Lana

48 minutes ago, FB157 said:

Barbara I have this one and personally love it. Its not your typical pine. If you have ever walked into a Hollister store it smells exactly like that. Like a clean and modern pine if that makes sense. I smell nothing of raspberry in this one. Hope this helps.

Lol are you the person that said that in the review on the the FC website?? That's part of why I was interested in this scent and I don't smell the Hollister smell AT ALL.

It's still a good scent though. I'm melting it now and I'm pretty pleased. I have no idea what a roasted pinecone is supposed to smell like, but this has a nice pine-ish smell with a hint of something sweet, I'm guessing the berry note, but I'd never be able to detect berry without knowing it's in there. It's fairly strong in my parasoy wax melt at 7% though it is not wafting through my house quite as much as I would like (I have a pretty small house but not an open floor plan, so it always makes me happy when the scent makes its way to the back of my house). 

My opinion is that anything OOB doesn't mean much. I've had scents that smell amazing, strong and complex OOB and fall flat in wax. I've had blah OOB scents that smell great once they are in wax and fully cured.

When I buy a whole bunch of scents during a sale or whatever, it's easy to gravitate towards the stronger smelling ones for what I want to make first for testing purposes, but over the past couple of years that I've been doing this (mostly melts), I've learned OOB means very little when it all comes down to it. I guess if I had to generalize, I have more success with good, strong OOB scents in the final product than less-than-impressive OOB, but I don't believe it to be cut and dry.

I just recently received this in one of their samplers. I put it in my tart wax and it smells really nice but I haven't tested it yet.  I will say, on cold sniff, it reminds me of something else I couldn't put my finger on. (OOB and in wax). It's definitely a scent I've smelled before, I just can't remember where for the life of me.  Could be something from another supplier or maybe just a candle I've smelled before, but I found it to be a pleasant, familiar scent.  I am not sure if it's a true pine cone scent though and I don't believe I've smelled CS Pine Cones to compare to that. I'm testing it tonight and can hopefully have some better feedback! 

I have both and prefer CS as well. I do use RE's as a blender for other pumpkin scents though. It's not bad, just not my favorite.  I wish I was at home to be able to sniff both and describe the differences I detect. I'd say the CS is stronger and more decadent smelling, if that makes sense.

Hi everyone,

I make wax melts in clamshells using parasoy pillar wax. When I used to make them in my main kitchen, there was always moving air, whether from me and the dogs walking around, opening doors, A/C being on, etc. Because of this (or so I thought), my tops were always a little lumpy. I moved my work station to my 2nd kitchen in my basement and like magic, I had some of the smoothest tops.

However, I have not changed my formula, my location, etc. and all of a sudden, I'm getting lumpy tops again. 

My process is this: I heat my wax to 195, remove from heat, add FO at 180, stir for a few mins or until it reaches 150 and pour. 

Attached is an image of the same fragrance, but made on separate days. Temperature in the room has been consistent. I keep a small space heater on when I am working and it is on the lowest setting and it is not pointed in the direction of my work space. 

Is my counter top too cold, perhaps? (We haven't had cold weather here, but I suppose it's possible that my countertop is for some reason colder than normal). If so, is there something I could lay on my counter when I'm pouring to help them cool more evenly?

Or maybe I'm way off and it's a different cause. Please help. I want my smooth tops back. 

I always look for reviews, but negative or no reviews doesn't stop me from buying. (Although I've learned that in many cases, there is a reason for low stars or a low # of reviews, especially with NG). But anyways, I always give something a shot if I think I might like it or it might sell. 

I will admit, in the beginning of my FO trials, I was the one making reviews like "This is great!" but now that I've been doing this for a while and I've worked with so many different waxes, I now try to leave reviews with what wax I used and at what %. Along with my thoughts on the HT/CT and sometimes the scent itself (even though it's different for everyone). 

I I haven't reviewed in a while but I plan to sit down and write reviews for some of my recent purchases. Just like its hard to buy candles online when you can't sniff them, it's hard for people to try scents sight unseen (or unsniffed), so I like to give my feedback. 

