LilFirecracker

7 hours ago, Belinda said:

I've never used 4786 in cups but have been making candles with it and I love the look of it! I do have to do a second pour though. I don't know why this wax isn't more popular.

 

Please let us know what you think about the throw when you melt them.

 

Oh, I also have to throw mine down over and over on the concrete to break it up. I've heard or read where if you put it in your freezer for a little while it'll break up easier. I haven't tried it yet though. For some reason the last batch I bought broke up really easy. I was pleasantly surprised about it. 

BINGO!! Thank you, Belinda!! I never thought to try putting it in the freezer for a while! I was so ready to dig into it I wouldn't have wanted to wait either lol. But I'll definitely try that with the other half of the slab. It's a beautiful wax, and I'm so happy I didn't have dips in my cups. That was the one thing I was worried about. I usually like to wait a day or 2 after pouring before I start testing but impatient me couldn't wait. I started with my first tester straight and it's been going strong now for over 12 hours. I also mixed it 75/25 and 50/50 with 4630 and 4633 to see if I can gain anything from it or if it makes a difference either way. They all pop out easy. Now I want the throw to beat all throws!!! LOL don't we all!!! Thanks again for the freezer idea!

2 hours ago, franu61 said:

They look beautiful!

Thank you! 😃

What happened to the edit option for posts? I wanted to go back and correct the part where I said it took one more round of squeezing to get it out of the cup than the other waxes. But I just popped another out and I didn't even finish squeezing the sides before it just fell right into my hand. I guess they weren't completely cooled when I tried last night. I'm very impatient!

ETA: Well the edit button showed up for this post. But it's still not showing for the other one. Is there a time limit for editing? I can't get rid of my laugh/cry emoji either...it just follows me. I can't erase it!!! 😂

I finally received the last wax I'm gonna test (yeah, right!) yesterday. Last night I went to work making melts in the portion cups. I did some straight and then 7 other combos with it. I was very surprised I didn't have a dip in the center since it's not a one-pour wax. It's just ever so slightly concave, but if you're not looking for it you won't see it. Comes out of the cup clean - takes one more round of squeezing than the others. I haven't tested any for throw yet, but I have a feeling it'll do great because it gave me such a hard time busting it up. Too hard to cut with a knife, almost too soft to bust up with a hammer. Tried the electric car ing knife - I would've been at it for hours. I brought it outside and tried busting it at so many angles against the concrete until I finally had it in enough pieces so it would fit in the Presto. Here's a few that I made straight!

11 hours ago, TallTayl said:

I like that your “font” is 100% you. 
 

One lesson I learned over the years is to make your product stand out in some way. If every person at an event that sold the same product as me put an item on a table would I be able to pick mine out? That is the key in my opinion.

 

For some people it’s packaging.

 

For some people it’s color.

 

For others it’s something I’ve never even thought of.

 

Be 100% authentically you and people will identify with you. Those people are your customers.

 

People can get a melt or a candle that they are perfectly satisfied with anywhere. What they’re buying is a piece of you as the artist. That is the beginning of your brand loyalty. 

Thank you! That's my goal is to try to stand out... especially living in the middle of nowhere! My things will be unique like ME!😃

19 hours ago, TallTayl said:

Look at it this way, some people hand write on plain white stickers and clean up 😂

 

or tie a handwritten tag onto the package. 
 

your options are as simple or complicated as you want them to be.

I want a little better than handwriting because mine sucks!! With the exception of my business name logo I've been working on. I had my 12 year old niece over the other day and she gave me some ideas along with what I already had in mind. What I wanted, you can't find in regular fonts. This is roughly what I've come up with so far. I know it's a little crooked but this was just freehand...

@CandybeeThank you so much! You've given me some great options! Like I said before, I'm all over the place with ideas that keep popping into my head. My brain's filing system malfunctioned a couple of months ago from overload. In desperate need of a back-up system! 🤣

When making your melts geared toward sales, do you try to formulate yours to work in ALL warmers? Like the low-heat Scentsy ones that a lot of people have? I actually found a 2pc warmer at Wal-Mart that doesn't heat up much when I was expecting it to get pretty hot. I was going to return it until I realized that it's just about the same as the Scentsy warmer so I can use it to test. It still throws, yet I can pick up the dish and stick my finger in the wax like they say you can with theirs lol. Don't laugh but when I get bored I'm now obsessed with covering my fingers in the wax then peeling it off when cooled, which takes all of 10 seconds! I do make sure the one that's in there at the time is a skin-safe scent first!🤣

Anyway...I got off topic a little. I've been trying to get my combos with as low of a melt point as possible. I know averaging the 2 doesn't give you a true MP, but it's close enough of a guess I assume. A couple of my best combos are 130 and above. So I'm not sure which way to go with it. I do have a couple of people with a bunch of Scentsy warmers testing for me. I just sent one lady a mixture of low and higher MP testers. I have the testers coded so she won't know which is which. So do you try to go for the lowest MP while not compromising throw?

