krateliff

I know that you said that you cleaned your molds, but I'm not sure what method you used to clean them. I fought the pinhole problem for about a week with 4794. What finally worked for me was to spray the molds with WD-40, let soak for a couple of minutes, wipe clean with paper towels. Then spray with Pam, soak for a couple of minutes, and wipe clean with paper towels. This cured the pinhole problem for me.

What temperature are you pouring each layer at? I've seen that look on the bottom of my votives before. It happens when I pour too cold. I just went and looked at all the votives I have cooling. It was hard to tell since everything I made today is white, but I did get the bubbles on the votives I poured at 160 and the ones I poured at 170 looked better. HTH, Kristy

Thanks everyone for your help. I was getting so frustrated. I never did get a mottle out of this wax. At tremendously high percentages of oil (I mean really really high) it did sweat a little bit but not as much as Top's picture. I have come to the conclusion that it is not 1343. I researched on BCS website and IGI's website and decided that this wax must be 4625. I'm not sure, but pretty sure since I determined that the meltpoint was in the 140 range. I know it's not 1313 since I have some and they don't look alike at all. I know it's not 4614 because it was not a one pour and I have 4614. And since it must not be 1343, that only leaves 4625 left. Thank you Top and Scented for all of your help. I'm going to throw this wax back in the bottom of the closet and order a fresh batch of 1343 so that I can try again.

Top, What you are describing is about what I expected to happen and how I thought the wax would behave. So now I'm wondering if maybe I got the wrong wax. I ordered 1343, my invoice says 1343, the package says 1343, but maybe it's not 1343. I just got 10 pounds so maybe they grabbed the wrong one when bagging my order. Now I'll have to try to figure out what I have. I'm wondering if it's a blend instead of just plain parrafin and maybe that's why it's not leaking or sweating? Could you post a pic of yours? Thank you, Kristy

Yes I'm afraid that I'm a geek. I think it must be all of that computer science and biomedical engineering from school. I haven't had this much fun in years, and I have so many chemicals to play with. My poor family may never get a home cooked meal again.

I don't have much more time today since duty calls. I have to do all of those housewife things. :rolleyes2 I will pour a couple of more votives using lower percentages of oil. I'll try with 2, 3, 4, and 5% tommorow. Maybe try some with steric acid and some without. That should keep me busy for tommorow. You may be right, I probally am just too far in the extremes.

I'm just a newbie too that has no idea what I'm doing. That's why I'm doing so many crazy experiments in the first place!

Thanks for the thoughts Top. Yes, I chose 100 grams because it made the math easy and it was just enough to make 1 votive and have just a little bit of wax left over. I've poured the experiment that Scented suggested and poured at all kinds of temps just to see what happens. I poured at 200, 195, 190, 185, and 180. I also just for kicks and giggles mixed up one with 1 oz fo and 2 oz wax and another with 1 oz mineral oil and 1 oz wax just to see what on earth happens. I guess that I'm weird like that. I think though after watching the first 4 candles burn I may have an answer. I had just assumed that if wax is like a sponge that if you exceeded the amount of fo it can hold the rest would just seep or leak out of the candle. But now I don't really think so. I think that this could happen with some waxes but maybe it just depends on the oil content of the wax to begin with? It does however affect the burn quality since all four are burning differently. The candle with vybar needs a bigger wick I think. The flame on it is only about 1/4" tall. The flame on the candle without additives is huge so deffinatly needs a smaller wick. But it's not the answer to the totally liquid votive (at least not with the LX10 wick). On another note, I remember reading on here somewhere that there are two different kinds of 1343. 1343A and 1343N? One mottled and one didn't. I don't know which one I have. I bought it from Bitter Creek South so it's possible that this wax just won't mottle no matter how much fo or at what temp.

Ok. I will try hotter temps today and I'll use ounces. If I convert the formula with steric that I used in the previous experiment to ounces and adjust to make a larger batch the proportion would be: 12.8 ounces wax 1.6 ounces fo 1.6 ounces steric acid I can't measure this on my scale so I can try 13 oz wax 1.5 oz fo 1.5 oz steric acid which would be roughly 9% steric, 9% fo, and 81% wax. If this formula isn't right please let me know. This should make 16 oz of wax and I can make 8 votives so I can pour each one at a differnt temp. I can try 175, 180, 185, and 190.

