candleshiba

I was wondering how it's possible that FOs are shipped in plastic containers yet eats through my plastic cups. I'm not too familiar with how plastic is graded so it's been an interesting learning experience! I too have used pipettes but haven't seen this sort of reaction, but it could also be that I haven't waited long enough. 

By solvents did you mean something like DiPropylene Glycol? And what do you mean by volatiles?

5 hours ago, Kerven said:

I've had FO's turn pipettes into mushy goop. Messy.

It's probably solvents and volatiles in the fragrances. EO's have a similar effect, especially if they contain d-limonene, for example. Many FO's contain EO's to some degree. They'll dissolve common, low grade plastics, which is why they have to be shipped and stored in grades of plastic that are resistant... or glass. Plastic molds (not all) can also be damaged or destroyed by them.

Could anyone explain why this happens? What chemicals in fragrance oils would cause this?

When I first started marking candles I was measuring out my oils with stainless steel cups. After a while, I thought it would be much more efficient if I switch over to small plastic dixie cups, but I noticed that sometimes the fragrance oil eats through the cup. So I thought I could try a thicker cup, the classic red beer cups you find everywhere, but to my surprise, it also happened in these cups! It doesn't occur right away though, takes around 10 minutes or so after I pour out the FO for the remnants of the oil to melt the cup.

Obviously I've switched over to using glass everything now, but I'm really curious what properties of FO causes this to happen. Also makes the case for everyone to be safe and use gloves!!

You're not the only one. The first roll I bought back in June? July? I forgot worked great.

The last 2 rolls I bought from CS (1000 stickers) have been HORRIBLE. 50% of them unstick within 1 min of applying, and then another 20% of them unstick while I'm pouring the wax...I resorted to using a glue gun instead.

They do have fantastic customer service though and I was able to get my money back.

On 8/28/2020 at 12:00 PM, kfintoni said:

Hello everyone,

 

I had been previously using the wick stick um Pros from CS and they had been working great. The last few rolls I have gotten have been horrible. They barely stick to the wick tabs let alone the jars. I have spoken to two different people at CS and they keep telling me there is nothing wrong with them and nothing has changed. I stressed that even on the CS web site under reviews there are several people posting issues. My question to you all is who has the strongest wick stickers? I want something that does not come off even if I want them to. 

 

Thank you,

Karen in MA

@Candybee Thanks for the reply! Unfortunately, it was so long ago that I don't remember much of the details except for the "wow" moment when I used the soap! Curious from your experience though, what's the biggest difference between M&P vs CP soaps? I'd like to stick with M&P if I can help it since it seems much more "simple" than other methods! Would you have a recommendation for a good beginners base to start with?

Hi folks! I was wondering if anyone could shed light into why certain soaps clog the tub?

A few years ago I was gifted a lavender handmade soap that was so wonderful that I tried to recreate it. I purchased some M&P base from bulk apothecary (honestly can't remember which one), and added some lavender into it. I think I let it cure for a week or 2, but I noticed that after using the soap, my tub was slowly getting more and more clogged. After that experience I sort of ran away from soap making.

I'd like to pick it back up again and stick with M&P because I'm a total newbie, but was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction? The amazing lavender soap that i was gifted had none of those clogging properties!

Ahah, I basically never trust reviews on websites except if you're buying off a 3rd party distributor (like amazon, but even they have issues). Reason being that the merchant can 100% control which reviews to surface on the website (I used to work for an ecommerce platform). Some suppliers though like CandleScience seem to have a more honest review system judging by the number of non-5 star reviews. 

Most likely Adobe illustrator or photoshop, which is what professional graphic designers use. Steep learning curve so I wouldn't recommend it for everyone though

So I made a bunch of tea lights 2-3 weeks ago. Put them all in a box (some airtight, some not) and I've noticed that the tops of the majority of these tealights have an odd discoloration or crystallization...I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it's noticeably not smooth and looks a bit unsightly. A lot of them have this greyish-brown speckles.

Does anyone have experience with this? Using 6006 wax. When I made tea lights previously with 464 I didn't seem to have the same problem - tops all remained silky smooth.

Interestingly enough, the candles that I made around the same time DONT have this problem (thank god).

When I started burning it, some strange ring of brown..stuff appeared. What's going on?!

3 hours ago, NightLight said:

That’s like Candle Science saying they have changed all their fragrances so you can promote them as clean scents. I am not a fan of either one of these companies.  They are just trying to market and keep their customers or attract.