15 hours ago, Candybee said:

The webstaurantestore has clear or translucent microwaveable PET plastic containers that are cute and cost effective. Would be easy to slap a 2-3" round label on the top. These I found hold 8oz:

 

A PLAIN FLAT LID!!! Man I've been wanting to find lids like this for the 2oz cups!! I'm glad you show me these so I can check out the price. I was looking for something a little nicer to hold the larger amount of melts, but this will work if the price is right! 

15 hours ago, Candybee said:

My current printer and the one before are both HP Inkjet ALL-in-One color printers from Walmart. Both under $50 and last a long time. My labels are beautiful and I get lots of compliments on them. I do go through a lot of ink thou, mostly color as my labels are in full colors. So I typically buy at least half a dozen or more color ink cartridges a year. For every 2-3 color I use only 1 black ink cartridge.

 

I am happy with my labels and the quality of the print.

 

One thing I don't do is waterproof labels. I think I will need a laserjet for that. You can do them on an inkjet but its problematic as the ink sits on top of the paper and takes time to dry. So I just don't do waterproof labels and I need to because I am doing my bath product labels and really need to start doing waterproof ones.

 

Anyway, for most labels an inkjet is just fine. The printer is low cost, efficient, and turns out clean, crisp, labels. But if you do a lot of color labels you will be buying color ink cartridges a lot over the year. I do buy XL ink cartridges instead of regular cause they print about double the labels for just a few extra bucks more.

That's good to know in case I ever decide to go waterproof! I didn't realize that. I wish I could just go black and white, but the side of me that wants to stand out just won't let me! I will have color, but I'm thinking of just going with inkjet in the beginning. Then if the business takes off I might invest in a laser printer later. Sounds like a good compromise! 😃

Thank you all for your input! Doesn't make my decision any easier LOL, but at least I know that either one could work for my needs!

3 minutes ago, TallTayl said:

The clams from crafters choice have held up very well, with contents of most surviving for several years fully scented. A couple of scents of the same wax blend did not.  
 

The answer is deeper than just the packaging material, I think. Components of some fragrances/essential oils/aromachemicals chemically react differently . lavender essential oil for instance,will eat through many plastics. I remember that lesson well when I poured lavender intended for use in my soap batch into a plastic cup. It was in there maybe a minute before the cup disintegrated. Never had any trouble with other fragrances or essential oils prior to that. 
 

When I started I purchased small amounts of many kinds of packaging to figure out what worked best for my blends. 

Thanks so much! That gives me a little hope that it might work for one of my options. My brain has been working overtime lately and I'm on idea overload while sitting idle testing, testing, TESTING! 😃

Just wondering which do you use and how cost effective is one over the other? It's not set in stone yet, but I might have a lot of black on my labels...not sure which route I should go. 

3 hours ago, TallTayl said:

Packaging kind of depends on how it will be used. Display? Mail order packaging? Gift wrapping?

 

if displaying at a craft show, usually a hanging display is most space and shopper efficient. This is where clams really shine. 
 

ive seen some displays use barrels, pails or drawers to display. This is where portion cups, or small bags or even ‘“naked” melts shine. One melt seller I watched at a garden show used cute metal pails lined with fabric to sell naked Brownie bite size melts. People would mix and match colors into a paper bag.  They sold out to their target market. Talk about EASY. Dump melts into a pail and be done. The fabric liner of the pail turned into the carrying and storage for transport. The pails stacked inside each other.

 

a popular seller at all the events within 100 miles of me displays the water softener salt tablets in big rubbermade totes right on a table. The salt tablets are colored and scented. People stuff as many as they can into a baggie for a flat price,  those totes sell a lot of tablets! Nothing fancy. She knows her market really well. 
 

for mail order we have very different challenges. Candy boxes, glassine bags, clamshells, etc all work.  It depends on your branding and what you like to work with.  At the end of the day, whatever does not  will have to work with, so you might as well like it. 