My fragrance oils from Nature's Garden and Scent Works arrived yesterday and I just can't stop sniffing. These fragrance oils are soooooooo good!!!!! Now I'm just sorry that I didn't order more but after buying some from one supplier that I just didn't care for too much I've been more cautious on purchasing fragrance oils. From Natures Garden I got: Smoke Eliminator Angel Food Cake Kumquat Honeysuckle Sweet Pea Vanilla Silk Hillbilly Homebrew French Vanilla Caribbean Best Friends Monkey Farts OOB I really like the Kumquat, Smoke Eliminator, Angel Foodcake, Honeysuckle, Vanilla Silk, and Sweet Pea. I like the French Vanilla too, but the Vanilla Silk is better. OOB I really didn't care for Best Friends, Caribbean, Hillbilly Homebrew, and Monkey Farts. From Scent-Works I got: London Lemon Curd Moonlit Honeysuckle Dragon's Blood Sandalwood Vanilla Egyptian Spice Black Orchid and White Lilly Ambadilla and free samples of Be Delicious and Stella. OOB I loved all of these except for Dragon's Blood, Ambadilla, and Stella. My favorite is Be Delicious and LLC. Oh these are soo good. I'm really glad that I ordered these in the 4oz size rather than the samples! My DH really didn't care for any of these, but I love them. I don't think I can imagine wasting some of these in wax though, they smell just way too good, and were sooo expensive. Unfortunatly I don't do bath and body and I don't think DH is going to let me get too many projects going. I've already made two trips to Bitter Creek South, one trip to Houston Candle Supply, and ordered from Candlewic, Scent-Works, Natures Garden and Rustic Escentuals. I can't wait until next week to try some of these in wax. Unfortunatly I have a swim team party tonight and swim team all day tommorow so it will be Sunday before I have time to play.

Thanks for replying Scented. As for the mineral oil batch, no I did not add any fo. Just 20 grams mineral oil and 80 grams wax, nothing else. I was using the mineral oil in place of the fo because I was tired of wasting fo and just trying to see what happens when you use too much oil. But it did not mottle and I'm sure that 20% oil should be way too much. It was just a mad science experiment. Yep, I expected batch 1 to mottle, but it didn't. That's why I tried the mineral oil experiment which didn't mottle either. I will try higher temps today. I was afraid of too high of a temp because I don't want to cook off the fo, and when I tried the 4794 I had problems with pits.

Please help! I have read, searched, and studied and thought that I understood, but I am totally confused. I thought that wax was like a sponge and could only hold so much fo and that if you exceeded this amount that the candle would either sweat out the extra oil or mottle (actually I thought that the sweating is what caused the mottle). I've been experimenting with IGI 1343 and I thought that the this wax could only hold 3% fo. I expected that if I put in too much fo that either the candle would have a mottled appearance, I would find extra fo in the bottom of the votive cup, or the candle would sweat and I would find little beads of fo on the candle. I mixed 4 different batches to test so that I could see the difference between the different additives. I may just be in need of a math lesson so I'll give all of my measurements. To start I colored several pounds of the 1343 pink so that all candles would have the same color. All candles were supposed to be 10% fo so all measurements add up to 100 grams. Batch 1: 90 grams 1343 and 10 grams fo. (90% wax, 10% fo) Batch 2: 80 grams 1343, 10 grams fo, 10 grams steric acid (80% wax, 10% fo, 10% SA) Batch 3: 88 grams 1343, 10 grams fo, 2 grams vybar (88% wax, 10% fo, 2% vybar) Batch 4: 88 grams 1343, 10 grams fo, 2 grams universal additive. (88% wax, 10% fo, 2% UA) Each batch was poured at 170 degrees. I poured each batch into a votive cup and used an LX10 wick in each one. I can see differences in the appearance of each candle (mainly the appearance of the top), but none of these sweated or leaked fo. The one with stearic acid looked blotchy but did not feel slimy and I really didn't like the blotchy look. This one did not look like the pics of mottled candles in the gallery if just looked blotchy (and unfortunatly I didn't take a pic). I was sure that when I started probally all of these candles would sweat. I thought for sure the first one would but none of them did. In frustration I mixed up another batch with 20 grams of mineral oil and 80 grams of wax (20% oil, 80% wax). I did not wick this one but I put it in the oven to cool slowly sure that it would mottle or at least leak the oil, but it didn't. It came out totally smooth and not oily feeling at all. No oil in the bottom of my cup. No sweating. I expected something to happen so that I would know I had exceeded the fo load of the wax. I thought the purpose of these additives was to increase the fo load of the wax so I really expected some to leak more fo than others. But since none leaked at all I am totally confused. So my question is, exactly what happens if you put too much fo? Sorry for the long post but I was hoping with enough details someone would be able to point out where I went wrong. Thanks for any help you can give.

I forgot to mention that Michael's is having a sale on their flowers right now. They were 40% off.

These were silk flowers. The first one I did, I had a bit of trouble with because I dipped it too many times and it became too heavy. In an effort to fix my boo boo I discovered the easy method. I'm using a big pyrex measuring cup to dip my flowers in so the cup is not very deep. I take off the stem and little green piece and clip a clothespin on so I have something to hang on to. Then I dip the flower, shake off excess wax, and stand up the clothespin on wax paper to catch the drips. When they are dry I just put them back together. I hope this makes since. I'm doing more today so if anyone wants, I can take pics of the process and post later. If you do get too much wax on them, I found that you can just toss the flower back in the pot until all of the wax melts off. I hope my colors and fo come today so I can play with adding color!

Thanks everyone. I had thought about giving the roses for a Mother's Day gift but didn't want to give my MIL Sex on the Beach and I don't have any rose fo. I have more fo's arriving tommorow that I hope to play with if I can get another thermometer. :smiley2: I just wish that I knew more about arranging flowers.