Quentin

I checked it out today just after you posted it. I signed up almost immediately. They seem to know all the ins and outs of the post office. Everyone should check it out. Thanks for passing that on to us.

The question is how many customers in your area are familiar with Ninja and how many other businesses around your region use it. I've never seen it around here. I'm using Square. I started using it about a month ago. The reason I picked it was simply because it's what all the smaller retailers around here are using. Even the companies that come out to your house to do service or whatever use it right there in the home. The consumers in my area recognize it and are comfortable with it. They have confidence in the brand name of Square. It isn't free but they have many options that makes life easy for me. I think that's the advice I would give you. Use what the other businesses in YOUR area use, even if it costs you. I didn't even worry about what the fees were. All the places I go to that use Square are still in business. I figure if they can handle the fees then I can also. I really like your logo. It has a great retro look and the "716" ads a touch of mystery that your customers will always have in the back of their minds. They won't forget it and that's what you want. I won't forget it! Very good job. Don't change it one bit.

I'll bet Amazon has a ten foot long griddle! They have everything.

That's good logic. More is not necessarily better. If I take two aspirin for my headache and the headache goes away, taking two more aspirin want put my headache below the zero mark into negative headache numbers.

Thank you. I've got to ponder on this one. I've got a 55 lb wax melter. The heat element on the melter is "hidden" just like with a griddle. I've never experienced anything that seemed dangerous with it. So placing a melt pot full of paraffin on a griddle should be the same. Safe.

But I can't safely put pots of paraffin directly on an electric griddle. Absolutely a NO-NO. Not ever? I think that's what you're telling me. If I want to make two colors of paraffin at the same time, I'll just need to pull out a second double boiler. Is that correct?

Okay. Yes, I know what that is. They do have them around here. I've driven by them before. I've never stopped, though.

Correction: What I should have said was "by doing it the wrong way".

8 oz tins. I like them because you get a candle and dust cover, and can get by without any other packaging all in one homogenized unit. It also has a nice hefty feel to it which screams "VALUE" to the consumer. Most of all, my label looks really cool on the lid.

I've only been doing this candle stuff for about a year + a couple of months. I consider myself a beginner, so the only advice I can give to you is what I was told on this forum. I too thought that my problem had to be the wax or just "weak" fragrances. I started with pillars and paraffin from the beginning. Disaster after disaster, including candles that caught on fire! Some of these were actually quite dramatic. But to get to my point (finally) the really good stuff the folks here finally convinced me of, is the critical importance of paying close attention to temperatures and the timing of when you add your ingredients. I was doing things all wrong when it came to that topic. After all, what difference should it make when I put the dye in as long as it melted and mixed in, right? WRONG! Once I decided to go along with what they were trying to tell me, things started to change for the better. When they see your topic posted here, you will most likely get the same advice. Don't waste time like I did. Just go along and do what they say. Don't give up on soy either, even though it can feel sticky, gooey, and just plain yucky.

So far I've only been to craft fairs, flea markets and regularly scheduled events as a spectator, but not yet as a vendor. Rarely have I purchased anything. But on the times I've been to farmer's markets, I've gone with, at least, the intent of buying something. I'm going to give all those places a shot but I just have a feeling that the farmer's markets will probably be the best for home crafted stuff. I could be wrong about that. It's just a hunch. I don't know if I've ever been to a Ren Fest. That's a new term for me. What is a Ren Fest?

As early on in my candle making as that was, I wouldn't have been confident enough to try and work two colors at the same time. Right now I've got my "notes" here and looking at them. The wax was CBL-141. I was using an LX 18 wick in a 3" diameter mold with a 6% frag. load. Added my dye at the beginning of the melt. Since then I've learned that is the wrong time to add the dye. Uh-oh. I see that I used Stearic at 7% and Vybar at 1%. That's pretty embarrassing. I have no idea why I did that. I see that I had written down to pour at 175-185 as the manufacturer or Candle Science directed to do. I had written down a blank space to write down my actual pour temp, but never wrote it down. As to the color, it was definitely redder than the picture shows. In the picture I can see that it looks like that blue may have been done in a second pour, but the bottom was red. I never saw the blue until I broke the candle a little more to see how big the cavity was. So, we may never know. I'm starting to like your alien theory.