Basically what I'm trying to find out is if the PET jars will hold up with wax melts since some of the clamshells are made out of PET. I really don't know how the clamshells really hold up though, so I'm clueless when it comes to the PET jars. Can't find Polypro jars anywhere ☹️

52 minutes ago, Belinda said:

The only downside I see to cups is storage, at least in my wax room. My husband put boards and hooks on the walls of an empty bedroom to hang clams on and now I'll use them to hang bags on. I have to store my portion cups in a drawer but I'm probably going to quit using them. I'll just use my molds for samples I guess. I've run out of room and am trying to downsize but it's not working LOL!

LOL yeah storage is a problem for me right now no matter what I decide to use. We need a new shed really bad so I can clear out the spare rooms and stop having to use them as storage sheds lol. Actually I'd really love to have my own little portable building as a shop, but financially that'll never happen at least in the foreseeable future. It would be so nice though!!❤️

1 hour ago, Belinda said:

The cups would be a cute idea I think. I never thought about using those in a bigger size for more tarts. I use the 2 ounce ones for samples. 

That's what I'm leaning towards. It'll match the portion cups. I'm just hoping they don't look too "cheap." That's what I'm afraid of with my mini-melts. Technically it'll be a lot cheaper cost-wise, but I don't want them to look the part lol. I still have time before I get to where I'm happy and ready to sell, so between now and then I'm sure I'll decide on something! I'm just so in my element when I'm working on my melts, it makes me all giddy talking about it. I've always wanted to start my candle business back up that I began 20 years ago. But I'm not even thinking about candles now. It's the melts I'm so passionate about. So I guess as long as I'm working with wax and FO on some level, I'm at my happiest! 😃

2 hours ago, Belinda said:

I have gone back and forth with this same thing for years! I don't like clamshells even though they are the easiest way to package. I really like kraft brown bags with the window for shapes and also polypro bags. When I do shapes in the polypro bags I like to tie them with a piece of homespun fabric. It's more work though that's for sure but I do love the look. I've been using the chocolate bar molds lately and just put them in polypro zipper bags.

I thought about doing the snap bar molds and things like that, but I keep going back to the bag problem. I wanna steer away from bags even though the PP zip top bags were my initial choice with my mini-melts. Still looking for a cheap container alternative. I love the tins with the clear window lid, but I'd like to go for something less costly. I'm actually thinking about the bigger cups with lids made like the 2oz portion cups to start out then maybe graduate to the tins later. Idk... So many ideas running thru my head I'm on overload!!! 

Hi everyone! I read that years ago IGI used to send you samples of their wax if you'd call to request one. Has anyone tried that recently? Just wondering if they would still do that. I want to try 4627 in my combos for melts before I make a final decision, but I can't make myself buy 23lbs when all I need is a couple of lbs to test. Hope to hear from someone who has tried recently...TIA!!!

I've been looking at different ideas for packaging my mini-melts when I'm ready to start selling. I've been back and forth with poly bags, round or square tins with the clear window lid, and jars. I'd love to do glass, but that can start getting expensive and I'm trying to keep packaging costs as low as possible. People around here don't really care how nice the packaging is. The majority aren't willing to pay the extra - they just want their goodies. Anyway....plastic jars. Most that I find are PET. I've only found a handful made from PP and not even in the sizes I would need. I know that most clamshells are made from PET or PVC. In your opinion, how do you think wax melts would fare being sold and stored in PET jars? Has anyone tried it? I just keep thinking that if PET clamshells can hold up, these should too. But I also wonder how long the PET clamshells last before they do start slowly breaking down from the FO in the wax - if they do break down at all. 

Help!! I'm driving myself nuts over this packaging thing that's still a little ways away. I always like to plan and be prepared way ahead of time. One of those little OCD things with me.... 🤣

On 11/15/2021 at 12:02 PM, Karen Ov said:

After the fridge I take a butter knife and stab it in the middle, it cracks like in 3 pc's and done.

