pughaus

BURN 2 RESULTS:

3 hour burn.  (I nixed the hemp and wood wick tests.) 

We've got a mushroom on every wick in this round.   And in this burn, the htp62 had the smallest mushroom.  CD4 is still a hot mess with the biggest mushroom.

The premier and cotton core mushrooms are pretty much equal in size and flame distortion.
That premier 735 wick is such a small and thin wick; it seems like it has the potential to flop over into the melt pool eventually, especially if the MP gets much deeper.

I attempted to measure melt pool depth as best I could using paper strips.  I measured a 1/2" depth- or very close to it, on all 4.  

OK so I'm terrible at measuring MP depth until I can see it through a glass.  I'm reluctant to post my measurements since I have little faith they're accurate.

I have put a cotton core in a full glass and it's burning now so I'll have more info on that soon enough.  

Hey all,

I've posted the wick pan test results in a new thread so the mods can move it if they'd like to.

HOUR 3 COMPLETE:

I'll rate the mushrooms from smallest to largest:

premier

htp

cd (double header!)

hemp  

The cotton core stayed neat, it also had the tallest flame; aside from the hemp.  

Probably no one cares much about the wood wick, but I'd suggest a 5/8" width or a dual wick for a 3" diameter vessel.

Hour 1:

Not much to note yet, just some typically on- the- tall -side cocowax flames.

33 minutes ago, olives said:

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...

 

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 

@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.

@moonshine I'm trying to accumulate as large a range of PC wicks as I can but definitely seeing the options are limited at the retail level.  I hope as coco wax gets more popular that the suppliers start stocking more sizes in the paper cores.  It's a bummer to only have access to a limited range of what may be the best wick for this wax.  

I'll test the eco 2 in my pan test.   

(PS: This IGI wax is really pure, pure white and very pretty. Looks like milk) 

I'm pretty sure read a review on one of the supplier sites raving about using an LX24 in this wax.  They must be making their candles on Pluto. 

re: the eco 4-  here's what wicksunlimited's chart says about that wick in paraffin after 1 hr.  So, your melt pool in the 2.5 jar was pretty close to theirs.  I feel like this is useful information for us and I also feel like I have no idea how to put this info into practical use    

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...

On 4/23/2018 at 3:02 PM, olives said:

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. 

@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...  

Like Forrest, I'd need to know why I should choose a candle specific FO over well reviewed, great throwing, multi-use FO.  Would it be less expensive?  Easier to wick?  Cleaner burning?  UV resistant? Whatever features are used to market it, I'd need to know how and why it's preferable.

6 hours ago, TallTayl said:

From here here it is similar to what you wrote above. Test my narrowed down wick series “by the book” of one hour per inch

@talltayl   Would you mid elaborating on "One hour per inch".

  I think I may be confused about something...

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.😋

2 hours ago, kandlekrazy said:

You might want to test the 60-44-18 Cotton core as well in the 3.25" jar.

Is that a wick that's worked for you in this wax?  I don't have a cotton core bigger than 44-46-18 right now.    

Ok well now for the (ahem) fun part..  the wicking.  May the coconut wax Gods have mercy on us. 🙏

@olives  I'm glad to see someone else is testing this wax.  I know you just poured it, but anything to note at this point?  I'm gonna guess since it's coco, that they're looking nice and smooth.  How's the adhesion so far?  

@moonshine 

I don't have much in cotton core- I only have these:  (from Northstar): 

44-20-18
44-32-18
44-36-18

I've never tried any cotton cores.  In fact, I didn't even order these; they were shipped to me by mistake.  No idea about sizing on those. 

I  have these paper cores (bittercreek) 
44-32-18
51-32-18   
60-44-18

Am I missing a size in either that you'd like me to test?

"encourage mint "   LOVE IT 😂

I've got 25 lbs of this wax arriving Monday.  http://www.candlesandsupplies.net/IGI-ParaCoco-Container-Wax-Blend-per-25-lb.-cube

Let's test the heck out of it!

I'll start with a pan test and have enough empty pans to test 9 or 10 wicks comfortably.  Burn 1 will be next Sunday. 

For those of you that may be interested in this wax: What wicks would you like me to test?  Type/Size?  

@Trappeur  there are a bunch of subscription box companies out there, some bigger than others.  Examples are: fabfitfun, birch box, vellabox...  there are tons of them out there that specialize in everything from craft beers to cat stuff to candles...

Here's a link to one of the bigger ones: https://fabfitfun.com/get-the-box/?step=getbox&#plan=fffvip

Getting your product into one of these boxes can be a blessing or a disaster depending on how well equipped you are to produce a large qty of whatever you make, quickly and at a reduced cost.

I'm going to digress a little here, but it may explain some of what happened with this smoking candle...

I've made roughly 60 cocowax blend candles in the last few months using wax from various suppliers and none have smoked quite as badly as what I just saw on a youtube review of that brand's candle.  

OK, well maybe my 1st few candles smoked like that, but they were so clearly over wicked that even a newbie like me could see the problem.  I don't think cocowax is the real issue here...
I see that the brand  + candle you mentioned was just featured in a subscription beauty box and I wonder if that might have something to do with the recent quality; or lack of it.  I've sold to that box company and in my experience the manufacturer has anywhere from 45-120 (at most) days to ship upwards of 15,000 units.  This may be where quality control went awry for this candle.  Some manufacturers/makers get lured in by the idea of all this great exposure and they jump at the opportunity to sacrifice profit for brand exposure.  However, these beauty box co's insist on pricing that is often at or below production costs and brands either need to modify the product and/or outsource production to get the job done on time and meet the pricing demand.  Which sometimes means a poor example of their product is what ends up in the box. And those box subscribers love to rate the products in those boxes!  So instead of gaining future customers for their candle brand, a smallish candle company can end up with bad reviews and 5 minute videos on the internet of their smoking candle for all the world to see.  What a bummer.  
Which is to say, be careful what you commit to if a subscription beauty box co. ever comes calling  

Mint Condition?  

There are quite a few out there, many with fruits, but here's one that is straight up cheesecake: https://www.naturesgardencandles.com/homemade-cheesecake-fragrance-oil