Jane42

We have had two fires in the area due to candles I don't know all the details, but it does make you worry about what could happen. As has already been stated, you may have a chance of winning your case, but it costs money.

I wouldn't sell without the insurance. I just cannot risk what my husband and I have worked for all these years from a business that, as of yet, I have not earned one penny from...

We sell our melts out of the cardboard display boxes - same for our votives. I do want to come up with a way to package them, though, for shipping purposes. I also think it would be nice to be able to dress them up a little around the holidays.

We always have cello bags around the displays so customers can mix and match to their heart's content! Around the holidays, we use the decorated cello bags that we find around this time of year on clearance.

We used to have to warm the tabs to get them to adhere - otherwise, when we pulled the warning label off, the wick would come out too!

It was very time consuming. When you are making hundreds of votives, sitting there and playing around with the wicks was just plain annoying!

Luckily, the wicks we use now have a higher neck on them. They fit tight and we don't have to worry about heating the tabs anymore! They are the LX wicks from Bittercreek, if that helps any....

Yep the single pour types are still the same. I called C&S on Wednesday and told them the the 4636 is selling for 75 a case at other suppliers....that their prices went down. I was told that they are not ordering another load of wax for 3 to 4 weeks and they wouldnt lower the prices untill than. Sometimes, as a company, you have to take a loss to make a profit in the long run...they should follow these other suppliers and lower their prices.

Exactly...they are going to lose customers if they hold at those higher prices! I never considered looking any farther than C&S for wax because they are the closest supplier to us, but that is definitely going to change.

I also like the fact that Candlescience shows me what the shipping will be instead of having to "guess" with C&S.

Thanks, mrsposey, for your input - I think I will give them a try!

Do you wrap your tarts or sell them in a bag. Ot single. I did the clam shells. I sold a few, but a lot more candles. I would love to sell tarts but would like to know the best way to sell them, that sells.

We have our melts in the cardboard display boxes with clear cello bags next to them. People just pick and choose what they want. Around the holidays, we purchase the decorated cello bags and some people use them as gift bags.

The waxes we order from C&S haven't gone down at all!

Ours are still at $96.00 a case, but Candlescience has the same wax for $75 a case. I have never ordered from them, but there is always a first time!

We make our Hot Apple Pie the color of a pie crust....because we have too many different shades of red already. I have had some people comment, and have considered changing it....but when I ask other customers, they like it because it is neutral and it goes with any decor - or they say they really don't care as long as it smells good.

All white would be sooo much easier....lol

AntoniasCreations, I am glad you were able to "move on" after your husband's auntie's comments - not worth the hassle - but definitely no more candles for her!!

Hmmm, Candles and Supplies is still holding at $96.00 a case for IGI4630 and 4794....

The question should be what is the least amount of FO you can put in a candle and still get a great smelling candle, that burns great. More FO does not necessarily mean a better or stronger candle. I have migrated to the thought that if it doesn't throw at 1 oz pp or less, I don't keep it.

This is my thought also. Some of our FO's are good at 1 oz per lb, but we do have several that we have to put more in. We had the same mindset as you do - the more the better - not thinking about the cost. I love the fragrances and they are popular, so I don't want to stop using them, but I think we would have been better off if we had continued to test until we found these fragrances that would work using less. Anything that "hikes" up the cost of the candle is not a good thing if you can avoid it. We are selling now and I can't see how we can wholesale since it costs us so much to make - but that's another story....:rolleyes2

This is just my opinion - I am certainly no expert!

We double wick our 10 oz apothecary jars with LX 8, LX10 and LX 12 depending on the FO. We weren't able to single wick, but if that is what you are looking for, maybe someone else has a suggestion. We like the looks of the double wick...

