NattyCat

it's not so much the jar - it's the wick. i've used it in bean pots, status, flowerpot, tins - you name it, I've tried it - but the RRD's always act the same.

Has anyone noticed that RRD wicks burn fabulously on the first, and perhaps the second burn, but on subsequent burns the performance tails off? in a straight jar, it'll burn a nice full melt pool within 2 burns, but in the remaining burns the pool gets smaller and smaller and sometimes I've had the wick drown out. I've wicked up, wicked down, power burned, short burned and it always happens. On power burns, for the first 4 or 5 hours or so i get full pool, quarter inch pool depth and fabulous scent throw - and then in hour 6 or 7 the pool starts to set up round the sides and get smaller and smaller, until 3/4s of the way down I may have a very small flame or a drown-out. This even happens if I use an RRD55 in tumbler or jar that's way too small. I get a full pool way to fast and it's very deep as you would expect...but 7 or 8 hours down the line it's acting like it belongs in a jar that size. Just weird.

there's some really good folding tables on ebay, about 45 quid. perfect to take to craft fairs also. Pasting tables collapse too easily (tell me how I know that) but these white ones are good. I don't know the seller but if you're looking it has pictures of the table with women sitting on top to show of the strength. They have metal legs, 8ft long with white laminate top, and fold in half with a carry handle.

With wholesale, if a company ordered 300 pink pillar candles in a particular scent, they want ALL the candles to be the exact same colour. The only way this is possible is to have the ability to melt say 40lbs of wax all at once, dye it the correct shade and pour all the candles at the same time, otherwise there are distinct differences in the colour. 300 candles is a relatively small wholesale order, so have a look at your space and see if a) can you put 300 moulds into it and leave them there for 24 hours without other people needing to use the space can you melt enough wax to fill said moulds all at once. c) do you have the money to buy 300 moulds, and the wick, FO, wax u need, plus larger melting pots. d) do you have shelving to hold 300 moulds, wicks, fo etc when not in use Before you even worry about if you have enough space, you need to work out is whether you have enough money to buy in large enough bulk to offer realistic wholesale prices. Most customers who buy from you wholesale want to double what they paid, so if they sell your candle for £4.00 they want to buy it for £2.00 INCLUDING delivery. So you would have to charge 1.50 for each candle plus delivery and packaging costs (boxes, bubble and peanuts don't come free) and this is around 50p per candle in total - so there's your £2. Then decide how much is your time worth per candle? Let's say you want to earn 50p per candle on some wholesale candle tins, which is a very low amount - you would have to produce 10 candles in an hour to make £5 profit. Sounds simple...but this means you need to melt the wax, wick the tins, colour and scent the wax, pour the candles, have them fully set, heat-gunned, packaged and boxed in 1 hour - to do 10 candles in 1 hour is pushing it when you have no space to work in. So for a £4 candle, you need to charge £1.50 each plus p&p. 50p of this is your profit, which leaves you £1 for materials. If you can create that candle for £1 or less, which includes the cost of the wax, wick, fo, dye, cellophane, safety label, ink for your printer etc then you can wholesale, but being in the UK, it's going to be hard to make a candle for less than £1 if you can't buy wax by the pallet and fragrance oil by the kilo. If you want to increase your production which will increase your profits per hour, then you need much more space than 2ft of work surface. It's not just the actual pouring area you need to consider, it is the storage space you need for all the extra stock and equipment you need to hold - plus you need the money to actually buy all of that extra equipment up front. If i'd have known then what I found out the hard way, I would have waited before I offered wholesale, as it's extremely hard work for very little payback. Offering wholesale has sucked thousands of pounds out of my business, simply because in order to offer it, I have to buy in WAY more stock than I need - for a 300 candle order I have to buy in enough wax to make 1,000 candles, just so I can get the wax at a price low enough for me to make a small profit on wholesale prices. Hope this helps