LOL great way to expel a little bit of frustration with that stabbing!😂

Right now I'm having a bit of trouble with the hundred combos I'm testing. I have a couple that'll slide right out of my little plug-in warmer with no effort at all. I have a 25 watt bulb warmer that barely melts the wax no matter how low the melt point is, but they'll slide right out of that dish (metal.) I have another 25 watt ceramic bulb warmer, but it's a square one and the throw isn't all that great in that one either. I'm tempted to put a 40 watt in it. The only one I love is my 2pc electric plate warmer from Wal-Mart so I'll probably go invest in another one for testing. 

I've read a lot of great things about 4786 being used in candles and it seems as though it has a wonderful hot throw. But those topics are buried deep in this forum - mostly back to the mid to late 2000s. I see it as "the forgotten wax," mainly because it's a 2-pour. Has anyone used it for melts alone or blended with another wax? I'm definitely gonna order a slab and test it, but I wanted to also hear from anyone who has tried it. Sounds like it was the go-to wax back in the day before 4627, 4630, & the J waxes came along. 

What about 4826? Lone Star sells it as a tart wax, but it has a MP of 140 so they really don't push it as a tart wax - they push 4794 when someone asks what to use for tarts/melts. Has anyone ever tried it? 140 is high to use alone, but I use 4625 with container waxes and it's a 142MP. Just wondering if it would be worth testing as my pillar/votive part of the mix, or should I not even bother with testing it?

Thanks to everyone for your input! Your opinions and knowledge has helped so many, and in so many ways. I hope soon that I'll be able to be one to give advice on here along with everyone else! ❤️

3 hours ago, bfroberts said:

I use the cotton ball method to remove from my warmers so that part isn't a concern.  But I do use clamshells and it is important to me - a solid 5 - that they break and release from the clam cleanly.  I despise soft sticky melts.

You and me both! That's the first thing is test for is consistency and release. I test in both clamshells and my mini-melts in a silicone mold. They have to stay firm when squeezed between my fingers. I'm loving 4625 for keeping things firm! 

1 hour ago, TallTayl said:

The shape of the melter cup plays a role.  The halogen lamp one have has a well with a lip, so none would pop out no matter the consistency. I have to get it warm to peel out the wax, or dump liquid hot wax. 
 

the older dish style I like to pop out in one piece. Pushing it to free from the dish was preferable to having to find a spot in the freezer to later pop out. The freezer drawer can be dicey to find a spot that won’t ram it broken to bits. 
 

neither is a deal breaker if the melt smells nice for a decent amount of time. 
 

the one thing I dislike is sticky feeling melts out of the package.  Not the end of the world though. 

Since I've been trying to go for a lower MP combo to work in the lower wattage warmers, I don't think I'll have a problem with them hardening too much in the dish. Trying to find that happy medium between having to pop it out with a spoon or knife and having to scoop it out like a thick peanut butter 🤣

I'm finally gonna be putting that Dragon's Blood in wax today.... I can't wait!!!! ❤️

47 minutes ago, Candybee said:

You already know my feelings about it. I prefer the melt to push right out of the melter with one finger. Mine do. I have bought melts that had to be poured out when still liquid otherwise you had to dig them out. No thanks! Plus I just don't think I should have to bother to put the dish with the melt in the freezer to get it out. Pain in the butt I think. Nope, I only want melts that come out whole with a simple push.

 

TT brings up an important issue though, sometimes the type of melter can present a challenge to releasing a melt. But more often than not its typically the type of wax used. If you are going to make and sell wax melts get a wax that releases from the melter easily. Then as a side sell a good brand of melters that both heats and releases melts properly so you are giving your customers the best.

 

I really hate those crap melters that use a low wattage utility bulb or melters with tin or metallic bowls. Watch out for those melters. Doesn't Scentsy sell those melters that use the low wattage bulbs and then they claim that only their melts will work in them. Pfft! If you are moron enough to buy one of their overpriced underperforming melters and wax melts you deserve to waste your money. Sorry I got off track there.

LOL!! That's easy to do when I get on that subject with that naughty "S" word 🤣 Your reply to my other post is what made me start thinking about this subject and it's importance in the finished product. I'm getting some killer scent throws right now, but these are the ones that take a little coaxing to get them out. There's still a chance one or 2 might end up popping out by the time I'm finished. I'm having absolutely no trouble with them sliding right out of the clams... Score!! 😃

Ok question: What exactly does "pop right out" entail? Are we talking flip it and it just falls out? Push with your fingers and it slides out? Or take a spoon or knife and push it into the edge and pop it out that way? 

I know this seems a little trivial, but it's important to me.