Clear Black

2 hours ago, CandleRush said:

They were featured a while ago on Candle Science’s web sight. 

 

Successful from what I've read. I’ve seen their sight on Etsy a few months ago. 

As far as candle sellers on ETSY go I'd dare say they are among the top, if not then THE top sellers. Kudos to them on their success 

1 hour ago, bfroberts said:

@Clear Black , have you ever tried one of their candles?  I'm curious as to how they burn.
 

No I have not actually. They were listed as selling in a local bookstore near where I live and I went there last summer looking to purchase one but apparently that book store had never carried that brand so I dunno lol.

I only posted about this because I am in the process of setting up my ETSY store and still learning how it all works to be honest, so I was looking to their site to see how things were "set up" if that makes sense and noticed zero items listed.  But as I refreshed the page it seemed they were adding their inventory back to the site so maybe maintenance? Who knows

I'm sure some of you here have heard of these folks, some probably not. For those that have, any idea on why their ETSY shop is no longer showing any listings as of March 1st?  Have they just simply moved everything to their own website I wonder? 120k sales since they first started on ETSY is a huge accomplishment and IMO would be hard to walk away from, even if their own website traffic is doing well.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/Frostbeard

EDIT: Please remove this post as it seems they are literally restocking their ETSY store as I write this lol. I have one tab open on my computer showing no items in their store and just opened another tab and bam, store restocking at 22 items lol. Go figure.

On 5/24/2019 at 7:45 PM, TallTayl said:

“Bougie” is used by my high schooler as slang for fancy. Maybe it’s a key word for that pop culture type of market? 

This is EXACTLY the term my hs teen uses when she refers to anything fancy. Must be their generations word or something 

3 hours ago, candlesinflorida said:

I love this topic. Branding has been taking up a lot of my time-I think it is incredibly impt!! Would be interested in how you are proceeding and happy to give any feedback or input. 

For me, I have a very specific vibe I am going for and I have a lot of inspiration boards of the look I am going for -on my pinterest acct. i am now in the process of bringing it all together...meshing my web site look, fragrance names, container style...everything...to make it all cohesive. It is a whole separate enterprise apart from the candle making.

I am also working on SEO and social media marketing and will be talking to a professional branding person too. 

Sounds like you are thinking this through all the way. Would love to see the results at some point! 

100 Candles? Dam Trap! Good job 💪

2 hours ago, TallTayl said:

I can make a private “club” area for you Candybee. Then you can invite people into the group privately. When it’s done we just deactivate the group.  It’s a little dicey sharing publicly, I know... 

At some point this summer, after my jars have returned from Texas getting photographed, I would like to do this with a select group of people as well and get some feedback. Ive been working on these for a few years but only my eyes have seen them. I think it is time to get some feedback other than family members lol

On 4/19/2019 at 10:01 PM, TallTayl said:

Sometimes bouncing ideas with a few members jogs things into a good direction. 

@Candybee  As TT said, maybe you can bounce ideas off of members here. I have not had the pleasure of seeing your candles or logo yet, maybe share some photos of your finished jars or whatnot and if you have thoughts or ideas bounce them off us here? Wouldnt hurt I guess

17 hours ago, Trappeur said:

I've been meaning to take pictures of the finished candles.   I will in the next day or so and put up.

 

trappeur

I agree, we need to see more of the finished product 🤗 I bet they look cute as heck on those jars

2 minutes ago, kfintoni said:

I am going to be nosy, where in Maine? I have a house in Old Town.

 

Karen in MA

Just outside of Portland in Westbrook!  

Old Town is up near Bangor if I recall, ya?

I get mine printed down in Florida (I'm in Maine) 3,000 at a time with 30 different versions, which is 100 labels per fragrance. Its a rather big label, really big actually as far as candle labels go and they still only cost me 30 cents or less per label. They are very high quality and saves me a ton of time.

If you want to take them to the next level, just start calling around to print shops and getting quotes. Once they know your needs its fairly easy. You may also want to start learning a design program like Adobe Illustrator. You can sign up for Adobe Cloud services and get access to all Adobe products on a per month basis.  Most product labels you see on the store shelf are designed through Illustrator, so if that is something that interests you it is a fun process of learning that design software. 

27 minutes ago, TallTayl said:

Those craptastic retail candles are the reason so many of us jumped into this crazy hobby. 

Actually this is EXACTLY why I am on the path I am now

Why do we wick our candles the way we do, when big name candles do not?   

I have recently begun buying store brand, big name candles and testing them just to see how they burn. My results have kinda shocked me to be honest. I have burned one wick, two wick and 3 wick candles and have had similar results. Those results being that I have reached a full melt pool within a matter of 2 hours or less on the first burn.  For example, my latest purchase was a Kringle candle in the 22 oz status type jar. Tall candle, measuring 6 inches tall and 3.5 inches wide.  Within 90 minutes I was at full melt pool and 1/4 in deep all the way around with zero wax hangup. What is this candle going to be doing at the bottom portion 5 inches or so down this glass jar? Im almost too afraid to burn it that far. And its not just Kringle, Yankees medium sized "Perfect Pillar" is a single wick jar that is tall as well. That took less than two hours to reach fmp and that wick was burning pretty hot. Again, what is this jar going to do in the bottom third of the jar? Dont even get me started on these 3 wick BBW type jars. It seems the industry is ok and actually aiming for a quick melt pool.  I tend to follow a few youtube candle reviewers and over the years I have noticed that they give bad reviews on any candle that does not "pool out quick" as they say.  Reading the comments section it seems that the viewers, who are our customers, also want that quick fmp. So what gives?