I'm not really sure what hints I can give, the whole process is so involved it will age you drastically. I can only suggest that for photos you use a lightbox and paintshop pro, and if you wanted to use "stock" photos on your website - NEVER take them from anyone else's website, you must purchase them for your own use. Even if it doesn't look like they are watermarked - Getty have invisible watermarks and an automatic web robot that scours the web looking for illegally used pictures. If they catch you with a photo you've not paid for, they WILL slap you with a $10,000 lawsuit from Getty Images - take it from someone who knows, I have my own lovely lawsuit sitting right here because I used a photo I found on a "free" photo website on my old site and apparently it wasn't free at all! I can't really suggest a shopping cart or payment system to you - as both the ones I have used are specific to the UK only. If you have Frontpage you might want to start with a web template - these can be found all over the internet for quite low amounts of money - under $50, and some are free. You then at least can find a design you like and then modify it from there.

yes, that's just how firefox renders it. as long as there is a colour sample and the text is clickable then that's good enough for me.

lol - kids always are!

Thanks everyone for the feedback! Can whoever was having a problem with the whysoy take another look? I think that's fixed now... also.... if you click on the colour drop down box for any candle, do you see different colours? I mean, the background of baby pink should be baby pink for example.... Thanks! Nat

thanks all I just hope my customers a) like the new style and accept the price rises!

i need to take a look at that page but I can't seem to recreate it on my computer - it works fine here. will see if I can break it on my pc and then I'll be able to fix it. Nat

could your statement sweep any wider? You're saying every candle ever made with container blended soy wax will, sooner or later, look like regugitated marshmallow? of course, a soy candle COULD deform over time (which is what this post is about) Not ALL of them do. I'm pretty certain not every candle ever made with a container soy blend is "rendered useless" in a matter of weeks or months. Personally I've had ecoysoya candles sitting here since February 2006 and they look the same as they did when I poured them. Perhaps I've just been lucky? I accept fully YOUR choice not to use any soy blend, as they obviously don't work for you. But I really don't feel you need to come here telling people their candles are inferior because of the wax they choose to use. If you can't be arsed to take the time and effort to create a good soy candle because you don't think the results are worth it - then that's OK and entirely your perogative. But if someone else thinks the extra effort IS worth it, and are proud of their candles, then who are you to say their candles are "a worse product"? And yes, you ARE comparing candles. To state that something is inferior means you must have seen or used something that you believe is superior - and that is a comparison.

well done for your pro-active approach. So which of the manufacturers have you taken to task so far and what was their response?

so what you're basically saying is that anyone who makes soy container candles using soy container blends, whether its from ecosoya, cargill or whoever - that their candles are inferior or, without mincing words, just shit compared to yours?

I have just been updating the website, so you may have had problems getting in. the home page has been uploaded several times as I'm creating a sitemap and that sitemap tells me if there's any link errors etc which I fix and then re-upload the relevant page. Try again if you like, i've finished now! Nat

ok - thanks all! bummer though!

Not sure anyone can help me but here goes. I just bought some stuff from Bittercreek in Wisconsin. I paid with my credit card and gave MY address as the purchaser. However I told them I wanted it shipped to someone else who lives in Wisconsin. Now - if a RESIDENT of Wisconsin buys from these people, then they have to pay 5% tax but i'm not a resident of Wisconsin so don't have to pay the charge. As far as I'm concerned, i'm buying the product, I am not resident of wisconsin and therefore my money is not subject to this tax. Tax is based upon the where the money is earned and comes from if I remember rightly? The last time I went to Canada I got ALL my tax back that I paid on products and services, even though some of those products and services were used right in the province where I bought them - because the money I used to pay for those items was not generated or earned or taxed in Canada, because I live in the UK. So why are these suppliers telling me that I have to pay their 5% tax because I'm having my items sent to a Wisconsin address???

