NattyCat

how on earth do you get them to look so rustic? I've never done a rustic, but surely that effect can't be achieved by simply splashing a bit of wax up the sides of the mould before pouring?? Nat

hhhhmm. Being in the UK sucks. I have access to ecoysoya and cargill as well as contair/pillar paraffin. That's it. No IGI, no comfortblend - so I have to make the best I can out of what I've got. There wouldn't be any negative effects of blending, say 50/50 C3 and standard container paraffin though would there? Nat

I was hoping you'd pipe up with an opinion topofmurrayhill, as you seem to know your waxes. I'm going to get some C3 just to test but I am thinking of creating my own parasoy blend, so bought some container paraffin also. This should improve scent throw I'm sure, no matter what soy wax I use. But in your experience, what would be a good percentage ratio. 50/50? 70 soy 30 para? etc etc. Nat

I've already got samples, they sent me tea-lights in the fragrances I wanted and also small bottles of oil. When I have time I will make some sample candles and test them. If they work out OK then they have a minimum qty of 5kg per oil, but the lady I have been speaking to is going to try and sort it for me that I only have to get 1kg for my first few orders, and then move over to the larger sizes after I have used their oils for a while. 1kg is only 2 and a bit 16oz bottles - I can easily go through a whole bottle of oil with just a few candles as I use 1.5oz per pound - that's only 8 or 9 candles worth. They are an american company too, one of the largest manufacturers so their oils are good quality. Nat

Yahoo! I've finally found another supply of soy wax that I can get to the UK at reasonable cost as long as I buy enough of it. It's Cargill C3. Before I remortgage my house to get enough to make it worthwhile, It's be great if anyone could give me their opinion on it in direct comparison to cb135 or cbadvanced. I realise there are other posts on C3 and I've read them all, but I am particularly interested in hearing from people who have tested C3 and CB135 back to back to compare scent throw. I'm not worried about frosting as I never get frosting, or if I do it's extremely minimal. My main concern is the scent throw comparison and wick suggestions for 2", 3" and 4" jars. Thanks oodles, Nat

i was the same Sally, I wanted to use UK products to support our industry, but after fruitless searching I realised that in the UK, our suppliers have just not caught up with the US yet. Most of the suppliers I have found import their items from the US and then add their own mark up. If you're looking for unusual fragrances or things that are a little out of the ordinary, then you cannot go wrong with Save On Scents. They have a truly awesome range of oils which can be purchased in different grades (B&B, candles, extreme concentrates) etc. If I get any joy from the manufacturer of oils in the UK (not the one we discussed) I'll get back to you - they have a minimum purchase requirements so perhaps we can share on the oils that we both want. nat

beautiful products and a lovely setting....but to be honest, I really don't think you need a big glob of the product running into the sink. If it's a foaming handwash, then I think people may get the idea that it foams simply from the name being "foaming handwash" (although I couldn't actually read the label on the bottle). To totally gross you out...I thought the product looked like a great big blob of spit I'm probably wrong, as no-one else mentioned it...so I'll also say...you have nice taps (are they called faucets in the US?) Nat

i like the first one. 2 is ok. 3 is too cartoony and childish which doesnt scream "sophisticated or elegant" to me.