Aha, I saw the new collection by CS. Seemed like pretty smart marketing imo, it's all about marketing!

On 7/11/2020 at 10:26 AM, TallTayl said:

Super! 
it looks like you can easily wick up on them from the pics. 
 

in tins, usually by that mid point In the melt pool  you should see more melt from the top part. But I could be totally wrong with your wax, especially if it gets hot during a longer burn or power burn.

 

keep going. Will be interested to see how they end up. 

Finally got around to finish burning these candles in case you were interested!

Up until the last 20% I was sure that I underwicked these candles...but then it all caught up in the end. Pretty surprising results!

Not sure how adding FO will change the burn characteristics, but it was a neat little experiment to run. I would be interested in trying another wick up to see the difference.

This is the third burn around hour 5. Interestingly enough htp-73 burned the fastest and has the biggest shroom, but it might also be because I started with less wax? Can't quite remember!

On 7/14/2020 at 4:27 PM, Candybee said:

That's a tough question to answer. You are right things have been different when ordering supplies due to the pandemic. Vendors staff is often skeletal and filling orders takes two weeks instead of a day or two. Then there's the shipping. Shippers no longer quarantee delivery dates and shipping times typically run longer than before.

 

This year I have debuted at least 4 new products. But then I already have an established customer base and try to develop products I know my customers have been asking for or that pair well with products I already make. 

 

I debuted body powder, body oil, deodorant, and men's aftershave. Since I buy much of my supplies via WSP and Camden-Grey I knew the time between ordering and actual home delivery would be a minimum of 3 weeks or more.

 

The way I decided to stock supplies is by count of how much I intended to make. If I have four scents of something and order a set of 48 bottles/jars from WSP I can make 12 of each. To have enough on hand if the product takes off and sells I ordered double sets of supplies. So I ordered 2x48 and enough additives, labels, etc. to make 96 products. That way I have enough supplies on hand I can make more. So when I start seeing sales pick up I have enough time to order another set of supplies and still have product on hand for the time it takes for supplies to get to me and make more product. Hope that helps some.

Yes it does - and that does make sense to me. Thank you for sharing!

Hi everyone! Was hoping to get some advice from more experienced folks.

How many jars do you purchase upfront when you started your business? I'm of the opinion that you should start small to test the market first, but the challenge with COVID is that the manufacturing side takes forever to ship. I purchased 48 jars to start but these jars took 3 weeks to deliver =O

My thinking was to wait until I launch and gauge how well these jars sell before purchasing more, but I would be stuck waiting for another 3 weeks if they do sell...the idea of losing sales during this time is not ideal. So my question is, how do you decide how much inventory to purchase upfront? Do you sell small to gauge the market, or do you bet on yourself?

Any advice is much appreciated!

14 hours ago, TallTayl said:

Sometimes the cut on the wick end is not “sharp” and begins  trapping carbon.

 

the middle one looks like it is trying to draw too much fuel for the flame. Could be the end has just clogged, forcing combustion lower.

 

I would knock off the carbon and see if they all burn better. Sometimes the problem is on the first burn and fine thereafter.

Thank you @TallTayl ! I think you're right, I vaguely remember taking a 2nd pass at cutting those wicks with a blunt scissor yesterday. So I removed the wicks last night and put new ones in today. Made sure to use a sharper set of scissors this time and cut them only once. The results are SO interesting. Not only are they all burning as expected, the mushrooms have reduced noticeably!

Here's a look at the 2nd burn with new wicks and sharper scissors, about 1.5hrs into the burn.

*happy dance*. Really learning something new about wicks everyday!

13 hours ago, birdcharm said:

It's not a wax I've used, but I'm pretty familiar with HTP wicks (they're not always my choice, however) ... I did a quick search on the board here for your wax and I see there have been a lot of threads about it ... I just glanced through the search result page and see that someone commented that this wax should cure for at least a couple of weeks.  So, I'm wondering if your candles cured for a period of time before your testing.

Yep, I cured all of these for a little over 2 weeks!

6006 wax, HTP wicks, 8oz tin, no FO.

I'm testing 3 different sized wicks and I'm really confused as to what's going on here.

This is 2 hours into the 1st burn. 

HTP-62 seems to be burning the cleanest. Tin looks brightly lit and there's a tiny shroom but not bad.

HTP-73 is really strange. Big shroom, and the flame seems to be burning below (?) the tip of the wick...which is making the entire tin less bright.

