olives

We use that blend for a Cider Donut candle that we make for a local farm store...it's perfect. Not to sticky-sweet, but very true-smelling.

I suggest WSP's Pumpkin Coconut Creme if you're looking for sweet and not the traditional pumpkin spice smell. 

On 2/29/2020 at 1:06 PM, Kerven said:

Off the top of my head (might be wrong), Calwax has:

EC26 - soy/coconut

CCP1 - coconut/paraffin

Ceda Serica - coconut/apricot (with some paraffin)

 

Hi Kerven, you're right! Here they are, below. I'm not sure which one of these is the coconut slabs at C&S...I suspect it's the EC26. 

2 hours ago, NightLight said:

The producer of the wax is accublend in California. 
 

http://www.accu-blend.com/

 

If you have a concern call them or email them.

 

I just  learned from them the wax is vegan and tallow, and beeswax free

So Accu-Blend is the producer of the coconut slab wax from C&S? If so, all of the boxes I received say CalWax, which would mean they're now sourcing from them instead of Accu-Blend...which would definitely be a different manufacturer!

2 hours ago, TallTayl said:

Maybe give Cal wax and C&S a call? Natural waxes always vary a little, but that seems like a huge change to now have sinkholes. 
 

could it be temps in your working area? When my shop is on the chilly side I get random sinkholes in super easy waxes, even apricot. 

Hi TallTayl, I just reached out to C&S and will report back. Something is definitely up...whether or not they admit to any changes, we shall see :)

Our studio space is actually a commercial space outside our home, so the temps are very consistent...thankfully, that's one variable I can consistently rule out when things go haywire!

I have been using the coconut slab wax from Candles & Supplies for the past year or so, and recently ordered a pallet. I noticed that each of the boxes on the pallet had tape covering something up on each box, which turned out to be the name CalWax (obviously the supplier of the wax). 
 

My previous orders from C&S of this wax have always arrived in plain boxes, so my first thought was that maybe for smaller orders, they re-package the wax into unmarked boxes. But once I started using the wax, it seemed to perform differently (sinkholes developing as the candles solidify, mainly) and now I’m wondering if this is a new coconut blend entirely. 
 

Has anyone ordered the coconut slab wax from C&S recently and noticed anything different?

😩

On 6/17/2018 at 10:46 AM, pughaus said:

@olives  Did you ever find a wick solution for this wax or have you moved on? 

I had to set testing aside for a bit but my most recent tests with HTP wicks were pretty good. Trying to find that sweet spot of the right size, though, is something I need to re-visit...but overall I was happy with the burn with those particular wicks!

27 minutes ago, pughaus said:

the htps and premiers did seem to best for me in that wax.    Hope you can find the right mix.  It sure is a pretty wax.

 

I guess I'm on an opposite track from many on those board- I've moving from all coconut to some soy, to mostly soy.  🤷‍♂️ 

I think since you're starting from scratch with soy - with no previous expectations of wicking, performance, etc. - you're probably at an advantage over those of us who have worked with soy for years and have been thrown into a tailspin with the changes!

17 minutes ago, pughaus said:

@olives   I guess the sinkholes I saw in my candles were not the flukes I thought they were.

 I've moved on from the wax myself.  My wicks tests were not promising and I've recently found out it's not a cruelty-free wax so I won't be using it in blends either.  

 

Oh wow...thanks for the heads up on that. I was planning on trying to blend in some soy, but we'll see...I was having OK luck with HTP wicks, although mushrooming was inevitable with any size at any point during the burn. I'm going to keep working with it because I really like how it looks and have been happy with scent throw, but if these sinkholes are a consistent issue then I might have to move on from it, too. I'm now playing with pouring temps, but who knows if that will help...

I have been crazy busy so a bit MIA, and I need to catch up with posts here...but I just wanted to pop in and let you know that I just poured a few candles with the wicks in the jars (prior pours were into jars with no wicks) and there are sinkholes in the center around almost every wick. !!! 

I have used FO in all my testing so far, and have been pouring around the same temps (165-ish), but now that I've added wicks to the jars, I see sinkholes. 

I am hoping that this is not a trend, but will report back...ugh!

5 hours ago, pughaus said:

I'm used to that as it's been my experience with all coco waxes and coco is pretty much all I've used.  I just poured my 1st soy candle 2 weeks ago and wicking it was so easy (relatively) I couldn't believe it!  

You're so right about that...I've never had any problems trying to wick soy, it's been pretty straightforward for me. But the other headaches soy has given me over the past year...OY! I'm hoping that once I nail down the right wicks for my jars, that this paracoco will be much smoother sailing going forward.

