Sarah S

On 2/17/2020 at 11:05 AM, Forrest said:

I have decided that a FMP not desirable in my candles. My goal is the smallest wick that will eventually melt all the wax. Of course that makes my wicking much harder.

 

Ditto. My best, most fragrant candles still have some wax hang up even at the bottom of the jar. 

A full MP in the first couple burns equals a sooty, inferior throwing candle by mid point.

On 2/15/2020 at 5:51 PM, chevcher said:

Although it's not a perfect match, I think ICS Bread Pudding will be a good replacement for BC Raisin Bread,enough to keep my customers happy😊  
I agree, the Bear Claws is yummy !       

Now, that Vanilla Frosted Grahams ...HOLY MOLY !!!!  I cannot wait to get that into wax !
I'm thinking that it's gonna be my new favorite 😊

I haven't tried that one yet... and now I think I must!😆😆 Thanks!

On 2/17/2020 at 12:11 PM, Darbla said:

I'm looking hard at Turkish Mocha from Bramble Berry, but that may be more than you want to spend for a candle scent.  Their prices might be OK for B&B, but may be on the expensive side for candles (though there is a sale going on right now).  I wonder if anybody carries Black Vetivyr Cafe any longer?  I got that from somewhere but I think they're out of business now.

PFO carries a dupe of the Black Vetivyr Cafe. 

I have not smelled it, but their fragrances are excellent. 

On 2/11/2020 at 3:09 PM, chevcher said:

I'm desperately looking for a replacement for BC's Cinnamon Raisin Bread that was part of their scent specials forever !
Of course now that it's become one of my best sellers, it's been discontinued 😭
I have high hopes for ICS 😊 
I'll probably put in another order as soon as this one comes and I smell everything 😀

Ohhhh I love the BC raisin Bread too! The bread pudding from ICS has less cinnamon, but is more bready than a cinn bun. It's not a match, but it is pretty awesome. Another one to try is their Bear Claws, it has more cinnnamon and sugar, but less butter.

so sad about the BC Raisin Bread, it was amazing.

@chevcher, get a full pound of Bread Pudding. You'll thank me later. 😉😁

Edited to add: or at least 8oz! I love how their in-between prices are so reasonable!

Never heard of them Moonstar! Do the oils look good? Like should I google them and take a look? 😂😂

23 hours ago, TallTayl said:

I had trouble with wicking that one in wax. The  low usage rate in soap is a bummer.

Indeed, in parrafin it has an ugly burn even though the flame size and melt pool are just about perfect with an HTP. It mushrooms and soots too much for me to be comfortable selling or gifting it to others. I burn the heck out of it at my house though. 😁 It does much better in palm wax as far as its behavior, but it does need a longer cure.

I can't recall the usage rate off the top of my head - 3%? It is a fantastic mixer!

I know you're a DB fan, I mixed a little DB with a little Egyptian Musk and a little Cuban Tobacco in alcohol for a personal perfume.... ooooh baby!! So resinous and dark, I jut wanted to roll myself around in it!

RE's Cuban Tobacco is amazing!!!

It discolors in soap, but otherwise soaps well. Strong throw in parrafin and palm candles for me, but it needs a good cure, at least a couple weeks. Blends with other FOs like a dream.

@TallTayl, I much prefer quality and novelty over a huge selection. All the big suppliers have a birthday cake, a lavender vanilla, a Christmas tree... admittedly some are better than others, but overall there aren't a lot of unique fragrances out there. I think of PFO, they don't have a huge selection, but what they do have is GOOD with a lot of unique oils. And they'd cost a pretty penny that I gladly pay!

@candlebug, lots of good PS out there, but one to avoid is SOS's. Maybe the "ultimate" strength is good, but the "standard" strength is weak and boring. 

Does it have to be soy? Candlewic has some glorious paraffin waxes that are a joy to work with and throw beautifully.

Which colorants did you use? When I try to go natural, my soap is just many shades of brown. 😂😂

Wow, those are Beautiful! So colorful!

I love to make cleansing bars from surfactants and fatty acids! The formulas can be tweaked almost endlessly to make a truly customized cleaning experience. 😁 It's been a while since I looked at the ingredient list, but I think Dove's "lotion" is just stearic acid. An easy way to make a detergent based lotion bar would be to get some opaque melt and pour, and add in some extra oil as mentioned above.