HTP-83 also has a shrrom, but somehow even though the wick is bigger, the flame is burning at the tip of the wick, and the tin is brightly lit.

I'm confused...why would the HTP-73 burn so differently than the others?

(One caveat is that the 2 smaller wicks didn't start with a full tin, they were both slightly less than full. HTP-83 is the only tin that started full)

5 hours ago, kandlekrazy said:

Right now it might take a long time to get from them. I think the suppliers are not getting their orders is the problem.  I have ordered from alibaba in the past and did a co-op once for warmers, it took approx 6 weeks to get my order back then.  The US is not allowing imports of everything to come in, just essentials and even with essentials we can't seem to get things like disinfecting wipes or spray (all made in China I'm sure).

stupid question, but what's a co-op?

Wow , that sounds really scary. I'm glad that you were able to get it extinguished in time! Also wonder if having liability insurance would help recoup some of the costs of this disaster. How old is your child? I feel like your story should be shared with other chandlers as a lesson learned. 

With flammable material and children, I'd go the extra mile to keep materials away from reach, perhaps a storage with a lock? Also teaching them some basics of fire safety... 

1 hour ago, BusyBee said:

You might want to calculate the material cost based on bulk purchase also.  It would be okay to start from about 3.5X if you know if you can bring down the cost by purchasing little bit more in bulk.  For example; 1 lb FO vs 10 lbs FO purchase can bring down a lot in cost. 

Thank you for sharing your insights! Curious at what point did you (or others) gain the confidence to buy supplies in bulk? If you're a newbie trying to establish your business and you're only making sales here and there, you're likely to be buying supplies on an as-needed basis (for example, I'm still buying slabs of wax and the shipping costs suck). Ideally that cost comes down when I buy in larger quantities, but the prospect of buying lots of wax without knowing whether you'll actually sell it of is...nerve wrecking 😅

On 4/10/2019 at 9:39 PM, TallTayl said:

Would you like to learn  more about calculating your cost of goods sold in a future article? Or about streamlining operations to make your valuable time earn more?

Only a year late to replying to this thread but YES !

7 hours ago, ErronB said:

Lol.. they're not kidding. 6006 does really benefit from a good cure, which is funny considering it's mostly paraffin. Some FO's don't need a cure at all, but they burn better after some time.

 

It's not even the curing that bothers me about 6006, it's the high melt point. While it's great for shipping candles in the heat, it's a complete pain in the ass wicking it in a container wider than a jelly jar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ahhhh, that's something that I haven't considered. Wouldn't that be the case though for any wax with a high melt point unless you work with soy? (not 100% sure soy has lowest melt points, just a guess!)

5 hours ago, Forrest said:

If your Paraffin has ever even thought about dating a soy wax it is two week cure time

One can dream 😬

Still 2 weeks eh? Can't win'em all I suppose  😔

Like many others, I started off my candle making journey thinking 100% soy wax (464) was the way to go due to its "eco friendliness." Digging through this forum's archives have since informed me that it's not the case, which had me thinking...should I even stick with 464 given its fickle nature? Though I'm still a candle making newbie, the whole process of waiting 2 weeks (at minimum) for each test is incredibly time consuming, especially when you're testing for both fragrance combination and wick selection. Then there's the problem with HT. Of the 20 or so scents I've tested, only 2 or 3 FOs resulted in a noticeable "wow" hot throw. Surely, there must be a better alternative?

So then I read about IGI6006 and how parasoy waxes potentially address soy's problem with efficiency and hot throw. I reached out to CandleScience and asked about the % breakdown of paraffin vs soy in their waxes, to which they replied that it's a trade secret. When looking at Flaming Candle's website however, they claim that their 6006 is 70% paraffin and 30% soy.

How would FC know and CS not? Wouldn't 6006 all come from the same supplier?

Am I correct in the assumption that 6006 could reduce cure time due to the lower % of soy? CS recommends a cure time of 3-5 days, but others on this forum have ranged from 48hours to 2 weeks. Honestly even if I can reduce the cure time down by a week I'd consider that a win at this point! 😜

Ahhh gotcha. I've been buying wicks here and there from different companies thinking they were all the same, it's a good thing I learned this lesson early on 😅

@Soy-N-Suds Fascinating. I wonder where BC gets their wick? But I'm not following what you're saying. If you knew that CW wicks aren't the same as BC, and you're only ordering from BC, why would you continue using CW?