At our show yesterday a woman picked up our jar and said "ohh, it is very nice, but I hate buying jar candles because then I have to wonder what to do with it when it is done....with all the waste in landfills, it just doesn't seem right" and she walked off.....lol

The woman at the next booth came over and said she couldn't believe the woman said that. I told her that people are trying very hard to limit the waste they send to the landfills but A) has she never heard of recycling and I wonder what her pickles are packaged in.....lol

If it was a gift, I would buy the jar...if it was for me, I would buy the votives.

It's one thing recycyling a box that has no "advertising" on it, and quite another to be ultimately advertising for some one else to save a few cents. If you really HAD to use that box, you could simply flip it inside out.

Really not cool, though, to charge a handling fee and then use materials advertising some one elses product.

Since alot of us do not have our own shops, it wouldn't occur to us that OUR customers may frown on a shop having a box "labeled" Mouse Traps (or any other pest control items) being delivered while I was shopping for my B & B. The store I used to work for had deliveries brought through the front door - we did not have a different delivery area in the back....

We have the cardboard display votive and melt boxes. We do keep those mixed in larger tubs and it seems to work fine...when we open each cardboard box for a show, the scent is definitely what is in the box.

We do store our extra votives and melts in the plastic shoe boxes.

We used to keep our "bummers" (these are the imperfect ones that we sell for a discount - we call them "bummers" because that would be what we would say when that HUGE bubble appeared on the top of a votive or we didn't quite have enough for that last melt, etc....lol) in a basket near our table at shows...since they are all mixed and not shrinkwrapped individually, even I sometimes could not determine what the scent was! Once you burned/melted it, it was fine...

C&S are very high on their wax prices. Did you try Candle Science...even with shipping they will probably be less than C&S.

Recently I received a bad batch of wax from another supplier and had to order from C&S. Their 50/50 wax is $25 more per case than my prior supplier. I bought enough to get me through the season, and will be retesting next year. But I will be ordering from Candlescience in the future.

We will definitely check that out. We picked up this order when we were there, so it was just more convenient and no shipping.

Thanks!

We started with J223, but didn't like the wet spots. I thought the hot and cold throw was very good, though.

We moved over to 4630. Definitely need to wick down, since it seems to smoke more, but this wax has worked well for us...LX wicks work well for us with this wax.

We do buy our wax from Candles and Supplies. We used to buy a lot of our scents from them, but we have weeded through the ones we don't like and buy those from different suppliers. It would just be too cost effective for us to be able to buy everything from one place... And even though that sounds like a good idea, you will find that you can't find everything you want in just one place....at least we couldn't.

I don't know if this will help any, but I am going to give it a go......

We started our candle "business" several years ago with high hopes of making the perfect candle, selling bunches and bunches and living happily ever after. We made a few scents, thought it looked good, and sold at a small craft fair. We felt we were ready to design labels, get a website, wholesale, do fundraisers........

Then I found this site.....WOW

After reading for days, I burned one of our candles again to see how it compared to what I was reading as to how a good candle burns. We had chosen IGI4630, which most people know that have tried it or read these boards, tends to smoke. Sure, our candle burned great for the first few hours...even smelled nice....but the soot that formed when we "power burned" (which is what I have found alot of our customers do...one person even fell asleep and it burned all night!), our jar was blacker than black. I was so disappointed - not only because we had to start from square one with our testing, but that we had sold some and now our name was going to be associated with a candle that was totally inferior! Luckily, that show was very small, but I personally knew some of the people that purchased from that show and they have never contacted me to reorder, nor have they purchased anything from me at the craft shows we now do. I probably not only lost them as customers, but anyone that they talk to.

We learned a tough lesson, but it was a lesson worth learning! We are very confident with our product at this point, and it has taken us years, but we know it is a safe product. Sometimes it doesn't take years...some people do "luck out" and get it right the first few times, but I remember that we thought we had it right too......

I guess I just want to say that rather than get defensive, I would open yourself up to reassessing what you are doing. You have to know your product, and what you are using, to feel confident that it is a good product.

Good Luck on your venture....