I like some Natures Garden scents I tried, most Flaming Candle, most Candle Science, most Candle Cocoon and almost everything I've tried from Sweet Cakes (which is only about 10-12 so far). Sweet Cakes fragrances are the most complex I've smelled and the price is high, but you use less per lb of wax and still get good throw. (I've only tested a majority of my fragrances on wax melts, though). 

52 minutes ago, candlesinflorida said:

That's the one I was imagining
I love their designs. 

I would love to see how the etching cream works out. Long ago...before my crafty days...I once tried to etch a mirror with some sort of etching spray from home depot; it didn't turn out so well.

I tend to have not so great luck with any kind of crafty thing (Except melts/candles lol) so I don't have the highest of hopes for my plan, but I'm gonna try! I'm going to get my hands on this cream, good gloves and safety glasses and start practicing. Hopefully this weekend, but maybe the following. 

This is the Nest jar that I'm referring to. I think they're so pretty. (edited to add: I obviously haven't cleaned this one up, but I'm just saying the glass itself is my favorite out of any candle I've purchased)

2 hours ago, jbradshaw said:

What if you did a stencil and used etching cream? I think that would look really nice, I'm envisioning an etched design all around the glass with a logo label so your logo still stands our. 

The etching cream is exactly what I was thinking. I've never done anything like that but I might get to experimenting this weekend. I was really more concerned about the safety of doing this. As in, does it make the glass more likely to shatter or anything? Of course, I'd test it repeatedly on my end before selling or anything, but if there was a major safety concern, I wouldn't even consider it. 

2 minutes ago, candlesinflorida said:

never heard of etching cream; how does it work?

I haven't looked fully into it yet but I believe it's a acid-y cream that you apply to glass, leave on for a few minutes and wipe it off. The acid basically eats the surface of the glass, which is leaves the etched appearance. 

That's just based on some quick googling before work this morning, so forgive me if my description is the worst. Lol. 

Just wondering if any of you have etched any of the standard glass vessels you sell. My favorite candles to buy are Nest and they have beautiful candle jars that I think are so pretty. They're clear glass with etched vertical stripes. It got me thinking.... Maybe I could etch a design or my logo onto the glass of my candles. 

I tend to like a clean look on the glass itself and would rather put all pertinent information on the bottom warning label and and on the outer packaging, as opposed to a label on the glass. I feel like an etched design might give it the oomph it needs. 

Thoughts? Concerns? Advice?

I really like the look of that jar without the bow. I'm not sure the bow adds anything to it. I'm not sure if it's the bow itself or the gold color, but for whatever reason, it doesn't really do anything for me. 

The jar itself is very nice and unique and your labels look great on it. 

5 minutes ago, lovelyscents said:

I have heard good things about their clams as well and that they do not have the bad plastic smell.

Definitely no weird smell when I get them. For the most part I like all their products and their customer service is alright. I give them business, just not necessarily on FO at this point. However, this thread did finally make me bite the bullet on one of the suppliers on my "must try" list and that is SweetCakes. I don't know what can of worms I have just opened. I feel like I might as well just direct deposit my pay checks over to them every week. (Assuming it's as good as I expect it to be). 

3 hours ago, SueH said:

I too have been curious about this company, I'm not too far from them. I have been thinking of trying the clamshells, would be a lot cheaper with shipping for me.

His clamshells are great. Nice, sturdy, heavy plastic. I've seen some flimsy clamshells out there in the world, but theirs are great quality. 

I have the CS Peach Nectar but I haven't put it in wax yet. It smells great OOB though and I don't get a boozy note. 

I order clamshells from them, along with a few other items. I ordered Pina Colada, or maybe got it as a sample, I can't remember. It was definitely Pina Colada-y, but the fake syrupy kind of mix you might buy at the grocery store. HT was strong in parasoy at 7% but the scent was too fake-smelling. I want to try more, because so many people are obsessed, but don't want to throw away money and add another fragrance supplier. I have 3 suppliers on my list to try before MS again. 

On January 12, 2017 at 10:46 PM, TallTayl said:

The tea smells like strong, like unbelievably nose hair singing strong black tea. 

