FlamingGlitter

12 hours ago, BusyBee said:

We have very simple labeling regulation in US, we do not have to do any of those complicated things.  Ours is not even regulation at all compare to many other countries.  Korea has much tighter candle business regulation than yours that it's impossible to start without a consultant and tons of registration & testing fees.

oh wow so I won't be expanding to Korea any time soon then haha.

Thank you for your insight

I've got the information from this publication posted by The British Candlemakers Federation, it's under the point "poison centre notification"

Hey everybody, hope you're all doing well!

I've been immersing myself in every kind of candle information possible, from sourcing of material, to marketing, to legal matters, to labelling, ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING to make sure I got all of my bases covered before going into business. 

Now I've just come across the requirement of adding Unique Formula Identifiers to labels and I was wondering if you guys have already tackled that requirement or if you will be waiting to do so when it becomes mandatory (January of 2021 if I remember correctly)

x

40 minutes ago, lmc said:

Your candle looks great...no soot, wick looks very good, think you're off to a great start. 

Thank you so much !

4 hours ago, BusyBee said:

Hi,

 

I am in US, and I am not familiar with your wax nor your wicks, so I cannot write with 100% confidence.  But, what I can tell you is that your candle is one of the best I have ever seen.  The mushroom is very minimal for power burnt candle, and I say your container temperature is so much better than moderate.  In US, temperature of container should not go over 77C per ASTM standard.  I believe you have look into CLP compliance over at your place.  I as a candle maker, my goal is to keep the temperature of container below 63C.  

 

I think you have great candle.  Thank you for showing us your candle!  I might look into those wicks that you have used.  It looks like they are more advanced wicks than what is available to us in here in USA.  We don't have rapeseed wax either.  You got me interested in that, too.

 

Attached picture shows real mushroom of famous name brand candle!  This happened in about 3 1/2 hours.

Oh wow thank you so much, I‘m flattered by your judgement! 
It doesn’t have any mushroom when it’s been burnt properly, but when it‘s power burned it has developed a moderately sized one. I just couldn’t find any real solid guidelines for how a candle should test in a power burn. Just found this video  

 for regular 4hour testing (+ a testing procedure in the video description)

I get the wax and wicks from a UK website (candle-shack.co.uk) and I‘ve been happy with it (take my opinion with a grain of salt, I haven’t used soy or paraffin as I was specifically looking for an alternative to those). The wick is a cotton and linen one suggested by the wax manufacturer 

14 hours ago, Crafty1_AJ said:

My advice is that you can't cover every single variable in how a candle will be burned.  Some people will light it and forget it until 8 hours later.  Others light it and 10 minutes later, get called away, so they extinguish early.  Some people burn in a room that's 68* F, and others burn in a room that's 78* F.  Some never trim, others accidentally trim the wick way too short. (Oops, I've done that myself, and I know better!)  You can't possibly cover all situations, scenarios, and human error.  So aim for the middle/average.  I include burning instructions with every candle order I ship, so if the candle gets messed up, at least the customer had fair warning.  LOL   

 

I once had a customer complain that the candle I made was faulty, so I pulled a candle from the SAME BATCH and test burned.  Nope, it was great.  Another time, the customer was right -- we had likely grabbed the wrong wick size for that batch.  At any rate, I'd say don't kill yourself trying to account for every single deviation from good burning instructions.  

Just trying to be as safe as possible, guess I‘m getting too caught up in it. Thank you!

Hey everyone!

16 hours ago, CandleRush said:

There are other posts regarding the Alex method if memory serves me right. I’ve tested both from time to time and the ht was the same. There were a few differences, not many. 

As of Saturday I poured testers with my 50/50 blend of 464 and 4630. I added the fo below 130. Stirred for 2 min. Yes, the wax was clouded but still liquid. One they solidified the ct was stronger than I’d had ever! I can’t expl this phenomenon. I lit 2 out of 3, 3 days later, ht amazing, still scratching my head! I thought maybe the fo was sitting on top of the wax and not fully incorporated but they are burning beautifully. No fireballs, thank goodness.

Im guessing if I were to repeat this process things might turn out yet another way!

Interesting, thank you for sharing your experience! Weird that it always turns out different though 🙈

6 hours ago, TallTayl said:

Adding FO cold is a good recipe fo pooling and seeping of FO. If using a lower flashpoint fragrance, that pooling and seeping is a fire hazard,  there is no conspiracy by FO sellers here, just bad advice.

 

Quality FO will withstand any temp you throw at it and will produce fab HT.  Example, palm wax requires temps in excess of 200*F and holds a max of 6%  FO . Some formate of palm hold even less, yet easily can outperform most of those soy and paraffin candles with 12% FO and “cold” pouring temps. 

 

Many wax blends contain components (emulsifiers, structurants, etc) that independently have very different drop points. If you don’t heat the entire mass to the recommended temps to fully remelt and incorporate those components you will often get odd crystal formation that may not be initially visible to the naked eye. 
 

If you want an eye opening experience that replicates what damage a candle can do in someone’s home, do a little experiment where it is safe to do so.  Let some low FP oil pool in the bottom of a jar with a little wax, then hold a match to it.  You will have essentially made a fire ball. Keep these things in mind as you create products for use in people’s’ homes. Their safety is of much greater concern than supposedly preserving a little HT. 

