Forrest

I mostly make candles for my family and they all prefer tins.

I wish I could help, but you know way more than I do about these things, but thank you for teaching me to avoid tapered containers at all cost.

I hope your eyesight is better than mine, I had to buy a magnifying glass to see which side was which.

The first time I tried that with an HTP I had the direction of the curl wrong, but a quick wickectomy solved that problem and it worked well. More recently I twisted my HTPs by holding then at the base, so that they wouldn’t come out of the tab, and twisting them at the top. That worked very well, except the wick was too big. I went ahead and burned that candle just to see how the wick worked and the other three I made will get a wickectomy.

I held the wick just above the tab and twisted the top so that it wouldn't pull out of the tab. I'll burn my first one today, I hope this works because really like the HTP.

It is not easy to make good candles, it is very dificult. There is a thread on this page titled "What advice would you give a newbie", start there.

I'm not using any foodie FOs right now, but I have had success with LX wicks with 4630. The trouble with HTPs is that they lean over and your MP is one sided. Someone recommended twisting HTP and I tried that last week but haven't burned the candle yet.

Thanks, I will add them to the list. I just used some 735s, but I don't have htp 62s or cd 4s. The 735s are the smallest I needed for my FOs and it was only for one. I'm in the process doing an inventory of my wicks so I can fill in the gaps from the list. So far the list has been very useful. I have a list of my FOs with a baseline wick so wicking new containers will be much easier.

Thanks for the input, I've been slow to update my list, but here is the final version. It contains several wicks I don't have, but I'm working on that. As you say this is approximate and results may vary for no apparent reason. But, for me at least this is a very useful tool. I recently used it to wick four 4630 candles based on my wicks for long cure 6006 candles and they were all good. Zinc 60 CD10 WI755 LX18 Zinc 51 CD8 WI750 CD7 WI745 Zinc44 LX16 CD6 CD5 HTP93 LX14 LX12 WI740 HTP73 CD4 HTP62 LX10

So I should move my candle making to the garage? My wife would love that idea

I would never rely solely on my own nose, my wife said she couldn't smell it and she was about 6 feet away. Maybe I'll make several at 7% and one at 8% just to see. I thought about getting some 25oz three wick containers, but why go through the testing when I can just burn 3 8oz tins.

I made an 8oz tins @ 7% with 4630. It is a bit lite on the HT, but it burns perfectly. What are the chances that making the same candle with 8% FO would give me better HT and not completely ruin my perfect burn? I’m leaning towards making twice as many candles and burning two at a time, but I thought I should ask.

So part of that advice would be avoid reading the Fragrance Forum at all cost

I was thinking about the people who had already ignored that most excellent advice

We're dealing with organic chemistry, anything is possible, but I've noticed some variation in both scent and HT

You won't like this answer, but two months cure time works wonders for your HT. 6006 may only be 30% soy, but in this respect it acts more like soy than paraffin.

That is curious. I find it takes several days for my CT to get strong. Exposure to the fragrance makes it harder to smell so I always wait at least three days before I open the lid and check the CT. For 6006 I always stir the wax before adding the FO, while I'm adding the FO, then two minutes more, and stir again just before I pour. That may be a little excessive, but once I made a batch of candles that I only stirred for 30 seconds and they had no CT or HT.

A few questions. Do the jars have lids? Did you stir the wax well after adding the FO? Have you asked other people to smell the candle? Two observations. 9% seems like a high FO load and a CD 10 seems like a large wick for an 8oz jar. If your candle is burning properly then that’s great. But if you have soot issues, or your MP is too deep I would suggest trying 7% and/or a smaller wick.

I sometimes think back to when I started and all my misconceptions and mistakes. I often see newbies come here and usually they are asking questions that have been ask before; mostly it is some variation of “why doesn’t my soy candle have any HT?” I have often thought about writing a couple of paragraphs of dos and don’ts for newbies, but I’m certainly not the most qualified person for that task. So I’m asking all of y’all for one or two bits of advice you would give to someone just starting out that would help them avoid the mistakes many newbies make. Maybe one day I’ll put them all together in a coherent narrative. I’ll start off with use a 7% FO load, using more will only cause you problems.

I set them out over night so they were both at room temp, when I opened them and there was no difference.

The test was done using 8oz tins with 6006 and Lemon Verbena FO from FC. One candle was refrigerated while the other was in the garage at around 87⁰. I burned the candles after two weeks cure time and posted the results. They seemed promising, but after an additional three weeks of cure time I could not see, or smell, any appreciable difference. Of course this is just one test and the results are purely subjective. I certainly expected to see a difference, I even wanted to see a difference. So, given my bias I think it is safe to say that temperature is probably not a major factor in candle curing.

The only reason I don't make soap is that I can't use it. My skin is allergic to fragrances.

From the beginning of my candle making journey I believed that if I could understand the chemistry of scented candles it would all be easy. Well today I ran smack into the wall known as organic chemistry. In my college chemistry classes we always referred to organic chemistry as voodoo chemistry. What I do know is that your wax and the carrier oils for your aromatics are all molecular chains of hydrogen and carbon atoms, while your aromatic molecules are rings of hydrogen and carbon atoms. As for the bonding of these molecules in a candle I have no idea, but if I could understand the bonding I might be able to improve my process. Unfortunately I suspect the unknown additives in the wax has a lot to do with the bonding. Combine that with the hundred million other things that could be going on when you mix several hydrocarbons together and clearly I will never understand it. So I’m moving this one to my bucket of things I don’t know that I’m never going to know. Apparently understanding candle chemistry ranks right up there with understanding women.

I'm convinced that all wicks have problems. I don't have issues with CDs mushrooming, but they are smokey if over wicked.

I don’t know your process but that may be the problem. One thing that will kill the HT in 6006 is a lack of stirring. I stir the wax before I add the FO, then I stir for 2 minutes, and I stir before I pour. Another problem may be insufficient cure time. I have found that for many FOs two weeks is not enough. As for wicking I recommend starting small and working your way up until you find the right wick.