chuck_35550

Soaped FB's Breath of God and Lust. Also AH/RE's Purple Sandalwood. Used a slow moving recipe for the two FB fragrances and used hanger method swirl and the twirling swirl in my slab. Both fos behaved beautifully but I hate Lust and Breath of God is very light. Lust smells like moth balls and patch (Poison perfume) and its very strong. Breath of God is very clean but subtle to the point of being invisible. Purple Sandalwood is a weird red color but it didn't discolor the soap and stuck very well only using 1 ounce for a two pound test mold. Two of the soaps used 100% organic aloe vera juice for the liquid and the other was 100% goat milk. I had plenty of time to swirl and really enjoyed playing with the micas. HTH Steve

I need to find some of those Halloween pumpkins with the witches hats again. They sold really well for a couple of seasons. You're right about how quickly the fall season gets here and then its the Christmas (endurance) season. Need to start ordering more stuff I guess, but first got to get through the initial butt off of couch or out of recliner, lol.

Ok, cleaned up the lab last night and got everything ready for soaping and chandlering. Got a ton of new fos to play with and some new recipes to try out. Can't you smell the pumpkin in the air? So tonight will be an intensive effort to restore my passion for handcrafting soaps and candles. Get out the goats milk, organic aloe vera juice and line up the micas for an orgiastic event that will hopefully leave me satisfied and renewed about my talents. Wow, how does late summer do this to me? Steve

Thanks for the reply. I too bought the clear and goat milk low sweat mp from wsp. Not good. I use gel colorants and they do a great job but over time turn dark or morph. I usually make a lot of football related soaps for the season but lately have found the bases to be so unstable that it can be embarrassing. I like to make the mp spheres for the tops of my cp soaps and have a silicone column heart mold that is way cool but again I hate to see them weeping in the finished product. I think the two mediums together are awesome when making jeweled soaps or layered soaps but first things first is to find that true low sweat clear or opaque base. Steve

My real fantasy would be to find a person or group of persons all into making soap. Bouncing ideas and areas of expertise would be such a joy. Customers can make critiques but its not the same as a couple of people involved in the process as it occurs. Writing music can be very much like that, with people throwing around ideas and coming up with something new and exciting. I wouldn't care if it was just a small batch or a huge batch, as long as it was a process that created a challenge that is shared. I show my wife some new technique and she thinks that's nice but it would have been cool for her to have been in the lab saying, "why not add this or that or don't you think that would look better?". Maybe someday. Maytag Soapmaker

SKS

I have tried so many bases that claim to be low moisture but so far the Alabama humidity has made liars of them all. They weep like crazy no matter what I do. Any help? Steve

Well maybe I'm doing this all wrong but my melts have a much higher fragrance oil percentage than my candles (6-7% for candles and 8-10% for melts) with the trade-off being that melts don't last as long as candles but deliver the stronger fragrance in a shorter period of time. No? I get 8 to 16 melts per pound of wax instead of 2 8 oz candles per pound, which my math gives me a slight profit edge from melts. I just don't sell as many melts. Steve

That was a long time ago in a land faraway. I generally charge $1.00 per ounce of wax. Buying wax, wicks, fos , labels and jars does not equal profit. The alternative would be to charge an amount that would leave most of them on the shelf. My market is rural and the customer base has limited money for luxury items. My products are bought for teacher gifts, shower gifts and some home use but few of my customers are willing to pay premium prices for a product that is on every shelf of nearly every store. I see lots of candles sitting around on shelves and it makes no sense to over price a product. The salsa jars are half the cost of the jelly jars in bulk. I can buy $250.00 worth and get free shipping to my door and fairly good quality of glass. Steve

The better question is how much oatmeal to use in your tester. I find its real easy to overdo the amount of oatmeal and you come up with a nasty bar of soap. It reminds me of using clays. Too much of a good thing doesn't equate better. I'm very conservative (about 1 tsp pp ) when it comes to additives of any kind. Customers seem to only want a soap that bubbles, softens skin and smells or doesn't. Oh and they somehow want the right characteristics for their type of skin in one bar of soap, lol. Steve

Well CB said it perfectly. Being just a single with no employee help is a huge problem. I can make the product but there's no one in line to finish up the details except me. I have one wholesale account left to get out of and then its back to selling to a small customer base. Retailers know next to nothing about my products and therefor can't or won't help a customer to choose the best product for their need. I would love to be in a complex of handcrafters to share expenses and present the right purpose of handcrafting to the public. The large venues like the one TT mentions are very expensive, exclusive and require a huge amount of product. I gave up on three day festivals a long time ago (who can compete with funnel cakes?) and found a better profit margin selling to reliable customers. I have very little waste and my only headache is buying a fragrance that winds up a loser. I have way too many bottles in the lab that are duds. Buying in bulk and making a one of a kind product is the only hope I have for a profitable side business. But look, no matter whether you're in entertainment, service industry or handcrafting; nobody gets big and rich overnight. Ten to twenty years of testing, hard work and natural talent make the end result of a challenge the sweet reward. You can't discourage the person's belief system that they can come up with a new next thing. Handcrafting will never disappear as long as people desire something personally made with love. Steve