I haven’t had the seeping or pooling issue but the throw was really bad, which usually isn’t the case with this wax. But I do see where you‘re coming from, I was just hoping this might be a possibility to increase throw even more (apart from using proper wick etc) 

I‘m sorry if it was dumb of me to ask but I‘ve seen this suggested in videos, even by a candle scientist. 

https://youtu.be/c7OnNZou2bU

https://youtu.be/_akWOi6lug4

I definitely want to make my candles as safe as possible and am making sure I extensively test them. 
Do you happen to have a recommendation for great high quality fragrance oils? 

Thank you so so much for you insight! 

Hey guys,
I‘ve been doing so much research on all things candles that wax is running through my veins. 
During my research I‘ve found a method that suggests adding FO as cold as possible and pouring cold instead of manufacturer’s instructions of adding FO at a certain higher temperature. The reasoning for this method being that FO and wax doesn’t „bind“ as it‘s often proclaimed, but rather mixes/dissolves. And when FO is added at high temperatures it‘s being burned of, no „binding“ occurs. Now this reasoning sounds perfectly reasonable to me as 1) manufacturers often sell FO and when it‘s burned off during curing we are supposed to add more for a good throw, 2) „binding“ of wax and FO doesn’t really make sense as that would imply that those two components would form a new molecule and finally 3) during the time the wax cools it‘s basically at full melt pool for a long time, releasing scent until the wax has hardened. 
So I‘m wondering if any of you have tried this and how your results have been.
I’ve tried this with a coconut+rapeseed+beeswax blend +10%FO but my throw isn’t as great as I had hoped, now I don’t know if I’m nose blind to the scent I’ve been testing, the wick doesn’t work or if I didn’t stir for long enough (definitely didn’t stir for 2 minutes) 

I‘m slowly losing my mind over here hehe 

Thanks 

6 hours ago, Peggy T said:

Wow this is great! One question: what is Rauchbildung?

Thanks

Oh no, I didn‘t notice I missed that. It means ‚smoking‘ basically, and ‚Brenndauer‘ is burn time. Must’ve overread when I translated it because I use mine in German. Damn it, I‘ll fix it, let me know if you need an update. Sorry 

6 hours ago, Forrest said:

Great job! The only thing I didn't see was room temperature. For the most part we wick for an average room temp, but if your room is  warmer, or colder it will effect your test results.

Oh that‘s a good one! I might tweak it some more, thank you! 
 

7 hours ago, CaptnKush said:

Ok Im stupid I got it figured out. I like this one better than the one I have been using. Thanks.

Haha no worries

8 hours ago, chevcher said:

Very cool ! 
I can't see anything that you may have missed,   Looks like you pretty much covered everything.
Thanks !

Thank you, you‘re welcome  

4 hours ago, NightLight said:

That’s a good one! Thank you.

Very welcome

17 minutes ago, CaptnKush said:

That is a great template. Is it possible to make this on 1 page instead of 2 halves?

It‘s actually 2 full A4 pages, I made it this way so it can be printed double sided. The second page is really just for continuing to document burn cycles (you can add the numbers of the burn cycle and/or just print the second page if you need even more burn cycles)

Hope that made sense 🙈

you can also just use the first page if you‘d like 

Hey guys,

I've been researching, pouring and testing candles like a crazy person in order to make my product the highest quality I can, but also make it as safe as possible (ain't nobody trying to get sued, amirite). In my research I've found plenty of resources, some more helpful than others, however I wasn't able to find a testing template that worked super great for me, so I made my own and wanted to share it in case anybody needs it/wants to use it.

If you have any suggestions of what I might have missed or what else I could add, let me know.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SYvfDLarFZwzaGQM-j8D1U5IxCsnJUKU/view?usp=sharing

55 minutes ago, TallTayl said:

As long as the flame does not grow too tall (especially Through power burns) it should not become a problem.  

Thank you so much! 

3 hours ago, TallTayl said:

It is totally normal.  the air heats and creates more forceful current within the vessel.  This both causes more heat in later burns (which catches the early Hangup) and more powerful hot throw later in the jar.

Oh okay thank you, I couldn’t find much information on this topic. 
Do you know if the increased flickering during the lifetime of the candle would be a safety concern and therefore possibly fail a lab test? 
thank you

Hello everybody, 

I just came across this forum and I‘m so glad! Hoping ya‘ll would be so kind to help me with an issue I have been having. 
The wax I‘m using is a coco and rapeseed blend (RCX if somebody is familiar), it‘s been working great (just had to get used to the irregular, bumpy surface after burning the candle, which I have been told is normal for vegetable waxes? -please correct me if I‘m wrong, I was only familiar with burning paraffin waxes prior) 

The scent throw is great both hot and cold, melt pool diameter and depth is good, minimal to no mushrooming when using the right wick size, nice safe flame height, no tunneling, no sooting or smoking, acceptable amount of after glow when the candle is extinguished, the burning temperature is good, everything is great- except for the dreaded, god awful FLICKERING. 
I‘ve tried different types of wicks suggested by the manufacturer with CL being most recommend, VRL and V wicks, in all different sizes to optimize burn qualities, different fragrances and FO percentages (6%, 8%, 10%) and the issue of flickering still arises every time. However I noticed, that this starts when the candle has burned about halfway through the container, so when it‘s still pretty full, flickering isn‘t an issue, but when it‘s ‚emptied‘ more is when the flickering becomes a problem. I was thinking that it might be due to the containers I‘m using, could that be a possibility? That there isn‘t enough oxygen feeding the flame and therefor the flame is flickering? 
I‘ve attached pictures of the jars I‘m using, maybe the opening isn’t wide enough.. I would be really appreciative if anyone might have a solution for me. 
 

thank you!