Like TT said, actual soap is a whole different thing, but just as fun to play with. Again, small tweaks to the formula make the possibilities endless.

When I was first learning soap, the earlier blog posts at Brambleberry were very helpful. I also learned a lot from just reading posts in soapmaking forums. 

For creating your own surfactant based cleansers, Swift Crafty Monkey is a fantastic resource.

I do the same as Barbara. The fragrance doesn't last as long as aroma beads, but they are fun to play with!

I don't know about reed diffusers, but with aroma sachets it depends a lot on the quality of the beads and your fragrance. I've had beads lose their potency in a sealed container after 6 months, on the flip side I have a few that are going on 2+ years and they still smell strong.

@Darbla, I did try Flaming's Rose Jam, I wasn't very impressed. It was strong, but kind of uninteresting. All top notes and mid note, lacking some bottom.

The best Rose Jam I've smelled in Nurture's, as I think I've mentioned. I just need to suck it up and get a small bottle.

I haven't tried the Spiced Rose from WSP yet, I actually haven't ordered from there in a long time. Nothing has excited me enough to overcome their inflated prices and that weird handling fee.

21 hours ago, sarahmarah said:

So I’ve spent the last couple of months testing all sorts of different FO’s in GB 464. After researching and reading archives and opinions I haven’t found a clear answer. My question is:

 

Do you deduct your FO% from your wax so that you pour an exact amount of product with no overage? 
 

ex:  16oz (wax) x 0.08 (FO%) = 1.28 

        16 - 1.28 = 14.72 

         14.72 wax 1.28 FO

 

I’m curious what YOU do and what your opinions may be.

 

I’ve been doing it this way with no real issues until recently when I purchased some Crafters Choice oils to test at 8% FL and there is definitely seepage. I heated 11.04 oz wax to 185, added 0.96 of Oatmeal Stout FO at 170 and poured at 145–divvied up between 4 9oz straight sided jars so that I could wick test. I’m thinking I’m just not doing this correctly if there is seepage.....should I lower the FL%, don’t subtract any wax, or both? 
 

 

 

Sarah, the fragrance load is calculated using the total weight of your wax, not the volume of the container.

So your equation of 14.62 oz wax plus 1.28 oz fragrance oils is actually 8.8% (14.62 x .088 = 1.286) fragrance load.

An 8% fragrance load in 16oz wax will  yield you a total of 17.28oz, which as Gail pointed out overfills a 16oz container.

Still, I don to think that 8.8% FO is too much for that wax, so I suspect your seepage issue is something else.

21 hours ago, Moonstar said:

I have ics bear claws and it smells so light OOB . Maybe the oil was getting old or it comes to life in wax ? 

I use that one in CBL125 Moonstar, maybe it doesn't do as well in other waxes.

It does smell lighter OOB than when I burn it. The heat really helps the bakery scents bloom, imo.

That has got to be for label appeal. I find it hard to believe that blending all those waxes yields something superior to a blend of two or three. What's up with the apricot oil??

On 12/21/2019 at 3:15 AM, calan said:

Here is the FC Woodland Foliage (basically pine) at 5%, after about 22 hours with a CD-20 wick. Pretty good HT, and it only cured about 3-4 days.

That looks great!

Looking at the jar, I think a CSN 7 will be perfect for that. A side by side burn would be illuminating (haha!).

I don't know I think that still looks a little too nice for Yankee! 😂

Definitely closer though!

A CSN 7 or a CSN 9 would be your best bet.

I totally understand about being nervous about relying on one supplier. They left quite a few people high and dry when they stopped carrying palm wax. If you like how the CDs perform, by all means stick with them.

As far as I know there is no other consumer source for wicks specifically for palm wax. IMO a lot of companies are missing the boat when it comes to wicks and veggie based waxes.

Hm, ok, I don't use CDs (in any wax), but I think you are correct that the 20 is too big for that jar.

There are a few things to keep in mind when working with palm wax:

- it has a high melt point, so it needs a lot of heat to get it going 

- once it melts, it is very viscous, so it needs a wick that can "draw up" a lot of wax

- it is an acidic wax, so it needs a wick that can withstand an acidic environment 

Thats why CSNs are so successful, they make big hot flames, they draw up a lot of wax, and they have a special treatment to withstand acidic wax. Some RRDs have the NST treatment for palm wax, so they also do well. 

