't do that) so I am trying to read more about it before I decide. There was someone here named Stella that posted a lot before I came and she suggested Parson's Sudsy Ammonia for this. I can only find regular ammonia, and used that to great success. According to her, it helped remove the film of residue from manufacturing and people in general say unclean jars can have wet spots much greater than clean jars. After cleaning them I dry them upside down by heating in a toaster oven I bought expressly for candlemaking at about 150 degrees. This leaves no wet spots. I only pour in my jars at room temperature. I pour the 464 at about 125 to 130. I also use dyes of all 3 major types and have very little problems with frosting or wet spots and before the majority of each jar had wet spots and there usually was a bit of frosting. Most of my candles today have neither, and the ones that do it's very light.

Lemon ice cream, lemon ice cream float The Everclear bottle I buy is 95% pure grain alcohol, 5% water. Technically, it IS a solution! This is the highest % you can get with normal distillation techniques, although you can find 99.5%+ at certain scientific sites. Two 1 Oz "shots" of it is the equivalent of drinking 3 full beers at 6% alcohol, and it's not something I recommend doing as alcohol content aside it's probably literally the hardest alcohol to drink straight due to the taste of pure ethanol. In my thrifty college days we would buy a 5th of it for a bit over $10, mix it with 4/5 a gallon of other non-alcoholic liquids/water, and have gallon of something almost 20% alcohol (40 proof, like vodka!) for roughly $15 or so. It's also used in transparent bar soapmaking and liquid soaps. In Soapmaker's Companion, Susan Miller Cavitch calls it by brand name in what she uses instead of other options. Catherine Failor also mentions it by brand name in Making Natural Liquid Soaps. There are other options such as a specially denatured SDA 3A or 3C which is a cosmetic grade approved by the FDA, but you have to have some type of license to buy this from what I can tell and even 95% ethanol wasn't cheap with shipping. Liquid soaps can also use Isopropyl over 90%, but you have to evaporate it out at the end or your soap will smell that way and it's not as strong a solvent as ethanol. So to me, Everclear seems the easy AND economical way. You are paying the "sin tax" or whatever they call it for buying alcohol graded for consumption, but according to Susan Cavitch, there is a way to file for a drawback from the government and get a 90% refund on the tax itself. I found most interesting the economic alcohol we bought in our college days is the economic alcohol I'll be buying when I make transparent soaps. I did not see that coming.

I may not have been clear. And I am testing 3 or 4 wicks per combo and settling on one or none. After the two weeks it shouldn't change much. If I understand it right if the wax/jar/wick/dye/fo combo works after two weeks it should work the next time if made exactly the same. Add a little more or less fo and it might be too hot or too cold. Add a little more or less dye and the same. I recently was told sometimes a batch of wax will be a bit different and need to be slightly wicked differently than normal. In general adding more makes you wick up but at some point it's too hot for the jar to safely burn all the way down. I'm fairly new so veterans please correct me if wrong. And for me, it'll probably be a very long time before I even out.

Personal opinion, customer service aside you shouldn't be buying glass from Texas when you have much closer suppliers. Between Candle Science and Lonestar, Candle Science is closer to you and since both companies claim they are only charging in shipping what the actual shipping costs, it's likely cheaper. I am in Louisiana and did a cost analysis on Status 12 Oz jars by the case from 1 case up to 88 cases. I am posting below from a Google Drive spreadsheet I created to analyze this. For me, the shipping AND cost per jar from Lonestar was cheaper at every point up to 88 cases (at 88 cases, Candle science was cheaper by 70% of 1 penny per jar, or just under $8 total for 1056 jars. At EVERY point below Lonestar was cheaper. Some points the cost per jar was the same not counting shipping, sometimes Lonestar was cheaper, but in every case lonestar was cheaper total other than 88 cases simply due to location. I would also suggest calling these companies and asking where their breakpoints in shipping is. Candlescience and Lonestar have "hundredweight" shipping at 200 lbs, and its pretty significant. If I am ordering glass or wax, I try to get 200 lbs or more to get that deal. Of the two, only Lonestar shows the weight in the cart, and CS you gotta fiddle with it. CS also calculates it by boxes too and if you add/remove a few things at once at certain points you will notice where the jumps are. I was actually advised by CS reps on how to look for this. Anyways, here is a portion of the spreadsheet. I ONLY included shipping so you can see what I mean. These results will definitely be different for you and based on your location! Maybe one of these other fine veterans can suggest an even closer supplier to you. All numbers other than cases are in dollars and scents, I just left them all longform but the final total for accuracy. Cases column is how many cases of 12 jars. Lonestar and Candle Science columns are what I pay in shipping per individual JAR. "difference P/Jar" column is how much per jar I would pay to Candle Science than Lonestar in shipping alone. Total difference is how much that equates in actual total money. In all cases other than 88 cases, Lonestar is the better bet for me personally. You can't see the actual cost of the jars themselves too, but Lonestar was the better deal period up to 88 cases and even though CS's jars were a bit over $100 more expensive, the significant shipping discount at that break made them cheaper over all: $1518.85 total for 1056 jars from LS, $1510.92 for 1056 jars from CS. NOTE: All of these numbers were created December 9th, 2015 and may be different today and most certainly will be different in Maine! Edit: Goodness, that didn't post like a column now did it. I cleaned this up and it looks good on my computer but not sure how it will appear on a smart phone. I can give a link to the spreadsheet if interested though. Cases Lonestar Candle Science Difference P/Jar Total Difference1 1.1216667 1.2758333 0.1541666 $1.852 0.6925 0.8641667 0.1716667 $4.123 0.6005556 1.0586111 0.4580555 $16.494 0.5364583 0.8545833 0.318125 $15.275 0.448 0.7906667 0.3426667 $20.566 0.4256944 0.8776389 0.4519445 $32.547 0.554881 0.8066667 0.2517857 $21.158 0.5184375 0.89125 0.3728125 $35.799 0.4932407 0.82 0.3267593 $35.2910 0.4741667 0.7846667 0.3105 $37.2619 0.3313158 0.8046053 0.4732895 $107.9125 0.3233 0.5504333 0.2271333 $68.1488 0.3808049 0.2649621 -0.1158428 -$122.33

Burning smells so much different than the straight scent out of the bottle usually. I also wish there was a sub for time. I've burned one after a few days, had zero hot throw, then after the full two weeks it smells great. I also had the opposite happen and I assume the wax hardened and burned less hot than after a few days and was enough to inhibit throw after the full cure. I now just wait the two weeks.

This page from Garden of Wisdom seems to indicate the shelf lifes are pretty long for most oils. Looking at olive, palm, coconut, and castor oils, it ranges from 2 to 5 years. http://www.gardenofwisdom.com/carrieroils.html That's much better than I was expecting.

That's a very good point.

When you order in bulk, how to do you keep the olive, coconut, and palm oils from going bad if you are buying a lot and not using it all at once?