Clear Black

I sell locally at fairs currently. I own an ecommerce website, but have yet to build that or an etsy page. Hopefully over the winter I can get the ball rolling on those things.

Im just sooo glad I dont have to spend 3 hours, twice a week, lumping 500 cases of candles into the stores anymore. Im pushing middle age and my back isnt as young as it used to be lol

Ok, Im going to fill you all in on a little secret. Im a big rig truck driver when not making candles for fun. Thats how I pay my bills and how my daughter is going to college. The single biggest customer for my company for the longest time was Yankee Candle. We had the sole contract for all of North America to haul their candles to retail stores, and then lump inside. This was the case up until a few years ago when the candle industry moved away from dry van shipping. (In laymans terms, thats just a regular everyday trailer) Why they did you ask? Because too many of their candles would melt en route and damage claims were through the roof in warmer climates. So, the big candle companies set into motion a new plan and tactic of shipping the candles cross country. From that point on, most candles, including ALL of Yankee Candles products, are now shipped via reefer trailer. Reefer trailers are "refridgerated" trailers that can maintain sub-zero temps or whatever temp the shipper requests. Thats the secret to how candles of all viscosity, whether soft or firm, are shipped and do not melt.

Jeez mate, is that actually your place in that picture? Those exposed brick walls are spectacular!

CB, are those your in that photo? If so may I ask what you use to color them and which salt you are using? They look so uniform in size, the ones I get from Home Depot are no way near that uniform and are the larger crystals.

Trap, the white bw is simply "bleached" in order to remove the color. From all my experience and info ive read its mainly for cosmetic reasons

More isnt always good. It can actually be worse. It can drown the wick, cause mushrooming and all sorts of other things. Sounds like you are at 6.25% of fo, moat people stay within 6-8%. Myself I use 8%. Just because the supply companies say the wax can handle 12% doesnt mean you need to or shpuld go that high. Fo will be one of, if not the highest, cost you incur per candle. If you plan on re-selling like you suggested, anything beyond 7% starts to eat profits. But definetly 2 weeks on the cure, and as I said before, if it doesnt work at 7ish%, then it just may be a dud fo and move on to the next one. Try a similar one from another supplier. I went through 4 Black cherry fo before i found one that worked. I like that suppliers Black cherry so much i tried more of thiers and now I carry 8 of their fo...so you never know i guess

Welcome rhoops! Im one of the few here that use 444 as well. Most of theses folks I think use 464 or another soy so feel free to ask any questions you may have In regards to the missing HT on some...it just may be that the particular fo in question doesnt work well for soy. Once you start to wick up you have to make sure your tins arent burning too hot. TT and Trap off the top of my head use those tins so they may be able to answer whether wicking up will add new problems as far as burning too hot. The tins I use for 444 are much different so I cannot help there sorry. Good luck!

Its really a matter of cost. I use the modifier in my room spray but its a bit pricey. The p20 looks more cost effective when making water beads

CB, have you ever thought about using sheet pan racks like they do in bakeries? Tons of vertical storage, and the racks are skinny so you can just put multiple ones next to each other. The sheet pans also would replicate your cafeteria trays and be stackable in these racks at the same time. https://www.webstaurantstore.com/45131/sheet-pan-racks.html

Heya Trap!! Isnt a quart considered a 32 oz jar? Even so, the pint jars I was referring to are my 16oz cans, not the jar in the photo. Although the jar in the photo is indeed a 16oz container, they call it an Economy Round from where I purchase them, not a mayo. And its a regular mouth, not wide mouth. If you can see the neck tapers in towards the top, and that is my weakest spot of the whole jar. It burns a bit hot at the top if I pour too high, so I keep it at 12oz of wax in the jar. Its a bit backwards being hot at the top I know, but it cools down to where you see it in the photo after that neck. After the neck its pretty smooth sailing for the rest of the jar actually

Its 444 Moon, and Im now at the 4hr mark after last trim and got a 1/4 deep full melt pool with about 1/5th left of wax. To me, that seems right on mark so Im happy for now.

I had a 16 oz glass tester burning so I snapped a few crude pics just to show you what I was referring to Moon. This is about 2 hours after my last wick trim, which I didnt really need to do, it just had a few "mickey mouse ears" I call them. A few very small ones, but they annoy the crap outta me. But as you can see, even with a CD-20 I still have hangup a bit at the bottom 1/3 and not even a full MP after a few hours. Whne this jar is down to the last 1 1/2inch or so, that hangup is all but gone. Id say thats about what Id want ya? Still learning and testing so feel free to tell me other wise

I use 444, and 16oz paint cans which are 3w3d4h. And glass jars that are the same cept 5h. I never get more than a 1/4in deep mp and they stay fairly cool til the bottom 1/3. After that they heat up a bit, but not too bad. I tried CD-18 in these jars but I was getting way too much hangup. Even with the glass jar I have there is "residual" hangup on the sides until the very last inch or so of the jar

GREAT info Cb. GREAT info and a very good read. I didnt know a thing about this but its info that I would have been looking for in a month or two when I branch out into wholesale so TYVM

Ya, I use CD-20's on 3" diam containers, that cd22 may end up burning a bit hot down the bottom of that 7oz little jar. Unless ofc, its a wide 7oz container

I cant answer that question, but im curious what container that is? It looks eerily familiar with what I have been using for the last 3 years. I am curious how you are liking them if it is what I think it is

It wasnt you we were worried about, more so our dear Candy Bee that troubled us lol

No im not set on it being an oil, wasnt sure if there was another method. But as Marla pointed out, maybe Poly-20 would work. Any idea what % to add the Poly-20 in at?

Im experimenting with making some batches of water beads. Naturally oil and water dont play well together so my first test batch of fragrance oil and distilled water didnt go very far. I knew this of course, but still wanted to test and see if I could get them to play enough together to incorporate into the water beads. NOPE. So, my next best guess is to just find some sort of oil to use as a carrier for the fragrance oil. This is where I need your help. * Looking for an oil that is clear, odorless and about the same viscosity as tap water. Something that is also inexpensive as it will just be acting as a carrier for the FO. I dont know much about grapeseed oil or any other oils so thats why im here asking. Any help locating an oil that is as close to water as you can, please let me know. Thanks.

If you replicate God help us all. RIP Craft Server

Woah..wait a sec. We have two Candy Bees? I THOUGHT ONE WAS ENOUGH!!! 🤤

Same goes for me as well TT. I work with Adobe Illustrator everyday almost and can take any of your graphics or logos and turn them into vectors. This way you can scale up/down infinetly. If Dorothy is a GD then she should have zero problems doing this as well..its mostly a hobby for me to design in AI, but it appears she does it on a higher level than me and thats good news for you and the CS boards Just let us know a general idea for a Craft Server logo or "mascot" and whomever wants to help can start designing it.

So do you think this is the direction you will be going to stear away from soy TT? How would you deal with the extra cost of the coconut and bw since they are both generally more expensive than soy alone. Im very interested in which ratio above is working out the best. Any chance you could keep us posted as the burns go? Possibly make your own thread so we can keep track of that progress? Im standing right next to you in regards of being done with soy. I just got 500lbs of 444 in last week and the tests are all over the map as compared to last summers batch I ordered. I cant continue to trust soy if it will be like this

I think trouble was trying to get started here Candybee! Get your pitch fork ready!