kalamazoo

Hi All,

A total newbie here so hope you don't mind me joining in.

I am so jealous I live in Scotland in the UK and can only get limited supplies of scent from UK distributors. My mouth is absolutely watering when I hear about all the different scents you can get in the US.

It is just a pity that to ship the FO's to the UK is so expensive - maybe one day I will win the lottery and get a container load sent over.

Hi Lisa, and welcome to the forum. Can I be jelous with you - living in Iceland everything has to be imported into this country. I pay 24.5% VAT on my goods and then import duties!! I think Natasha (Nattycat) has a great range of oils, even though I have not ordered from her, I am so tempted to see how much it would cost me postage wise. I think there are a few sources for goods in the UK and it is worth contacting them. Good luck.

Hi there, I do not know if you have seen this chart for LX wicks, but I find it quite useful when deciding what I might start off with. It gives the melt pool and height of the flame in inches. I once used an LX18 in a 3" pillar and it tunnelled terribly, now I use LX24 - any bigger and the flame just gets too big and smokes. As far as wicking a 2" pillar, I now wick with 15 or 18 Flat Braid and they burn very well. Hope the chart helps.

http://www.wicksunlimited.com/wedo_LX_wicks.php

That is a very nice gel candle. So much detail, must be fun to do. I see so many cute glass embeds it must be great to get everything together and then start setting up the "scene".

Love the pillars - such a popular colour where I am at the moment. Lotsa kids getting confirmed and one of the colour themes is this shocking pink for table decorations etc. The lemon slices look great in the tins, but I have to admit that I thought there were two huge bubbles in the strawberry one - good concept though.

Great colours and nice packaging - and to answer your question - yes they are definately show ready!! By the way are these soy or paraffin?

Your pillars are increadibly beautiful as always.

Hi there, could I please get a bit of advice about wicking a ball mould. I am using Peaks two piece aluminium ball mould and making chunk candles. They advise using a 44-24-18 zinc wick if you are going to drill into the candle after it is made. I have everything but this wick - I have Flat Braid, Square Braid, LX and CD and just need a starting point. Of course I will test, but which one may be good to start out with. Thanks for your help.

Hi Sarah, I have two types of palm wax I bought from CandleWic, palm 2 and palm 3, one is crystalizing palm wax and the other one is feathering palm wax.

Sometimes I like to mix them. The brown is 70% crystalizing and 30% feathering. The others are only one type of palm wax, not a mix.

I hope this answer to your question, if not.. just beat me on the head and reask!

Beautiful candles, great frosting effect and the horse pillar is a WOW. Fantastic.

Hi Sabrina, just came back to have another look at these pillars. Could you please explain something to me. I know what Palm Wax is, but for your first pillar you say it is a mix of crystal and feathering wax and the 3rd picture is feathering etc. - is this something you add to the Palm wax or are they all diferent types of Palm wax? Thanks. Sarah

Gorgeous candles!! As Top said, don´t see many plain colour rustics and yours are lovely. Love the 3rd photo with the pine cones.

Very pretty candles - love the brown one. Are these scented?

no your best not adding any vybar or stearin as this will only make the candle whiter ( especially the stearin) and less opaque so the light will not shine through as good. It would be useless adding any of these as neither raise the melt point of the wax.

You will need to either find a high melt point wax - this is impossible in the U.K i have looked.

Or use an addative to raise the melt point- i use translusent crystals but even them tend to make the wax a bit too light( i can post some pics in the gallery if you want to have a look) Plus its really difficult to work with you have to heat it seperately to melt them then add add it to the wax at 200 degrees. Plus you have to order them from the US as havent been able to find them for sale here.

Wow, very beautiful layers and it looks like you are getting the hang of the rustic pouring technique. Your Mom is gonna be very happy with a set of those for Mother's Day.

Hi Sarah (I love your name, do you know what does it mean in egyptian?)

I already ordered some molds from them but always on ebay. Today I asked a quote for the dye blocks and they told me no problem for shipping to italy. Yes, they ask a bit much in my opinon, but I have to accept!

Thanks Sabrina, does it mean Princess?

Wow, that looks really nice. What size is the main shell?? You also got the colour down perfectly - bet it will look beautiful when lit.

I blasted one of my red and white chunk candles once with a heatgun when it was still in the mould and it came out extremely smooth. The red chunks had bled of course, due to the heat, and the white chunks were not so well defined. It was different and quite cool looking, but I think the whole purpose of a chunk candle is that you get the texture and see the chunks clearly, so I don´t heat my moulds or blast away with the heat gun anymore.

Hi Sabrina, I never thought about ordering from e-bay! My story with CandleChem is that I e-mailed them and asked if they would send moulds and various items overseas and they said no problem. So I spent quite a lot of time choosing my moulds, and going through all those wonderful colour charts, placed an order, only to receive an e-mail from the same person informing me that his partner just told him they no longer do overseas deliveries. I was gutted to say the least. Please let me know how you get on with ordering the colour blocks from e-bay. Thanks. Sarah

This how I do things - everything is poured to order so if they want Lemon in blue wax - they get it. Saves me having to have hundreds of ready-poured candles. I use good FO, so by the time the customer gets the candle, it will have cured long enough (about a week).

Nat

Hi Kevin. I see on your site you have the custom color drop-down box for customers to choose a colour for their candles, is this not a PITA when say a person who is ordering Lemon Verbena wants it coloured TEAL or some other strange colour? Do you then have to make up a batch of wax, colour and scent it and pour just the one candle? I am fairly new to candlemaking, so please excuse the naivety of this question. :tiptoe:

So glad you posted this question, because I have been having the same problems. In the Techniques and Ideas section on the left is a tutorial for a rustic effect candle, and no matter how I try, just can´t get it. If you pour too cool, then I get too many bubbles, and a lot of the frosting stays in the mould. Pour too slow and I get jump lines. Pour a bit too hot and then the whole mould seems to get too warm and no rustic effect. So I really understand what you are going through. Hopefully someone will help with some tips or ideas on what to do.

This is a reply to kalamazoo..

Cucumber Melon, Cotton Blossom, Cool Citrus Basil and Sweet Pea are BBW names I know that...I believe Clean Cotton maybe a Yankme name....I thought if you used these names you need the 'type' after them...maybe ya don't ...who knows! I just wouldn't want the famous c&d letter showing up!

Really enjoyed looking at your site. Great looking soap and bath fizzies are very cute. The hard work has certainly given you a wonderful site. Congratulations.

Hi Kevin. Just wanted to say you have done a great job with your site. Very clean and crisp. The candles, your colours and labelling are beautiful. Very easy site to navigate and I like the fact that you have the "we also recommend" option underneath a particular product. Well done. I guess being a web developer is a tremendous asset when designing your own site!!

Your site looks great...very springy! Your candles are very nice also, one thing I noticed and am curious about is the scent names on your labels...some are tm'd names and you aren't using the 'type' after them...aren't you supposed to be using that? Otherwise, candles are beautiful!

I am sure someone with more experience will jump in here, but as far as I can see none of those scent names need to have "type" added behind them - could you point out which ones you mean? Would like to know answer for my own info.