Sarah S

When reading reviews, I am always skeptical. I look for a general consensus about performance, quality, value, etc. I never put much stock in any single review. Most people who post reviews do not have the understanding or experience to know how to make a really excellent candle. Except one time a read a review on CS from some @bfroberts person, and I was like "Shoooo, that girl knows her sh*t!". 😆

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Are your melts palm wax? I have a hot plate style melter in my bedroom, when I use Palm wax melts in, no matter what the fragrance (so far), the throw is so powerful it goes down two sets of stairs and hangs out in my basement! You can smell it in my living room, and it's almost too strong in my bedroom. So I feel like Palm wax tarts are a completely different animal than a Palm candle. Just IMO!

Ditto that! @lovelyscents, I am mostly using the Palm 2 from CW for my melts now, it is so easy and the results are great. I always make shapes with silicone molds when I do Palm melts. When I make clamshells, I'm mixing just about 10% 125 with the 141 to smooth out some of those darn dimples! If I'm making them just for me, I'll just use the 141. I can not tell a difference in performance when I add the 125, but it's such a small amount. Have you ever tried the CBL-130 for melts? It's soft, but firmer that IGI 6006 mix. It might be worth a try if you want a soy blend.

Try a different fragrance oil. I'm not being a smart-ass, I have just found that there are some oils that don't throw strongly in palm. I have CS's Black Sea (love it so much in soap!!), but I've never put it in wax, so I couldn't say if that one is a dud or not. I think Euc and mint is always a light thrower for me. Citrus fragrances in general I think can be fussy. Do you have something with strong cinnamon notes? Try that. Clean laundry scents also do great. Pines throw so well I get a headache from them. Your wicks should be good with a 12 or a 14. 22 is huge! Lol Do you get a full mp right away? How cold is your house? My house is cold and breezy, and none of my Palm candles are happy about it. I cure for a minimum of 2 weeks, 4 is even better. Palm benefits from a loooong cure. And I keep my FO at 6%, I feel like over 8% starts to mess with the burn and throws off the wicking.

I do my bakery scents in a 22oz apothecary jar in 125, and everything else in a 16oz straight jar in Palm. However, I do also offer a little 8oz tumbler in Palm that kind of straddles the bakery line, because I do coffe scents, chai, cider, and other beverage scents in those. My customers are all over the place with what they like. Some of them go for the little candle because I priced it low, but for the most part everyone equally loves the Palm and the 125. People that LOVE bakery scents rave about the apothecary jars, I think because they are big enough to fill a large room, last a long time, and have such great throw. But just as many people rave about unique scents I use in the palm, and they love they way it looks. But I have a very small line, I only offer maybe six different scents per container. So I can be really picky about what fragrances I offer.

Oh yeah, I understood that Candybee! I was just pointing out that my pricing is based on actual weight of the candle and not necessarily the volume on the jar. I wasn't clear when I wrote that out, sorry!

So, thinking I would take one for the team, I went over to the ICS website to order some Key Lime Pie... Turns out she doesn't have one! 😭 So, I'm sorry, I made a suggestion for an oil that doesn't exist!

So I charge $12 for a 16oz Palm candle and $15 for a 16oz paraffin candle. Keep in mind though, my 16oz jars only hold about 12oz of wax. Also, my jars are very basic, my labels are super basic, and I don't maintain a website or online store. I would charge more like $20 - $25 if I was using (for example) a Status jar, with fancy Zazzle labels a la Trappeur, and I had more overhead to worry about.

@Trappeur, I've never smelled PPW (I know, crazy!), but I don't think the pumpkin pancake is very nutty.

I seem to recall that they did Karen. If you're looking for a replacement, have you tried Indiana Candle Supply? I haven't used her Key Lime Pie specifically, but generally her bakery scents are TDF!

I seem to recall that they did Karen. If you're looking for a replacement, have you tried Indiana Candle Supply? I haven't used her Key Lime Pie specifically, but generally her bakery scents are TDF!

You're going to be so happy with that, @Trappeur! All thre waxes are great! If you're looking at FO, try their Pumpkin Pancake. It's very rich and strong. And their Mahogany Spice is one of my most favorite fragrances ever.

A bigger wick does help, but the flame still seems to struggle a bit. IDK, maybe I've just gotten used to the torch that is a CSN! 😂

Stonehenge from BC for sure. Definitely agree with the coastal scents, and the lilies. I'd combine them!