Once we start using wicks meant for soy or parrafin, the common problems that arise are that the wicks don't burn hot enough, don't draw up enough wax, and may combust incompletely from the acidic wax. To overcome those problems, we use wicks that are much larger than what would be appropriate for soy or parrafin. Now the flame is hot enough to melt the palm wax, but the wick is so huge, it's drawing the wax too quickly and burning it off at much quicker rate. Also, because of the super fast combustion, the fragrance oil may be "burned off" instead of wafting through the air, making for poor throw. All that isn't to say that it's impossible to make a good palm candle with a series like LX, CD, HTP or the Premiers. It's definitely possible, you are just going to have to get really good a learning the signs of a good burn versus an adequate burn or poor burn.

Definitely give your palm candles a good two week cure. I know it's hard to wait, but they'd really do need that cure time for you to judge if the wick is throwing well or not.

It sounds like you are on the right track with leaving a shell that melts down. Palm is so different from other waxes.

I don't know if it will help, but I am going to attach some pics of my candles in various states of burn. 😁

This candle is is just a smidge under wicked, I used a CSN 9 and I think it would do better with a 12. I'm down to that last quarter of the jar, and while the sides are weeping down nicely, when you see the overhead view next some issues will be apparent.

This is the overhead view, and hopefully you can see there are multiple perimeters to the melt pool. That is to be expected when we are looking at the first half or so of a jar this size (that's a 3" jar), but this far down I want the melt pool to even itself out. The HT is only so-so, and I think in part it's the wick, but I also have a feeling this just not a powerhouse FO.

This is a multi-wick loaf style jar, with three Premier 745 wicks. They've been lit for about an hour here. This jar is 3" wide and about 8" long. The three 745s are not doing a good job here. The flames are small, and for it being the bottom of the container, the MPs are small. I know the sides look good, but just last night I peeled giant sheet of wax off the sides to put in my melter. 😂 I confess, I mess with my candles! Next time I pour this, I'll use 755s. I like Premiers for multi-wick jobs. If I were to try to wick this in CSNs, the smallest I could use would be a CSN 7, and even with just two wicks that would probably be over wicked. So case in point when an alternative wick series may be better. This candle is throwing great, btw. Christmas Splendor from NG, 6%, immediate strong HT from the first burn after a 9 day cure.

This candle above is absolute perfection. I have been burning it since the beginning of November. Generally three to four hour burns, once a week... how many hours is that? A lot, lol. You can see the sides have melted down beautifully. It had a shell up until maybe two burn ago, when the jar finally got hot enough to start pulling it down. The wax has been at the exact same level for several burns now, as the wick consumes the shell. The HT is phenomenal. That's a 16oz salsa jar with a CSN 14.

This is the top vie, and you can see it has just a bit of a ledge, but otherwise the MP is quite even. Honestly, this is probably due to a slightly off center wick and the slight curl to the wick. Don't mind the red, that's me playing with my candles again. 😆 I dipped the red candle's wicks, then used the same dipper on the green candle. This FO is Alpine Cheer from Flaming, at 6%. I love, love, love it, and it is throwing like crazy.

Sorry, I thought I had a couple pics of candles in the early stages of their burn, but I guess not. I really try not to pass final judgement on a wick until the very end of the burn. With palm wax, so much happens at the bottom of the jar. The kiss of death in the early stages would be an obvious problem like a teeny tiny flame or a tiki torch. Anything other than that, I'm going to let it burn and see what happens. Sometimes poor HT early on that develops into good HT further down is an indication that's the wick is close but need tweaking. Poor HT the whole time, accompanied by a good flame and burn behavior could mean it's the FO. 

Ok, sorry about the massive wall of text and photos, hopefully you can glean some good stuff out of all that. 😅

If if you can, get some pics of the candles you've been working on so we can see what's up.

15 hours ago, calan said:

Of course...that is the only size not included in the sample pack I bought.   

 

Lol! Whatever is close to that then. 😆

One nice thing about Premiers, there are half a hundred sizes! 😂

That looks beautiful! Isn't Palm awesome???

Keep going with that, it looks good so far.

Sometimes 6%FO can be too strong in palm, it really depends. For DB, I wouldn't do more than 5% anyway, that's a strong one!