Hi Sally, Firstly, Gemlite are cheap for a reason, I made the mistake too and learned very quickly. Their oils are OK in paraffin, but a complete no-no in soy. With regard to Grace's Oils, I agree she has a fabulous selection but the cost is astronomical - I mean serrrrrrrrrrrriously. For a good quality oil, at a very good price, from a supplier who tests in soy you're much better off going to somewhere like "just scent" or Bittercreek or several other suppliers in the USA who ship internationally. Yes it will be shipping overseas, but even with shipping costs added, you can get an oil at a fraction of the cost of Graces. For example 1lb of oil (16oz) is $8 dollars shipping to the UK. if you paid, on average $15 dollars a bottle, that's around £8 per bottle with £5 shipping - giving a total of £13 per bottle delivered to your door. For the same amount of oil from Graces, it costs £27 plus £3 shipping. That's £30 for a 16oz bottle of oil ($60 us dollars). Of course I am not trying to be hard on Grace, I am in the UK also and wish I could afford those prices. But as you know, soy wax in this country is very very expensive, and with expensive oils, a simple 16oz tin candle will COST you around £5 to make EACH ($10) when you factor in the oil, wax, tin, wick and dye. That would leave you with a minus £££ amount - you couldn't even recoup your costs, let alone make any money for your time and effort! I have several places I buy my oils from, you know my email address - just give me a buzz if you're looking for something and I'll tell you where I got mine. Natasha

Let's just hope they read this forum and decide to ship outside North America. There is so much stuff on their website I want but they won't ship to me - I did ask and they gave me a resounding "no", so I buy all my stuff elsewhere from those who will ship international. I can't understand why they won't, it's not like I'm asking them to pull out their own teeth - its the same process - box the stuff up, write the customers address, post the parcel, no big deal! Sorry, am just frustrated that some of the better suppliers refuse to ship to UK, NG being one of them. Nat

there are a few, but all of them just import their stuff from the USA - so I won't pay their prices - I buy it in myself and avoid the middle man. I'd love to start up a supply company, but I'd be the same as them - I'd have to import all my stuff from the USA and then add MY mark-up. I am in talks with a large manufacturer of FO, an american company who also have facilities over here, so I'm hoping I can do a deal with them if they bring down their minimum quantities - you have to buy 5kg of each FO and I just can't do that! With regard to flash point, I can't order any oils that have a low flash point anyway as they won't be shipped to me, so I'd always make sure the flash was over 190. But good advice on the "in writing" thing tho. nat

hey - good idea! I'll probably visit a few just to get a look around, but for those in other states that I can't visit, it'll be cool to send to my hotel, that postage won't be much! nat

Should be alright - each person gets 2 pieces of luggage, and no piece can weigh over 70lbs and then in business class you can take another bag weiging no more than 20lbs. that's 90lb per person. The likelyhood of me being able to afford 90 bottles of FO is quite slim so I think I'll be well within my weight limits!

why would I want to move to the US...it seems like there's WAY too much competition over there!!!

well, I'd only come over for a couple of days and take the biggest suitcase I could with a couple of changes of clothes in a backpack - we always fly business class so we get tons more baggage allowance. As long as I don't get any wax and it's just oils and wicks, we should get away with it! We're not particularly looking for a holiday in the USA, we've been talking about where to go and I may casually suggest a state in the USA where I know a supplier is based and just "happen" to say "hey, I just realised, so and so are around here somewhere..." That should work !!

I've bought my oils far and wide! I have oils from: Bittercreek Just Scent Bear Labs Peeptoad Hollow Candlesource Gemlite Ebay Aztec Candle Science Save On Scents Candles & Supplies Bulk Oils And also a few I've bought from the classifieds on here. I have over 200 16oz bottles of fragrance hanging around here, and approximately 300 2oz bottles of samplers - some the same fragrance but from different suppliers. Off the top of my head, the following are not throwing in Ecoysoya PB, CB135 and CBAdvanced at 1.5oz per pound and a 2 week cure time: Save On Scents - Issy Miyake M Can't remember supplier - J Lo Glow Can't Remember supplier - J'Adore Bear - Blue Lavender Gemlite - Blackcurrent (cold throw smells like vomit, no hot throw) Aztec - Aloe Vera Peeptoad Hollow - Angel Gemlite - Baby Powder (great cold, no hot) There are loads more but I'd have to dig to the back of my shelves to find them! Nat