20 hours ago, pughaus said:

 

It's the prettiest wax I've seen.  I love how white it is and how the entire candle glows when lit.

 

In my pretest testing, I've poured 5 candles in my 3" straight glass tumbler.  No wicks.  3 w/ no fragrance.  2 with 6% FO
I heated the wax to between 160-175 degrees F.  I poured at anywhere from 150 -170 F. 

Every candle had sunken tops to some degree. The two with fragrance had sink holes in the center. 
All eventually developed wet spots in a couple of days.  I took no care at all in these early pours to prevent any of these things but it's worth noting, they happened. 

 

Based on early burns, I've already eliminated some wick types for further testing at this point:

ECO:  (see above posts)  
RRD:  the rrd34 had roughly the same size flame as the eco2 in burn 1.  There's only 1 RRD  size smaller than

 rrd34, which is the rrd29- and I don't have it.
LX:  hello mushroom my old friend- an LX 14 and even the wee LX12 mushroomed in this wax inside of 1.5 hrs.  I may revisit this though, depending on if/how much other wicks mushroom.

 

A big hurdle for me in coco waxes is getting past my disbelief re: how small I need to go in wick sizes.  I'm watching my htp62 fragranced tester burn as I type and now wondering if I should have used an htp52 

 

I just lit up 6 wicks in a pan test.  Will post results later today.

 

 

 

Your pan test results are fascinating. Thank you for doing that and being so detailed with your findings!

I completely agree with finding it hard to wrap my head around how small to go with wicks. And to add to that, it seems like the further down the candle is in the jar, a wick that seemed OK to start suddenly becomes the completely wrong choice. 

I heated to about 180+, added FO, and poured right after mixing in the FO, which was probably around 160-165. I am also now noticing wet spots as well, but like you said...I'm also not taking any precautions to try to prevent them, either. 

So you had dips AND sinkholes? I've also poured into jars with no wicks, and have had severe dips in almost every one (interestingly, always in the smaller jars) but no sinkholes yet. (Sinkholes and air cavities below the surface have been major problems for me with soy, which is one reason I'm looking to move away from it...so I'm praying to the wax gods that they aren't an issue with this wax!) 

8 hours ago, pughaus said:

Is it still a mushroom if it looks like a cat head?  

 

Omg! That is SOME mushroom!!

Really interesting results here, especially during burn 2...after seeing the burn 1 results, I was thinking that the Premier might pull out a win, but it's amazing how much changes during the second burn!

20 hours ago, pughaus said:

@olives

 

I've been doing a little pre- test testing on the IGI 6570  before I start the pan test.

 

An htp 62 might work for you in your 2.5" container.  Pic below is an htp 73  in a  3" glass after 3 burns (10 hrs total; last burn was 4 hrs.)  Nice sized steady flame.  

 

The Eco 2 was a fail.  Tall flame. Over 1" .  I'm not messing with an eco 1 so I'm officially ruling out eco wicks in this wax.

RRD34 was too tall as well.  Burned a lot like the eco2.

Ah, thank you! I should get my HTP sample pack tomorrow and can't wait to start my test burns with them. I will start with the 62 in that jar. I have been testing out CD wicks and they aren't bad...tested a CD6 in my 2.5" jar and seemed OK after a 2-hour initial burn, with some mushrooming near the end. I may have to wick down a size, but I'm going to give it another burn with the 6 to see how it does the further down in the jar it goes.

I don't have any papercore to test, but am hopeful that the HTPs will work for me since I can get them from Flaming, one of my go-to suppliers.

I agree with ECOs not being the right fit for this wax, and reassured to know you had the same results...looks like once I officially move over to the paracoco, I will have LOTS of ECO wicks to unload! 😂

Overall, how are you liking the burn of this wax? After my struggles with soy, I have to say that I'm really loving the paracoco. Aesthetically it's beautiful, before and after burns...

1 hour ago, pughaus said:

Did you try an eco 4 yet?  I was going to test that tonight.

The eco 4 is hungrier than an LX14 though- at least per the charts- so I suspect it will also be too much for this wax. 

I have a hunch an eco 2 might work better in unfragranced wax, but I don't think have one that small at home.   Maybe I should just open my sewing kit and grab some thread...

 

 

 

 

I did try an ECO 4 and it gave me a full melt pool in about 45 minutes...so that's when I switched gears and tried the LX wicks. You have me laughing at the thread!!