Before I go and buy one on impulse, I wanted to get your opinions. I watched a video the other night on either Candle Science or Candlewic. Not sure which one it was. The lady in the video was using an electric griddle to melt her wax. She said she liked that method because she could make two colors at the same time. No double boilers. She just set her two pots directly on the griddle! Directly on the heat source! One of the first safety tips I ever read, in several books and on the internet all said that was a MAJOR NO-NO. One night, while not paying attention, I carelessly placed my pot full of wax directly on my hot plate. I turned my back for only a few seconds to get my molds or jars lined up and ready or something like that. When I turned back around, the thermometer in my melt pot was already well over 200 degrees and getting hotter by the second. I thought I was going to burn the house down. I don't get it. What's the difference here?

Curious story indeed. She was joking wasn't she?

I've gotten lots of valuable advice since the time I started this topic. I read all the posts again just now. I still don't know what that blue stuff is. Anyone have any ideas about what it could be? Any wild guesses? It was obviously a major mistake of some sort on my part. I most definitely can tell you that I didn't add anything blue. I just keep wondering if that was my fragrance that you see in the picture, pooled just outside the cavity. As I said, I stopped burning it because it had no throw, hot or cold. That's why I keep thinking that stuff might be my fragrance.

@TallTayl Ahhh. I get it now. KWIM?

Very good advice. Thank you.

Oh yeah. What does kwim mean? You can tell me by private message if you can't post it here.

That's funny. Just the way I would expect a CPA to think. No offense intended to any CPAs out there

I used to be a travelling salesman and, obviously, I was a new one at one time. Walking into stores and being treated meanly or just running into bad circumstances like you did that day is always horrible. If you were like me, it was worse than the worst. All my life, I carried a chip on my shoulder that was bigger than the national debt. I was always scared. Always nervous and doubting myself. If I failed or the people were just rude to me, I would pack my samples back up (assuming they let me get THAT far) and figured it would always be that way. I just went through the motions. I would drive down the road to the next town, wishing I could just get the day over with and get to my hotel room where I could feel sorry for myself. It might only have been 9:00 AM but that was how I thought back then.. Though I was depressed, discouraged, away from home and alone in the heat of summer or pouring rain, I would still drive to the next lousy town. I might stumble across a little gift or flower shop or a drug store. It never appeared to be as good a prospect as the big, grand store that I just left and where I lost. So many times I wished that I wouldn't find any prospects at all rather than have to go through what happened in that last place. "There's no way I'll sell anything here". "Any other salesman could, but not ME". Isn't that a stupid way to think? That was my thought process and no one was going to take it away from me. After finding as many ways as possible to kill time in a town with a population of 147, I might finally drag myself into that store. Guess what... these people were actually nice! In fact, they really wanted to see what I had to show and much to my surprise and amazement I would walk out of there with an order. Many times a really BIG order. I made salesman of the month many times just by doing it my way. I'm not trying to sound like a motivational speaker here and my story is getting too long. We're supposed to be here to talk about your experience, not mine. Unfortunately I can't tell you that I lived happily ever after. It actually got worse. I failed at every job I ever had. I said all that so that I could say this: You are not like I was. I noticed it immediately in your sentence that I quoted above. You are doing what I would never have been able to do by asking, "how do you recoup from this kind of setback". Yes, I'll agree it was a setback and it probably wouldn't make you feel any better to know that it was most likely the same for most of the other vendors. However, you still have your positive attitude. The right attitude. It shows in your writing. The next stop may be the same way also, but most of them down the road at the next town won't all be like that. It's reality check time. Oh! I almost forgot. Guess what I was selling back then. Yep. You guessed it. Candles and soap!!!! I kid you not.

I'm interested in taking a look. We have a classified section on this forum?

There's definitely no shortage of suggestions out there. Candle Science never recommends anything but the LX or the ECO based on the waxes I've used. Of course their suggestions are based on the waxes and wicks that THEY sell. Then I found other places that never make any mention whatsoever of the LX on the very same wax! I'm getting a headache.

I don't think they did this much testing on the Atom Bomb!

That's the way I'm trying to approach it. I have times that I walk away mad to another room, plop down in front of the TV or the computer, pout and beat myself up. After about 10 minutes or so of that, I'm right back out there in the shop. It's a compulsion or something.

If I'm understanding correctly, then I learned something new today. I never knew that you have to consider each fragrance from each seller as a factor in how the candle burns. That could take a lifetime! Each company's Pumpkin Chai will smell differently, of course. I just thought if you had the right size and type wick for the size candle and the wax you are using, then you had it all. Do I have it wrong? Nice swing by the way.