Candybee

I use only Vitamin E Acetate after some research on both the tocopherol and acetate versions. I have ordered my vitamin E acetate from WSP, Camden-Grey, and Lotion Crafters and not had any problems with it. It doesn't have any scent at all and works well and incorporates/blends in all my products.

That's a tough question to answer. You are right things have been different when ordering supplies due to the pandemic. Vendors staff is often skeletal and filling orders takes two weeks instead of a day or two. Then there's the shipping. Shippers no longer quarantee delivery dates and shipping times typically run longer than before. This year I have debuted at least 4 new products. But then I already have an established customer base and try to develop products I know my customers have been asking for or that pair well with products I already make. I debuted body powder, body oil, deodorant, and men's aftershave. Since I buy much of my supplies via WSP and Camden-Grey I knew the time between ordering and actual home delivery would be a minimum of 3 weeks or more. The way I decided to stock supplies is by count of how much I intended to make. If I have four scents of something and order a set of 48 bottles/jars from WSP I can make 12 of each. To have enough on hand if the product takes off and sells I ordered double sets of supplies. So I ordered 2x48 and enough additives, labels, etc. to make 96 products. That way I have enough supplies on hand I can make more. So when I start seeing sales pick up I have enough time to order another set of supplies and still have product on hand for the time it takes for supplies to get to me and make more product. Hope that helps some.

Haven't ever bought any FOs from them but the ingredients I have ordered have been top notch. I don't think I ever even looked at their FOs. When I buy from them its usually because they have some exotic ingredients I just want to try. Mostly oils, butters, clays, and other soaping stuff.

Best way to find out is do some research through the top wick manufacturers to find out exactly what their wicks are designed for. This is how I found out LX were designed for pillars. Yes you can use them in container candles after all they are wicks, but they work best in pillars first and containers second. Or you can take the word of CS but I think you are already finding out they don't always know what is best when it comes to wicks. CS can give you a starting point but its up to you to find the right wick. Try researching Wedo, Heinz, Atkins, Pearce, Sao Vitor, etc. Here, Wicks Unlimited is a good source for learning about how wicks work, different manufacturers, how wicks burn properly/poorly, etc. https://wicksunlimited.com/

LX are designed for pillars. They just don't work well in container candles. I use them for paraffin or palm pillars.

You really should try Labels by the Sheets kraft labels. They come in different shades to choose from and let me tell you they look fantastic on your products. I use them for my beer soft to have a natural type label and I get so many compliments on them.

I have to work with the 2 day period so knowing that will help me plan. Right now my recipe is a 30oz batch which yields 6 - 8oz powder shaker bottles. They only hold 5oz of powder. I can increase that up to 35-40oz per batch making up to 4 batches in a day if need be and still be okay with the time frame and production. That would give me 32 bottles in 2 days. I doubt I will sell them that fast but you never know. Until the day comes when these start selling like crazy I don't think I will need to do more. If they ever become that popular then I am sure I can figure out a way to increase production if not improve time.

That would be an option to try out maybe at some point in the future. Right now I am just happy as a clam I found my technique and powder formulation.

Update on my powder tests. So yesterday I did the test with adding scent blend to Natrasorb. I followed instructions from both Camden-Grey and WSP. So I then put it in a shallow pan to dry out with a little heat/warmth to help it along. This morning I checked the mixture and the lumps were solid. I could still mush them into powder but some remained grainy regardless. Plus it was a lot of work just to do a very small portion. For me this experiment was a fail. I don't want graininess and having to do the extra work of working out all the lumps manually. So from all my powder experiments the one(s) that worked the best were making up a full batch, misting in the fragrance/vitamin E blend and mixing it in with a whisk a little at a time. Then placing in shallow pans, one lb of powder blend per paper towel lined pan, and keeping the pans in a warm oven for 2 days. BTW, I turn the oven off at night and back on in the morning. So this morning when I pulled out a batch of powder that had been drying in the oven for 2 days it was nice and dry. Put some in a powder shaker and it came out with ease. So I won't be mixing small portions of any particular ingredient with scent to keep on hand. It just didn't work for me. The smaller powder/ingredient was always overwhelmed with the moist oil scent mix and either clumped badly, would not dry properly, remained too oily, or turned hard or grainy. The best method by far and the one that actually worked was to make the full batch, sift and mist in the scent in small increments at a time, then dry powder in shallow pans holding 1 lb powder each in warm oven for 2 days.

Many waxes sold today are already preblended by the manufacturer. Another thing to remember is that the majority of waxes sold already have additives in them so you don't need to do anything except add fragrance and color and UVI. Trying to find a straight wax with no additives is getting harder to find. We live in a society with fast food, drive thru service, and high speed internet and people tend to get impatient dealing with something that is not ready made or delivered, etc. Manufacturers understand this and produce ready made waxes so their consumers don't have to do anything but heat it and add fragrance and pour into a mold or jar. My point is you should not have to add anything or blend waxes to get one of today's wax blends to perform. Work with it inside and out until you know how it behaves and what to expect of it in all conditions and year round. How else would you be able to fix any problems with a blend you make with different waxes if you first don't understand each wax you are working with.