Now...I certainly know why I wick my candles the way we do and that is safety reasons. I am not willing to sell candles that pool out the way these candles do. But my questions remains unanswered. How can these big corporations morally and safely sell candles that are what appear to be over wicked?

Thoughts?

1 hour ago, Sarah S said:

Paraffin wax.

I love CW's blends. I have been wanting to get some 4627 to play with though. 😁

I tried working with 4627 for a solid year amd no matter how much or how little FO % I used or wick combination, it seemed to throw black soot like crazy. More so than any other wax ive tried. 

But the throw on it is next to nothing I have found before or since trying it. Have fun with it if you do get some and let us know how you like it 😬

16 hours ago, Candybee said:

When I first started out I made floating candles with a paraffin pillar wax. I both colored and scented them. I enjoyed them a lot and love the look of floating candles but they just didn't sell period so I gave them up. I had this beautiful pic of my floating candles in a water bowl with flowers floating but unfortunately lost it when my old computer crashed on me last year.

 

I think there is still a market niche for floating candles for the pool for weddings and special occasions for added outdoor lighting ambiance. You could market them that way if you are trying to sell them. Just make sure you take some really good quality pictures of the floating candles in the scenario you are marketing for because they are a hard sell.

Off topic but just a tip if you want it. Next time you go to Walmart or anyplace that has an electronic section, look at getting a usb drive. They are relatively cheap these days and have a ton of storage. Just keep it plugged into your usb drive on your desktop computer and any file that is of any importance make a copy onto that usb drive. I save all of my .ai files on one incase my computer crashes, this way my files stay intact even if the computer itself is dead

1 hour ago, Quentin said:

I looked for the link to the company from whom I bought the matchbooks. I seem to have misplaced it. I'll have to wait until they arrive to find out who it was that I gave my money.

Sounds like something I would do as well Q  

On 2/3/2019 at 10:25 AM, Trappeur said:

So you like?   Oh great!   Oh yes, that was one of the first things that came to my mind as I could see walking into the store and seeing all these little baggies opened up from people wanting to sniff them.   I'm one step ahead of you BF....lol   I already made up small votives for the purpose of sniffing all the scents.

 

Thx.

Suzanne.....

Only thing I would want answered first is how many dang melts can fit in a 5x7 bag. Is it a bag that will hold like 50 melts?? Or is it a smaller bag that would hold maybe 10 or so...

LOW AND SLOW so you dont lose any throw like Trap said!

28 minutes ago, TallTayl said:

The timing of this shortage coincides with accublend’s factory relocation. Not very well announced though. With a little notice the hiccup in supply would not have been so bad. 

Accublend? Are they the makers of all this coconut wax or just the distributor?

Now if Northwoods could do the same. I wonder if they are using the same supplier and if its the same wax? Northwoods wax is soooo much more expensive though. It just seems odd to me that they BOTH sold out of their coconut waxes at the SAME TIME which would lead me to believe they get the wax from the same place. Who knows

I will chime in here as well. I have been working on my packaging/branding for going on 4 years now almost. Not saying this is the norm, just my path I have taken. I am currently on the 12th iteration of my branding, each one getting closer and closer to what I feel is a professional look. After all this time I feel I finally have something I feel is a unified look and feel that stands on its own and doesnt blend in with everything else in my area.  This is MY experience only as I said.

My point being, do not get discouraged. It may take time, well...hopefully not as much time as I took lol but I am overly critical of my branding and packaging. 

Best of luck and keep sending photos with updates! Great work so far!

11 minutes ago, TallTayl said:

Not sure you really need to explain any of it - or if explaining benefits anyone at all. Less is often more with retail/wholesale to avoid potential bias. Think about the candles on the retail shelf at target, they don’t usually make a big deal of the waxes. Those candles just smell good. 

 

Are you trying to capitalize on popularity of soy or coconut? 

 

 

Makes sense, perfect sense actually and what I would prefer to do.  I'm not trying to capitalize on the soy bandwagon, kinda the opposite. I wanna move toward a blend and was only trying to be open and honest about whats in the candle.  But again, your point stands about any candle on the shelf not making a big deal on whats inside in regards to wax.

I have a new account and they have decided on a blend I came up with that consists of 6006, soy wax and coconut wax.  My labels arent printed yet but in the template I have the wax listed as "a blend of Soy, Paraffin and Coconut waxes."  

As a customer would you be confused by a candle made with a blend of 3 waxes or is that fairly self explanatory? 

For example, we call Paraffin/soy blends Parasoy. Paraffin/coconut blends Paracoco... etc etc. Is there a correct "name" for a 2 wax blend like mentioned above? 

3 hours ago, Quentin said:

I have. I posted here a few weeks ago that I planned to use them instead of business cards. No one seemed too interested at the time. I've ordered 2500. Should be here in about 2 weeks.

Lol, well with 2500 of them on the way lets hope SOMEBODY is interested. Or else you have a lot of extra matches on hand. 

Out of curiosity, can you link to where you got them? Doesnt fit with my theme but always curious whats out there

Made a test candle in a shallow tin and it was the wrong wick. Im moving to a different wick and fragrance but instead of wasting the wax I used it on my hot plate candle warmer.  Now since its a shallow tin I am planning on using, the wax got really hot. Like 220*f hot.  If I plan on selling these shallow tins, like the little 4 ounce ones, what issues with safety do we have to worry about when the hot plate reaches 325*F plus and the wax is 220*F plus?  Do simple warnings about not handling while hot suffice? Or do I need to worry about a McDonalds hot coffee incident..

Thoughts?