1 hour ago, pughaus said:

 

 

@olives  In my SC21 unfragranced testers (in a filled 3" dia. tin)  an LX14  produced an almost 3/4" melt pool in 2 hrs and smoked like a little chimney with the slightest hint of a breeze . No mushroom though    (I assumed the SC21 paracoco and IGI paracoco are pretty similar mixes... but who knows?! I guess I'll find out soon enough)  

 

To give you an idea how small I'm starting with this paracoco, last night I tested a Premier 725 in the SC21.   At 3 hrs, MP reached just abt 2.70"" and depth was abt 1/2" .  Unlike the LX, the Premiere didn't smoke at all, even if blown on. Tiny mushroom started to form at the end...  

 

 

That's great to hear about the Premier! I will order a sample pack next time I have to place an order with Flaming. 

I've moved on from the ECOs with this wax, I think. In my tests, consumption rate was really high and the flames were large. I'm going to start testing CD wicks next....

10 hours ago, kandlekrazy said:

Not sure if this will help with your wax,  but  it's worth a try.  When I was getting tunneling it was right near the wick so I started pouring super slowly down the wick itself, if you're pouring on the cool side it will not disturb the wick coating.  It takes a bit longer to pour but cut out my repours because it solved my problem, now I just have to heat gun if they are at all messy on top.

Thanks @kandlekrazy...my air cavities are definitely near the wicks so I will try that!

4 hours ago, GoldieMN said:

My last two boxes from Rustic Escentuals are dated January 2018.

GoldieMN

Interesting...I get mine from Bulk Natural Oils...

10 minutes ago, c_gills said:

I had tunneling issues with my candles that I made during December using 444. The tunneling wasn't from bubbles in the wax, I think it was the wax itself. I heard through this forum that Golden Brands had a hydrogenator got out and had manufacture all of wax using only one. In turn, producing as much as they could, as fast as they could and possibly hurting quality. What is the production date of the wax you're using? I have one case left that was manufactured in December and am afraid to use it!

 

@olives and @Linds

For those having sink holes issues - have you tried stirring more gently and less, and then pouring very slowly? I use wick stickers too and have noticed bubbles around them, but when I pour more slowly and focus my pour on them, they usually float to the top by the end of the pour.

The dates on my boxes of 464 wax are all in late November 2017. (Interestingly, these have been the same dates on all of the boxes I've purchased from my supplier so far this year...I would have thought that by now they would have later dates on them...)

One thing I have been doing is stirring slower and more gently, and eliminating intermittent stirring as the wax is cooling down before I pour. This does seem to help a bit, but not eliminating all of the air cavities.

i do agree at this point that these issues are related to soy wax, because these issues just started happening to me last fall with no change in my production methods, wicks, fragrance oils, etc. Really frustrating!

18 minutes ago, ComfortandJoy said:

LX wicks always mushroomed in my coconut wax test candles.

Glad to hear it's not just me! I've crossed those off the testing list...

17 minutes ago, leisa2003 said:

Did you ever find a wick that you like so far??

Not yet...I started out testing ECO wicks, but the sizes I was testing were way too much for my jar. Fast consumption, big flames, a slight fuel smell, and the wax discolored after burning. I set my testers aside and haven't gone back to them yet, but I will be trying again when I have the chance and wicking WAY down during my next texts. I liked how the wax set up and I found that jar adhesion was great. 

4 minutes ago, pughaus said:

I was going to test an eco 4 so that sounds about right. Is there an eco -1 size?   If I've learned anything in 4 months of working with coco wax is that I should just start with a tealight wick and work my way up.😋

There is an ECO 1 but it's a tiny 1-inch tealight wick...even that would probably burn too hot! 😂

First test burn report today:

I used an ECO 6 in my 2.5" jar, and it seemed to be too much for the jar. Fast consumption, large flame, and the wick itself was curling (although I may have not trimmed it short enough before the burn test...) Will try an ECO 4 next.

I used an LX 20 in my 3.25" jar, and I was pleased with the burn rate. However, the wick mushroomed like crazy. This was my first time trying an LX wick, so I'm not sure if this is a common trait for this type of wick? But, and I quote from the Lone Star website, "These wicks are designed to reduce "mushrooming"...", so I'm not quite sure what was up. 

Here are the 2 jars I poured that ended up with divots in the middle after cooling. (The other 2 larger jars didn't get these...) Interesting...I'm going to test burn the 9 oz jar on the left shortly; just stuck an ECO wick down the middle and heat gunned a bit to seal.