That's the plan. Just mix the fragrance with part of the dry portion to let it dry out and store. Them make up powder batches as I go. Just mixed up a batch of Natrasorb (found it in the back room-its about 10 yrs old I think!) and mixed in the fragrance/vitamin E. Used a mister to spray on the Natrasorb a little at a time as I sifted it in using a whisk. It did get clumpy but they are really soft fluffy cloud like clumps. Am drying it out covered with paper towels over the oven burner that is warmest. I was afraid to put it in the oven with the other powder thats drying thinking either batch could absorb the others fragrance in a way to ruin the scent so I am keeping the two seperate. Will wait and see if the Natrasorb treated scent powder dries out in a day or two and can be sifted back into a free flowing powder again. Honestly looking at it I have my doubts but time will tell. Also, even if the clumps stay, they might still blend out in a full powder batch. KWIM?

I think I may have some Natrasorb buried in my backroom stockpile from years ago when I was making bath teas with it. Will have to check it out. Anyway in the meantime, I ordered the Quick Fix and can't wait to try it out. So here is my latest. The powder I had in the warm oven all day yesterday I left in overnight too. This morning it is nice and fluffy and comes out of the powder shaker fairly well but not quite yet with total ease. So, I am going to leave the powder in the warm oven all day today. According to WSP instructions even with the Quick Fix you leave the powder mixture spread out in shallow pans to dry for 1 1/2 to 2 days. Its a relief to finally get this figured out and done. That is the good news. The bad news is I will have to do this with every batch when I am making powder. Kind of a bummer as its times consuming. Plus now my house smells like baby powder factory. 😉

The internet is a great tool for learning so if you enjoy getting into different groups and forums for the social aspect as well as continuing education on your craft then do it. My advice is to read posts with a grain of salt. There is just as much good info as there is bad or absurd and even dangerous. The more social media you become a part of you will start to see differences in how people post info. My experience is the bad info generally comes from the groups that post mostly gossip and include a lot of haters. Our community here is geared towards learning and helping others with their craft. You won't see a lot of hate or useless gossip. Well, a little bit but often it is helpful.

My experience adding beeswax to soy ended with my candle cracking. this happened anytime I went over 5% beeswax. Palm wax is already a hard wax and doesn't need beeswax so I am not sure why you are adding it to your palm candles. Definitely 20% beeswax is way too much and I am certain is why your candles are cracking. Beeswax by itself makes a fine candle. But added to even a soft soy can still result in cracking at over %5.

I have to say with all honesty that the questions you are asking indicate you are not ready. Testing is different for everyone. Some people learn faster than others and some stumble on to success on the first try. But you will only know how good your candle is and when its ready to sell when you are satisfied with all these issues of safety, proper burn, excellent scent throw, appearance, cost of goods (how your price will be affected). How well do you know your wax, wick system, burn (candle consumption, burn times, flame type/burn). Have you become an authority on your candles? Are you an expert on your wax of choice? What do you know about your wick system, how and why it burns the way it does? What type of flame does it produce, does it waste fragrance when burning or diffuse it properly? What do you know about mushrooms? proper consumption? flame heights? What things can inhibit or retard scent throw or make it throw like champ? What do you know about smoking? Soot? Wet spots? Are dried botanicals, glitters, sprinkles safe or not? You need to know these things and be able to answer all the questions above like an expert. Until you are the expert of your candles you are not ready to sell. On average, it takes a year or two before you can build a good candle. About another year or so to make a great candle that customers will keep coming back for year after year after year. If your candles is not up to par, forget about selling, you have already lost your customer base as soon as you start selling. What makes a great candle is your knowledge and experience with your candlemaking. I see candlemakers that are selling that made their first candle less than a month ago. The next year I never see them again. I work craft shows and farmer's markets, wholesale, and have a website. So I see a lot of new candlemakers and those that don't know what they are doing tend to disappear withing the first year of selling. Only those who strive to continue to learn their trade and perfect it make it in this business. One last thing. It's not enough to be a great candlemaker. If you plan to sell you also have to be a great salesman and be a good bookkeeper. How much is your COG? How can you buy materials to stay within a competative price range and still and plus know how to promote and market your candles. For example, I see new candlemakers load their candles with lots of fragrance to brag about how much is in their candles. Do you know why this will or will not work. BTW, typically it does not and the candlemakers that do this just to load up are the first to go out of business. There is a lot to learn but if its something you really want to do you can. Lots of folks here can help. But take steps to learn all you can and ask when you need help. Good luck!

I couldn't see on your post the INCI name for Natrasorb but the first part is "Aluminum Starch....". Even if the rest is tapioca its a far cry from simply listing "tapioca". That is what is bothering me about the Quick Fix. I know its modified but on WSP site the INCI name is "tapioca". Makes you think..