A good enough reason why you shouldn't rely on the good ole USPS. :rolleyes2

Fedex or UPS is the way to go, insurance and tracking are added for NO additional cost, unlike USPS who charges you for everything.

I work for a small college and I prefer UPS to USPS any day of the week!! With all of their new rules and regulations, it is totally confusing. Personally, unless it is a flat rate box or a regular #10 envelope, I don't deal with USPS - and even then, if I need insurance or confirmation of delivery, I just send UPS.

I sent a bubble envelope with a shoe shine kit in it to my son at college. Since I work near the mail room in the college, I put postage on it and sent it with the college mail. We send packages like that all the time from the college...well, maybe not shoe shine kits, but you get the idea...lol

I go to my personal post office one day and there is my package. The postmaster told me that since it was over 13 ounces, I couldn't just "drop mail" it - due to homeland security... Now, I have to admit that I haven't even gotten on their wonderfully easy website to figure this out....

Next time, UPS........

I take the star burst out of the mold before all the way cooled down, then bubble wrap it and let it sit until cooled. This way I can get the candle out of the mold. I don't have any problem with the feather wax coming out. I cover my molds with bubble wrap before pouring and then cover over the top of them so they can cool down slower. The star burst burst more this way and the color really pops out. I made pumpkin spice and colored with orange chips and one was not covered and one pillar was cover with bubbble wrap before. the one with bubble wrap turned a darker orange and the one without wrap was a yellowish color.

OK - I have only poured one pillar, but I think we have it wicked correctly - after several different wicks-lol-, so I have a question before I pour different scents for testing....

You say you pull it out before it is completely cooled, but don't you have to do a second pour on the starburst, or is it a one pour wax??

I did put a box over our tester pillar, but I will try wrapping it in the bubble wrap and see what happens. I just love, love, love this wax!

mmmm....Cherry Pipe Tobacco - that brings back memories of when my dad would smoke his pipe after dinner. I used to love that scent! He quit that habit long ago, but I think I can still smell it......lol

Isn't that wax beautiful?!?! Very pretty pillar.

I am test burning our first palm pillar right now. First wick tunneled - waiting to see how this one does.

I have ALWAYS purchased our beads from BC, but I needed items from three different suppliers last week and none of them was BC so I purchased our beads from Cajun......oh, I am so hoping that they are ok.

I wish I had some good advice for you.

Just a quick comment on wet spots. Some of you laughed at those of us who use Crisco and heat our jars to eliminate wet spots, but after reading your comments on the wet spot complaints in 4630 & j223, I just smile.

I use J50 and add Crisco & I heat my jars, and I get very few wet spots. When I do get a couple, it's usually because I get in a hurry and pour too hot. (Usually the last batch of the evening when I want to go to bed.)

Fredron

When we pour 4630 and cool, no wet spots. It is after we have had them stored in the cardboard box for awhile that the wet spots show up - probably too cool where they are stored. When I bring them home and set them out, they are fine....no wet spots.

We do heat our jars, but don't wash them like we used to - just wipe them out, especially where we place the wicks. I am still on the fence about that - I still "feel" a coating on them, which I think will attract dust, etc. They are stored in closed boxes, but once they are out and on display....

lol - that is what I DON'T like about soy! It just amazes me what people can do with a negative and turn it into a positive - like I would WANT something that looked like that!

We started with J223 and switched to 4630 because of the wet spots we were experiencing. I loved the J223 - good scent throw, colored nicely. If we weren't "beginners" and totally turned off by the wet spots, we may have stayed with it.

There is no way we would refill jars for people. I have no clue if that jar has been rolling around in their car before it got to me and the liability would not be worth the $1.18 I saved in not using a new jar.

We do reuse for testing, since we know how we have handled the jar - but after awhile even those are given a new "job", since the constant reheating of the glass can cause them to become less reliable.

It sure sounds good to customers - everyone loves "GREEN" now. Unfortunately, people will probably do it thinking they are doing a great service without even a thought to what they may be getting in return....