Trapp, as Candybee said, the 125 is 100% paraffin, it comes in a slab. It is very soft and easy to cut. The only downside to this wax, is that the FO can have a big impact on wick size. I went back and checked my notes on that Carrot Cake candle I was raving about - I actually used 2 HTP 62 in a 16oz country comfort jar. That's a pretty heavy FO. If I use the same jar and wax, but use RE's Clothespins, I would use a single HTP 104. So it really depends. I have gone up to a single HTP 126, but it leaves a lot of wasted wax around the bottom. For a 16oz canning jar, a HTP 73 is a good place to start, and be ready to wick up for your heavy FOs. For or a country comfort, personally I prefer the burn of a double wick, maybe a set of 52 or 62. You'll have to play with that one. HTH!

@Fireside, I have not used the Glass Glow, so I couldn't compare, sorry! @Candybee is very knowledgeable, I always take her advice. I haven't tried the RRDs either, but I have used Premiers in Palm and they work well. I think the CSNs have a stronger flame and better throw. HTH!

You can get that with pre-blended paraffin waxes. It's the veggie based waxes that really need cure time. Pure paraffin can have great throw in 48 hours or even less.

@Trappeur, if you really want a wax that throws like crazy, you have got to try Candlewic's CBL-125!!! It's soooo easy to use, it's not finicky about pouring temp at all, it's a single-pour, wicks like a dream with HTPs, and oh my gosh the HT is fantastic! I'm burning a 16oz apothecary jar double wicked with HTP 73, 7% Carrot Cake from Aztec, and it is filling my whole downstairs level. I love this wax! I agree with @Candybee about palm wax, they Crystal Palm 1 from Candlewic is my #2 favorite wax. I think the CT is superior to CBL-125, and the HT is comparable. For bakery I prefer the 125, for everything else the palm is excellent. I don't always color my palm wax, and I think the crystals look just as pretty. I make my daughter a Jack Frost (vanilla and mint) type candle with Crystal Palm, and I keep it white, and it is gorgeous with that particular FO. Oh and wicking the Palm is super easy, I have found I don't need to wick up or down dependent of the FO - once you find the correct wick for your jar, you are good to go! CSNs have worked great for me, on advice from @Candybee.

NG has an oil called Capri Olivio (I'm pretty sure), and it really does smell like a sunny Mediterranean island, just lovely! I made some CP soap with it, and it performed very well. I bet it would make a great body spray too! I didn't test it in wax.

I'm not a floral lover, but a good, deep Rose is lovely. My favorite for rinse-off products is Nurture's Rose Jam dupe. Sadly it's not safe to use in leave-on applications. It is wonderful in wax, but a little pricey for me to use on the regular. WSP's dupe is not nearly as good. I think Flaming carries it too, I'm going to try them next. A little goes a long way with that one.

That drives me crazy too. I love HTPs, but the lean is aggravating. One thing that helps is to trim your wick shorter for the first couple burns. Yours looks a teensy bit long, if you trim it just a bit more it won't lean over quite so far. Another thing that helps is dipping your wick in the opposite direction of the lean when you put it out. That can help correct it a bit. Other than that, it looks sloppy for the first few burns, but once you get closer to a full MP it isn't so bad! Just watch it toward the bottom of the jar, if any soot is going to happen, it will collect on the lean side of the jar. Oops, I see that's a tin. ☺️ You may avoid the soot issue altogether then!

A while ago I did a show where there was another wax vendor selling melts. All she did was melts, in soy wax, with about 100 different scents. And it was all fragrances from the same company, basic scents, names unchanged. Maybe her product was great, I am certainly not judging, but gosh, that just sounds soooo boring to me as a maker. I totally agree with @Quentin, that creativity is something that not everyone can apply, but that is what sets apart those who run a business from those who market their passion. @bfroberts, girl, certainly those business can't hold a candle to your level of creativity, pun intended!! 😆

@Laura C, when storing my melts for my own personal use, I put them in glass jars. I do have a couple of jars with multiple scents in them - as you suggested I make them different colors so I can tell what is what. I have definitely noticed that the fragrances tend to "bleed" into each other after time. Now, I do put similar scents together anyway, so they start off similar, but after a few months they all kind of smell the same. It seems as though if one fragrance is stronger than the rest, that is what they all end up smelling like. As they are melting the original fragrance comes back through stronger, but from a sales viewpoint that's probably not ideal. When I individually package melts, and then mingle those packages, I do not get any kind of fragrance bleed. HTH!

I totally agree, it seems all my favorite fragrances are the ones that love to mushroom, so as long as it's not out of control I don't care too much. If it's really bad and I can't fix it by switching wicks, I just don't offer that fragrance for sale.