Right. I'm sick and tired of paying massive amounts of shipping costs to the UK - I just worked out how much I've spent and I coulda bought a plane ticket for the amount of money I've spent.. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm gonna take a trip out to the USA with an empty suitcase and fill up on oils, wicks, moulds, additives and just about anything else I can cram in my pockets. So where's the best place to visit to get soy wax compatible fragrances at a good price? I have no idea which suppliers allow personal visits? I'll tell hubby we need a holiday, and that he's no allowed to pack too much stuff and I can use HIS suitcase too! Any ideas on where to get my supplies, especially candle warmers, oils, wicks, dyes etc (not wax, it's too heavy) would be appreciated! Nat

hmmm...are we talking the same pot pourri? For me, Pot Pourri is a bunch of dried wood, leaves, plants and stuff that sits in a bowl and smells nice. No warming required. What pot-pourri are you talking about??

can't people just use the FO straight on pot-pourri? Do you really need to cut it with DPG? Nat

Id love to do wickless candles..but we don't have candle warmers over here. Yup, it's true, we don't have electric tart warmers or candle warmers. There are some people selling them on ebay, but they've just imported them in from the USA and have added a huge mark--up on them - and they aint selling! I've love to offer this sort of candle, and import the warmers myself, but it's hard enough trying to get people to understand that paraffin is not the only wax in the UK - it's all pretty new over here, hence there being so very few suppliers and each one of them having really high costs! I may just think about selling some of my FOs on ebay - i'm sure most of them are BB safe so soapers of the UK may want them - i'll have to wade through my paperwork for each one to check , but that won't be too hard. Thanks for the info peeps, Nat

I use a photo editor to crop my pics and also remove the whole background - I feel it just focuses right on the product. I did originally have all my pics taken on a tree stump with leaves and stuff in the background, but upon market research, so many people said "ooh, that wood looks nice!", and "thats a really pretty background" BEFORE they said anything about the candles...I want the candle to be the main focus and it's setting to be last... Here's how my pics come out:

oh bum. not what I wanted to hear. oh well, here comes another round of hair pulling, finger burning, house-smelling, cash draining testing.

thanks charitycandles, I don't have a problem with my soy candles, I only use the oils that do throw and they throw like crazy, but because I buy my oils from the USA, I can't keep buying small samples as the turnaround for oils is up to 15 days for me, so I buy ALL my oils in 1lb quantities and take my chances. Of course, some of them just don't throw in soy - so I have at least 20lbs of FO sitting un-used, and I want to get some use out of it before it gets too old. I thought that perhaps I'll put it in paraffin, but I'd have to buy the paraffin in, get new wicks (from the USA with a 10 day turnaround for economic postage costs) and all new pouring equipment as I don't want to get my soy mixed up with my paraffin. I really don't want to do this if paraffin is hit-and-miss on some FO's though. That's why I really wanted to know whether it was pretty much guaranteed that every FO throws in paraffin. Natasha

yes, this is what I'm getting at. For example, I buy good quality FO's only because I use soy and throw in soy is hard to achieve unless you're using a good quality oil. Even so, there are some fabulous quality oils that just don't throw in soy - perhaps it's the chemical make up or something like that, but it just is. If I took that good quality oil and used it in paraffin with no additives, how likely is it to throw in paraffin? If it didn't throw in paraffin then I guess we are dealing with an oil that, despite being high quality, nice and strong OOB or great in tarts, just won't throw in any wax. The only reason I'm asking this is I have a lot of FO that cost hundreds as I only buy the good stuff and after extensive testing, it won't throw in soy. I have NO paraffin in the house, but I am thinking of introducing a paraffin line of candles but won't bother buying paraffin wax, new wicks and all new equipment if throw in paraffin is as hit-and-miss as it is in soy - which then lead to my question of why an FO exists if it doesn't throw in soy OR Paraffin Nat

anyone got an opinion on whether ALL FO's throw in paraffin...and if they don't, why do they exist, because if it doesn't throw in paraffin, it's gonna be a cow to get it to throw in soy....