 

Trappeur, when you say Chardonnay is a bomb, is that like bomb diggety or major loser?

Well, I've finally realized I have a problem. A FO addiction problem. I ordered some FOs from Flaming Candle and ordered the Black Tea as discussed. Come to find out, I already ordered it but never did anything with it to test it. Damn it! Thankfully it's only a few bucks, but hopefully I like it now that I have 2 just sitting here. Hahaha. 

6 hours ago, mellybabydoll said:

Hello! So I've been researching candle-making and one frustration I've come across is that I see a lot of fragrance -blends- ...whether that be 2 notes or 10, it seems to be

really hard to find single note fragrance oils that are as close to natural essential oil scents and perfectly linear.

 

Ideally I'd love to be able to find ONE company, that does organic or at least non-synthetic fragrance oils in all of the scents Mountain Rose Herbs carries, for instance.

So, for instance, a juicy blood orange single note, clary sage, french lavender, eucalyptus, bulgarian/chinese rose, honeysuckle, blueberry, copal, palo santo, cedar etc.

All in really strong concentrations and as pure as possible.

 

Can anyone please help me? Thanks in advance.

Well, you're not going to find many "all natural" fragrance oils, because for the most part, what makes them a fragrance oil is what makes them unnatural and not found in nature. There are exceptions, but those are mostly blends anyways and not single note. If you want to be all natural, start testing with essential oils. Your throw may end up being less than compared to fragrance oils, but that's because of FO's are made to bind with the wax and disperse scent into the air and EO's generally are not.

There are people here that make candles and wax melts with essential oils, so it can be done. It's just a matter of testing, tweaking and testing some more. (Which is no different with fragrance oils...either way, you're playing with wax and fragrance ratios, testing wicks, etc). 

It's an expensive addiction! 

Sorry I can't contribute to your candle questions but I just want to say these cats are so cute!! I love the first pic. Something about my cat or dogs crossing their paws or leaning like that...it's always the cutest thing I've ever seen and I must have hundreds of pics of similar poses. Cute! ?

1 hour ago, lovelyscents said:

I notice that some vendors use actual photos from google or even exact fonts from TV series etc. for their labels and / or websites. Will these vendors ever run into serious copyright issues?

You know...this might make me a terrible person but I do hope it catches up with them bc it's SO blatant sometimes. I do my best to check TESS and not copy people. Some of them make a lot of money on another person's hard work and it makes me crazy. I personally would not risk it for a myriad of reasons, integrity and avoiding legal issues being the top 2. 

Oh that reminds me - Mahogany Coconut was really good in wax (parasoy). So good!

TallTayl, does the tea really smell like tea? I haven't tried theirs yet because I was so disappointed in others that I gave up. I, too, was hoping beyond hope to blend an earl grey. I got discouraged and stopped trying. 

16 hours ago, countrygal3115 said:

Do you guys have some suggestions of some fragrances that are a must have from Flaming!  

Tobacco Caramel is a personal favorite and I get a lot of requests for it in my melts. That's tje first thing that comes to mind for me. I'll have to go down to my stash to think of others. 

I mix juniper berry cedar with peppercorn from RE and it's nice and spicy w no sweetness to it. I'm sure either would be fine by themselves too. This isn't really "spicy" but I really like Fig & cassis from RE. It's complex and not very sweet, to my nose.  

59 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

I haven't been using clams so when I throw a chunk into my smaller plug in warmer even a cup is too big so I'll halve or quarter it. I will look into clams next since it would probably just fix the problem and make the texture not really matter

I think you just missed a sale on clams at Maple Street, but they usually have good prices even at the regular price. I'd check theirs out if you're going to try clamshells. Or, you can buy silicone molds that are on the smaller size and don't need to be cut into pieces. There's always good deals on Amazon and eBay. 

Ok I realize this is super technical and difficult , but....I use a large Tupperware type container to scoop out my granulated pillar wax from the 50lb box. I only make a relatively small amount at a time, but the containers come in all sizes and are inexpensive and easy to find.