Yes. That was test #3 or #4. Have to check. Anyway, same thing happened with any of the starch powders I also tried; arrowroot, corn starch. Did not try it with the tapioca. Maybe I should whip up a small batch of tapioca with the magnesium stearate and add the oils. I guess I will try this too while I wait for my Quick Fix. BTW, I need to order that asap because it takes so long to get my orders from them.

I just noticed steps 4 & 5 on the WSP site. Hmmmmm..... I am doing something similar with the test powder right now. It's on a baking dish spread out on paper towels drying in the warm oven. Here is what the instructions for their body powder recipe on WSP: NOTE: If you are making these products for sale, good manufacturing practices recommend you wear a hairnet, gloves and a mask. We also recommend a clean apron and workspace. Into bowl, measure cornstarch, arrowroot powder, and slick fix. Mix with whisk. Using a dropper, add 3 mL of fragrance oil at a time. Mix well with whisk before adding the next 3 mL. Continue until all 24 mL are incorporated. Add both mica powders to mixture and whisk well. Divide mixture out onto 3 baking sheets to dry. Allow to dry for 36 to 48 hours. Add 1.55 oz of body powder by weight to each jar. Label accordingly. To Use: Apply powder with a powder puff to body, avoiding eyes.

Yes. It has similarities to natrasorb in that it holds oils in powders then releases them in water. Don't know what natrasorb is made from but the Quick Fix is Tapioca. Its INCI name is also simply "Tapioca". Description on WSP site does not say what it was treated with to have the oils holding properties. But pure tapioca has absorption properties so the Quick Fix is an enhanced form of that. Also got my answer back from WSP. Its perfect for body powders and gave me a link to a powder recipe that uses it. The recipe calls for about the Quick Fix at 30% of the prime dry ingredients. So I guess I will be ordering some to test out. BTW-- the clay scenting and drying was a complete mess. The clay actually did absorb the moisture but it also 'grained' on me. I tried to rub out the grainy texture but it didn't work well enough. When I put a little on my skin it was definitely scratchy and grainy feeling. Won't be using that method. I am drying out the rest of my test powder in the oven on warm. It's worked out well enough I can use it in the powder shaker by squeezing. Hoping that the quick fix tapioca will indeed 'fix' my oil problem. It's just that it takes about 3 weeks from day that I order til when it arrives at my house. Sigh... I am so impatient right now.

Thanks. I will try scenting the magnesium stearate next. Right now I have a batch of scented kaolin clay baking. I was perusing WSP site and came across this: Slick Fix - Oil locking powder I am a little confused about this as most of the description for use tends to lean towards bath bombs since it 'releases' the fragrance oils in bath water. So not sure it would work for body powder so I submitted a question to them if it can be used in body powder and at what %. I forgot to ask if the scent would be looked up in the powder. Don't want that for a scented powder.

I also noticed that all the powder tests the powder has a sort of oily feel. Like dry oil. I don't know how to describe it. I'm still drying out my powder as I write this but am wondering if the dry oil feel will remain forever and keep my powder from ever being free flowing. As frustrating as this is trying to get my powder to work, it still feels so silky soft and luxurious on my skin even damp. Like the best powder I have ever used aside from J&J's original Baby Powder with talc. I have never felt a powder more soft and silky! That magnesium stearate is da bomb for silkiness and glide! It also helped absorb some of the moisture. Another problem is I am working in a home with 70% humidity so its impossible for moisture not to get into everything. Just doing a little work around the house and I am sweating a lot. Even with air conditioning and a fan running. It gets super humid in Virginia this time of year and all up and down the eastern seaboard.

It's working! I put a layer of damp powder on paper towels and left it in the warm oven for about 1 1/2 hours. Sifted it and put some in a powder shaker. If you just shake the container the powder barely comes out. But if you squeeze and shake the bottle it whooshes out! Yeah! Whoopee! Some positive progress! So I will continue to dry out the powder in the oven until I am satisfied it comes out easily from the powder shaker. My storebought powder comes out with ease with a simple shake. No squeezing needed for it to shake right out. Next I put some of the damp powder (unbaked) in the bottle and tried shaking it out. Nothing. Not even with a hard squeeze. So I am happy to report I am having some progress! I am still going to try the wetting technique with the kaolin clay then see if I can dry it out in the oven. If it works this means I can start making batches of powder with both fragrance and vitamin E!!

You can also try starting a new thread asking for 'apple blossom' scents. Its a fairly common scent and I am sure you will get more responses. I found an apple blossom at FB. Their's is a dupe of Peaks: http://www.fragrancebuddy.com/APPLE-BLOSSOM-by-Peak-Type-Fragrance.aspx

You may laugh at me for this but this morning I put one of my 'wettest' powder mix tests in the oven to see if it will dry out. The oven is set on the lowest temp 'warm'. I spread the powder out over paper towels and will be checking on it periodically. Don't know if I will get hardened stoneware or dry powder! But I got curious to see if it would help. So...... will let you know how it goes.

The body powder and deodorant have been the hardest products for me to develop so far. Both have a substantial amount of powder/dry ingredients in them. Learning how to get the formulations just right has not been easy but very enlightening.