Stella1952

We get about the same scent throw from our palm wax as we do from soy, perhaps a little less, but not so much as you'd notice - we average 1 oz. (weighed) of fragrance oil per pound of wax. You MAY have candlenose...or not! It strikes us all at one time or another... We seldomly pour palm wax at real high temps, and we add the FO right before pouring... I think high heat diminishes some FOs... We use the palm wax from JBN and FOs from them and Peak and Wellington, so that might be a factor also. We usually use a little palm stearic and CDN wicks (from JBN).

Mishka, do you have a picture? I don't know what you mean by "nice" or "look poor." Although many folks have trouble with palm wax, we have had good success with it... We have poured from 190° - 140°, depending on what we were doing and the effect we were seeking. Mostly we pour around 160°-170°... I get the feeling from posts that there is a LOT of difference between one palm wax and another... we've always used the same kind from JBN. To plug holes in our aluminum molds, we use grey putty. No drips, but we don't pour at 200° either...

Dwarfie, that is just so MONDO KOOL!! I love hurricanes & luminaria and yours is very unique and classy. More, more!

Got a new batch of wax in and pulled an all-nighter making some of the luminaries I have been dreamin' about all summer long. Here's a few of 'em... pardon the blurry pix - I haven't got photographing lit things in the dark down yet...:undecided This one is scented with ginger bergamot - smells WONDERFUL, especially when lit! ...all lit up... Mom & me got 2 dozen roses for our birthdays - when they dried up, I saved them for doing this... Scented with rosebuds & rain - Rainin' Roses ...all lit up... Thanks for lookin'.

There are some circular glue dots available at craft stores (look in the glue area and also in the scrapbooking area) that we use on the bottom of the wick tab to hold the assembly to the bottom of the tea light container (we like the clear plastic ones). Much quicker and neater than silicon glue or hot glue. Because the wicks are so short, we usually don't have to lay anything across the top to keep them from laying over... when we do notice the errant crooked one, we use a toothpick to keep it straight. We try to only fill to about 1/8" from the top in case we have to lay a toothpick - we had a batch like you are talking about with the lines in the top... I found a set of little bitty ladles (for sauses, etc.) that are perfect for ladling in the exact amount. Takes a little practice to keep from dripping everywhere... Good luck. HTH:grin2:

A color wheel (google "color wheel") will show the three primary colors - red, yellow, blue and the secondary colors purple, orange & green. By understanding the color wheel, you can mix any color. Here's a good link to some basic color theory... http://www.colormatters.com/colortheory.html

We use F & M in our palm and soy candles. Because it's one of those scents that seems to get better as it ages, we simply use the max recommended amount of FO. We not only get lots of compliments from it, but also when we mix it with another fragrance oil to make a custom scent.

Folks keep asking me when I am going to make some sandcast candles... I'm glad I saw yours, as they are so inspiring! I really like your addition of accent objects... they add some contrast to the rugged look of the sand. Great job!

What kind of wax is this? The palm rustics that we make always have the most FASCINATING patterns and stuff... not just the crystals, but the jumplines and the rows of pinholes... I revere those imperfections! I am always so disappointed when I pour one that is perfect and has no character...

I started pouring candles with Cargill C3 and palm wax. Since I had not poured paraffin, I had no preconceptions. I have been VERY pleased with the results we have obtained with both soy and palm waxes - have even had good success with using soy for luminaries. I know it's difficult, but if you can forget your paraffin experience and simply bumble through with soy using the hints found right here, I think you will be pleased. Or not. :grin2:

I have had the occasional "spitty" candle. It seems to happen more frequently as the candle burns down - hardly ever see this when burning the first few times. I have not noticed that it occurs in ALL the C3 candles we've poured - only a few. Seems to happen more with certain colors (tans are particularly affected). I have noticed that we see far less of this when we temper the wax prior to pouring. The actual pouring temp seems to make no difference. The more heavily dyed/pigmented candles seem more prone to this. I haven't made any association between a particular fragrance and the "rabid" appearance - the one we made that did it the worst was a medium tan candle scented with Maple Syrup FO poured into a mosaicked glass cup. That one bubbled so much, we were betting it was making a new life form in there! Try using no dye and no fragrance oil, pouring at about 145 - 160 and see if the bubbling is diminished, then go from there.

Here's a link to the discussion I read, where, down the thread, Prairie explains it better than I can... Made sense to me and I like the results. You could also try searching for tempering - I think there was a discussion of that in another thread (or maybe it was part of the one above...CRS...)

Perhaps someone should contact the seller(s) and invite them here to learn ways to make better candles... I also notice the images are watermarked - I hope it is not a violation of copyright law to post them here...

I have to agree the prices seem too low, but I do understand the dilemma... where I am, people just are not very educated about handmade items of any sort - they look for WalMart prices. I try to price between what I think is right and the normal store prices. I think I would bump those prices at least a buck... If the show is more than one day and you get too much negative feedback on prices, you can always lower the prices... but once folks are used to buying for the rock-bottom prices, it's real hard to come up...

Now DAT'S a PILLAR!!! WooHoo!! Looks great, period. The fact that it's leftovers makes it even sweeter...

We used CDN wicks from JBN for our tins of Cargill C-3 and found that we could effectively use 10, 12 and 14.

We do not add our fragrances until the last few minutes before pouring (140-150 range). Because the essential oils and fragrance oils are affected by heat, we try to keep the temp on the low side. Have had no problems with "binding." I think that fragrance oils vary greatly from supplier to supplier - if you aren't happy with the results, try another supplier. The testers (1/2 & 1 oz. sizes) are reasonably priced most places and are enough to give you a good idea of scent throw. Some scents need to cure before they really "come out," but generally we only cure fragrance oil candles for 24-48 hours before test burning and have found very few fragrances that don't throw well. We HAVE found a lot of difference between how it smells from the bottle and how it smells in the candle... Some scents we hate out of the bottle, but actually like a lot in the candle and vice versa - go figger!!

Frosting seems to occur from several causes... tempering helps tremendously, but the scent and dye used have a direct bearing also. We have had some frosting occur from candles made from the same batch, but scented and dyed differently. A dark burgundy red dye was one of our culprits... You just have to test and see what works with the ingredients you are using.

I really like C-3. I use 1 oz. FO (great cold and hot throw) and follow the directions for tempering the wax we found in a discussion here. Since we began "seeding" the wax and tempering, we have had baby-butt smooooth tops and no caveins. We have found that the range of wicks that give good results is pretty wide... we use CDN wicks from JBN.

:wave:Hey, Dixiegal! We pour essential oils as cool as the wax will stand. The fragrance oils I have used seem more tolerant to higher temps. We do consider the optimum temperature for the scent, but what's good for the wax is more important to us. But that's just us... Different folks using different materials might do something entirely different. Good luck & glad you are able to enjoy makin' candles again.

Reminds me of photos of icebergs from underneath... VERY nice effect!!

I love those colors - almost as good as a cool beverage in the shade!!

GREAT lookin' palms, as always, Soja! Despite the whims and vagaries of palm wax, it is fascinating to me and so lovely to see!

The beeswax looks so MELLOW! I just love it!!

Donita, you have the magic touch with luminaries!! The beeswax is a great touch! I so enjoy seeing your work!!