xverion

Does anyone out there have any help or do you just not use this wax at all for some reason? Just wondering...

Well, I started testing this wax out and love it so far. The first batch of votives came out beautiful. Minimal frosting on the sides, no cracks at all, and smooth creamy tops, absolutely wonderful!

Oh and we used JS Candied Blueberries scent which throws great cold, and Z-44-24-18 wicking with blue liquid dye. Heated wax to 160, poured at 125.

Anyway, I waited 24 hours, maybe a little longer and decided to test one out. Had a great hot throw, good melt pool, wick lit and burned nicely. After about 30-45 minutes, the whole middle of the candle had melted straight to the bottom and I don't understand why. The only theories I have at this point are that either the zinc core wick got too hot throughout the votive and turned the center of the candle liquid, or I didn't give the candle enough time to cure.

If anyone has had this problem before, could you let me know what to do? Even if you have a theory as to what went wrong I'd like to hear from you, thanks all!

I like the fact that on her yahoo profile her picture was pulled as of today. The heat is on!

We ordered our wax from soycandle.com, great company to work with and the wax (474) is working out far better than I imagined for our votive line. I can't say enough good things about both soycandle and Golden Brands!

Thanks for all the info guys and gals, probably going to order from Olivebranch!

And I mean the real stuff. LOL!

I've been after it for a while now, but can't seem to find anywhere that has it for sale. Someone please help!

Yeah, we are still testing our candles out, didn't want to put up anything we aren't 110% confident in selling. We will have them up this weekend. Other than that, we are also a bath and body shop, and do have a lot of great products up right now, with more coming soon.

New pictures, well, better pictures will be up tomorrow as well.

Thanks to all for checking us out, and please enter our contest and sign up for our newsletter!

Well,

I finally got it mostly finished, but we are open for business as of August 1st. Will still be working on it for most of the day, but all of the pages are completed, and I even added an information blog to the site.

Check us out at: www.islandbreezescandles.com and sign up for our newsletter, or join our contest!

Also be sure to check out our blog at: www.islandbreezescandles.com/blog.htm

And if you'd like to advertise with us for free on our blog, send me an e-mail at gene@islandbreezescandles.com

Ours is: www.islandbreezescandles.com

We are open!!!!

I'm going to be offering a newsletter both through e-mail and a direct mailing every month. In fact, our first one will be coming out on Tuesday, so check out our website if you want to sign up!

Other than that, we will be offering coupons, tips, and information about upcoming sales and new items, scents, stuff like that!

In keeping with what DatCandleMaker said, a logo also helps with product recognition. What comes to mind when you think of McDonalds, Toys R Us, or even Wendy's? Granted these are major corporations but they branded themselves with a logo that when people see it they instantly know what company it belongs to. That, and a catch phrase.

Great list, printing it out as we speak!

I like the one with the black stripe myself.

Wanted to bump this back up, just wondering what the concensus is on this.

I totally forgot about this website for recipes. Good thing it got bumped back up, have to bookmark it now!

I'm still trying to figure this out myself. For those of you who have websites, and don't have the UPS or USPS calculators hooked up to your site, how do you charge your shipping? Do you set up a fixed amount, charge by weight, or by zone? I am so confused about how to do this.

I missed this too, too bad, oh well, next year.

Not to get off subject, but when I saw DOS I thought to myself, man time to upgrade your operating system! LOL!!

I had my recipes written down on post it notes, until I lost them. Now I have a 5 subject notebook that they are written in. I think I'm going to go with something a bit more solid though, like a three ring binder with the plastic covers to protect the pages.

There is some info if you do a search for bath salts, but if I'm not mistaken(and if I am soneone will jump in to help), if you add FO or liquid coloring, you would lay the salts out on a baking sheet to dry for 24 hours or so.

I've never heard of that, well at least not with candles, I do know some smaller candy companies do that, but it sounds like it would be a great idea to attract attention. It also shows that the candles are hand made and not machine produced.

Label Factory Deluxe has the templates for Avery labels built in. It has a lot of templates in there, I think practically every size label you could imagine that Avery makes. I currently use it for custom label sizes and then use 8.5 x 11 inch label paper and cut them out individually. It is more time consuming, but I can design label sizes to the dimensions I need.

A few places to check for labels are: www.labelsbythesheet.com or www.planetlabel.com

I've been going myself to staples for now, but will be ordering from one of these when I decide what my final label version will be. I'm sure that some of the members here have used one of the two and can provide more info for you.

We get our business cards from vistaprint, but all other materials: labels,brochures, etc. we do.

I currently am using Label Factory Deluxe for my labels, and Microsoft Publisher for other promotional/marketing materials. Very easy programs to use also.

If you're on the east coast, atlanticspice.com is the place to go. Get my orders in one day from them, and they have good prices and a nice selection, plus their herbs smell great. Well except for the spearmint which is giving me a headache. LOL!

We're moving full steam ahead right now on making products, getting ready for our grand opening Aug. 1st! So this weekends projects include: soy candle testing, a couple of scrubs, bagging bath salts, and more bath teas!

Maybe I'll throw in some bath melts while the weather is cooler!

Have a good weekend!