Hmm - you know i think it may be a security setting on your pc. If it's set super high the site wont show because there is a flash object - otherwise recognised as an Active X object - some security settings when set to maximum see the flash or Active X and ban the site. I don't know though - i've submitted a support ticket to my host and will see what they say. Nat

hi can you give me the error code? I think it's probably 500?

uh huh. let me have your addy and I'll send you a sample. Nat

Hi all thanks for your comments. I just hope my customers are as nice as you have been. Realise = UK spelling For those that can't get it...I've no idea why. I've had so many people looking at it, and I'm looking at it right now. how about trying to type the address in direct rather than using the link? Other than that I'm stumped but will see if I can find anything out. Nat

ok, now i'm really crapping my pants. This is my baby and i'm scared my customers are gonna hate it. Hope you like it. I'm no web designer so this has taken me 3 months of hard work to build it from scratch, doing the photos, descriptions, teaching myself flash etc etc. I must say, I feel TOTALLY liberated at being able to get rid of paypal. I created a totally integrated basket and checkout that accepts debit/credit cards so no more paypal - yay! anyway, I only just uploaded it, so i'm still proof-reading...but here it is: www.scentifique.co.uk be gentle!

Thanks, I got my reply now. oh and i'm a woman.

Hi Becky, I had a feeling I may get a reply here which is why I posted. I did email twice as I said but obviously it didn't get through. You are right, I don't order in MY name any more. I having "buying sprees" in the US via a friend of mine. They order, collect and hang on to my items for a while until a sufficient stock has been gathered together to be sent over to the UK in one big package because the postage is cheaper. Therefore, with any oil I order I have at least one months delay before I get my hands on it, then I have to find the time to test and also offer it to my customers and monitor its popularity for a few months. When I test and offer it up for sale, it is only then I can figure if it's a good seller. As you said, if you make a decision after 6 months to discontinue, then I am the same - my turnaround to decide if an oil is to be added to my list is usually 6 months or longer - so if an oil I had first discovered made its way on to your discontinued list shortly after I found it, then by the time I have the testing and sales figures in and want to reorder - the oil is then gone. Whilst I completely understand that you need to keep your sales figure high and drop non-sellers, I just get frustrated at oils disappearing on me. It is HARD here in the UK to get good oils - the time & cost to get them here is ridiculous and we pay double, sometimes triple for the oils than our American counterparts when you factor in the shipping costs. I hope, therefore, that you can understand that if I find a keeper - I want to be able to order for a couple of years at least! Please don't feel that it's just you. I also need Amber Seduction from Candle Science and that's gone too.

Hi all thanks for the responses. it's hard getting any US manufacturer to work with you when you're overseas tho! I'll have a look at what I'm running low on and see if anyone has them in classies. the point i was making though is that I don't really want to keep discontinuing oils that are good, just because JS rotate their stock faster than lightening.

OK. I love JS oils. I've tried so many I've lost count. Some are duff, some are good, some are simply outstanding as you would expect with all suppliers. So, after testing testing testing. I decide to add an oil to my range. I go to order and it's been discontinued. I simply can't COUNT the number of times I've gone to the JS site to reorder an oil that I stock and yep, you guessed it - DISCONTINUED. OK so I know she wants to bring in new stock and get rid of stock that doesn't sell so well, but I'm now seriously deciding if I can afford to have JS oils in my range with the amount of time I'm wasting testing only to find the oil is discontinued, or trying to placate my customer who LOVES a particular fragrance and I've told her she can't have it any more. So I have casablanca, look out point, sandalwood and bee blossom, etc etc etc etc in my range and now they've disappeared from the JS site. So i emailed JS twice, to two different addresses, asking if she had ANY left of casablanca, even if it was a pound or two - and if not, can she tell me where to get it. No reply. I can't see why not. If she doesn't want to sell it she could at least tell us buyers where we CAN get it from so we don't have to rearrange our whole product range and disappoint our customers. I really liked these oils, and ok - it's not the end of the world, I can replace them. But if I choose another set of oils from JS...who's to say they won't be discontinued in 6 months and i'll be back at square one. I need a long term, solid, reliable supplier who doesn't change their product line-up on a frequent basis. Is that so much to ask?