I don't think glass is going to absorb anything and hot glue melts when heated (hence the name) so you can place them in a warm oven and then scrape out the glue or hot gun them. I use the two sided 3m sticky stuff and it comes out pretty easily. People could use the jars for vases, fill them with trinkets or various other decorating ideas. HTH Steve

I rinse everything in the sink then run a sink full of Dawn dishwashing liquid and clean completely. My lab and sink is in the basement and does not mix with kitchen utensils. Never use food prep tools and soap making tools together. Actually, I leave everything dumped in the sink for a couple of days and then rinse out and clean. I wear sandals all the time and sometimes a bead of lye or a drop of soap can hit my exposed feet. Ouch, lye burns are different than any other kind of burn. The number one rule is never add liquid to lye and the number two rule is to never use aluminum.

Remember that all votive holders are not created equal. The original purpose is to hold a votive candle that should act like a pillar. I like them to stay intact for most of the burn and the holder only catches the spatters and blow outs. I tried pouring into some votive holders from Dollar Tree and they shattered on me. Otherwise, a nice sturdy holder should do nicely after extensive testing. Steve

I used to sell those for $5.00 retail. I used the nice lids that look antique but the jars can only be labeled on the lid. The raised lettering is the whole appeal of the jar, so it only makes sense to label the top of the lid. Tip: buy the warning labels for the bottom of the jar with a line for writing the fragrance name. Lids can get mixed up. They tend to get hang up in those corners but make nice candle containers. My customers said no to jelly jars or canning jars and I use a 12 ounce salsa with gold lid. Its still a canning jar but looks a little more uptown. Buy in bulk and save money or they can be costly. HTH Steve

I know people like to burn all the wax up out of the jar but for safety sake there should be about 1/4 inch of wax left in the bottom. If your safety tab is not sealed to the bottom of your jar it will continue to draw wax up through the underside. This can lead to the jar cracking or shattering altogether. Insurance against a disaster would be to make sure your wick assembly is sealed against wax getting underneath IMHO. You aren't always going to get the perfect result because of the different compounds of fragrance oils. A good candle is a safe candle that fragrances a room, burns slowly and doesn't have a flame above the rim of the container. People are careless with open flames and forget a candle has been power burning for 10 hours. You just explain that the little bit left in the bottom is on purpose and for their own safety. Steve

What percentage of fragrance oil are you using? Small flame with a strong HT doesn't add up. You shouldn't have much fragrance if your melt pool is small or shallow. Do you see a lot of soot with your candles? Too much fragrance oil with inadequate wick might be the problem. Your wax might have picked up some jet fuel fumes on shipment? That's got to be a long flight from CS to Finland with plenty of opportunities to contaminate your wax (I guess) but my money is on too much fragrance oil. Steve

I think Badedas is one of the best fragrances (very clean) but couldn't sell it. Satsuma, Cranberry Salsa and Apple/Pumpkin are very nice indeed.

Just the 20 for 20, no code. The usual sample packs are for new fragrances or specific sets of fragrances. I wish I had gotten two sets for better sample soap making. I soaped the Purple Sandalwood last night and it is very nice and not too overpowering. There was a little acceleration but my recipe is heavy on tallow and I soaped at a hot temp. The purple morphed on me (damn it) but otherwise the result was good. Hope the scent sticks and doesn't fade. I loved the pumpkin fragrances and most everything else smells strong oob. I' m happy. Steve

Getting my shipment today! Fast. Apple & Pumpkin Strudel, Mulberry Frost, Bora Bora, Rustic Lodge, Satsuma, Cucumber Mint, Pumpkin Crème Brulee, Purple Sandalwood, Cranberry Salsa, Shangri-La, Sweet Pumpkin, Oak Barrel Cider, Tuscan Fields, Lemon Verbena, Honey Bee, Honeysuckle & White Patch, Lemon Curd, Monkey Farts and Red Lipstick. Hope there are some good ones in there! Steve

AH/RE has always had high shipping charges. South Carolina is just a hop from Alabama and it costs more than an order from Australia,, lol. It all works out for the good when you look at the regular prices of the 1 ounce bottles. I bought 20 and hope to actually test them and not have them sit and stare at me everyday. I just can't resist a so-called bargain. Steve

Wonder what the cost on a carton of camel milk is these days?

Wow, what a hassle to order and the shipping is unreal but nothing stops a true fo-aholic. Just hope some of them are worth the effort.

Sweet

Got in Ancient Incense, Breath of God, Autumn Night and Lust. OOB I'm not real impressed but maybe they will be ok in cp soap and candles. Will report back (I hope they turn out good since I bought 1 pounders). Steve