Crowded House

Yes! Just about everytime. Like I am singled out or something.

I don't mean to be rude, but I've looked at the threads you've started and most of them are pretty much "Hey, here's a candle component. Tell me which one to use, where to get it, and how to make it perfect."

While curiousity is a wonderful and inspiring part of learning new things, so is making a jump into the unknown and testing at least a few things for yourself without a team of sherpas to help guide you up the foot of the mountain. Let the candle muse guide you through a few ventures and tell us about how that went, too.

Thanks to those of you who had something worth reading. But for the others do you have anything constructive to say or are u just being your usual selves?

Usual selves?

Do you have a lot of threads like this?

These aren't square masons, more like a heavy square tumbler. The inside diameter of the glass at the top is 2.9" from side to side, but almost 3.5" corner to corner. The glass tapers ever so slightly down to the bottom. It is about 3" high.

I've tried 44c, 51c, 62c, CD14, CD16, and CD18's. Tried an LX22 but the tunnelling was horrible.

Because of the gentle taper of the glass, I end up with either wasted wax in the first 1/8" at the top (but a full melt pool underneath as it catches up, so I end up with a "collar" of wax), or a perfect melt from the get-go and hot glass and bouncing wicks as it gets towards the end of the candle. All of the cotton core wicks mushroom pretty badly, but the CD's perform pretty well as far as mushrooming. Corner hangup, while somewhat present, usually catches up by the second or third burn (with the exception of the aforementioned collar).

FO is medium/heavy. Load in the testers is .5oz FO in 7oz wax. Wax is plain old 415 soy. Scent throw is great despite the wick problems.

I thought about double wicking with a couple of 36c's or CD10's, but worry about the wicks stealing oxygen from each other as they get lower in the glass. I've never double wicked a container this small, so I'm not sure whether to even bother or if it might be better to move on to another wick series, like HTP or LX.

Any ideas?

I read with some suppliers that butterscotch is not a strong thrower with vegetable base waxes.

MC's Honey Butter is pretty close (to a butterscotch) and has a very nice throw with 415 soy.

No, you could still be sued for negligence if you put a warning sticker on a candle that is dangerous and sell it and it catches something on fire when the candle is used reasonably.

And of course if 1/16th of your 16 oz candle is FO that is also 6.25%.

I usually wait 72 hours before testing.

I wouldn't sell a candle at a cheap price just because the market is too cheap to buy it for what it's worth.

If you want to appeal to a cheap market segment you should make a candle that costs less to produce (like votives). That way your name is out there, you've appealed to that market segment, and your candle prices can maintain their integrity.

Otherwise keep looking for the market segment that wants to pay $8 for a square mason.

They certainly do have some good reviews on CandleFind, though.

Go to http://www.google.com and type in "ounces to grams" without the quotation marks.

ETA: this also works if you have more than one ounce to calculate, as in "3.5 ounces to grams".

Are you sure they're air bubbles and not unincorporated FO?

I use 100% soy flakes from Mill Creek. I normally heat to around 180 or 185 and pour when the wax is just past being cloudy--still liquid enough that it doesn't splatter when I pour--normally between 100 and 105.

At what temp are you adding FO?

Several years ago, Papa John's Pizza's advertising statement was that they used the freshest ingredients (sp?). Lawsuit was filed and it was found that they did not use the freshest ingredients; theirs were as fresh as other companies but not more so. Therefore we now have "Better Ingredients, Better Pizza" which is acceptable because they probably do use better ingredients than some companies but not all.

Actually it was the "Better Ingredients, Better Pizza" slogan that Pizza Hut sued over. They won initially but Papa John's won on appeal, so that's why they're using the slogan today.

I agree with Bella Soy that there is TOO much information on that web site. I clicked on the link out of curiosity, but after reading about two paragraphs of her life story and scrolling down to see there was still a WHOLE lot more to read, I closed out of the site. Blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, I agree with this. I don't see how it's helping her.

Of course there is one particular site in the top 5 in a google search for "soy candles" that has so much information on their home page that it crashed my old computer when I clicked on it. Yet they're right up there.

They are just candles. I realize their claims are over the top....Is it really THAT big of a deal? There are going to be those people in every business. It isn't like they're "lying" about some serious, life threatening matter.

Well, yes, if their claims are out and out lies (and a seven step pouring process that nobody else uses because it takes place in their own facility isn't exactly an out and out lie) then it is a big deal.

When Ford claimed in the 1950's that their windshields were clearer than the competition and then attempted to prove it by filming through a "windshield" that didn't exist (there was no glass in the windshield hole when it was filmed for the commerical, making it of course the clearest "windshield" ever), that was enough of a problem that the laws applying to advertising were actually changed to address that issue for any product.

So, what you are saying is that you are alright with things such as "We pour at extremely low temperatures so that fragrance oil isn't burned off" being stated on a website, and being passed off to consumers not knowing any better, as fact?

Maybe the way they were pouring before did cause FO to be burned off.

I'll agree that that particular paragraph seems pretty deceptive, if not outright wrong, factually. My point was that assigning names to her processes and fragrance collection and calling them "unique" really isn't a lie. All of our collections and methods are unique, as far as I know, even if they differ just about as much as Skippy and Jif.

So choosy moms really do all choose Jif?

The marketing strategy is deceitful in its most basic sense, in that she is making the general public feel that those things she mentioned are unique to her product, which they aren't.

That's how every brand since the dawn of time has attempted to inspire brand loyalty. Why Jif and not Peter Pan or Best Choice? Why Joy and not Dawn? It's all pretty much the same thing.

As for her not intending for the experienced chandler to shop on her site...why not? Says who? If it doesn't pass THAT test, then it shouldn't be used.

If your marketing strategy doesn't appeal to a market you're not aiming at, you shouldn't use it? That doesn't even make sense.

Well, conventional wisdom would probably point to claims of "candle technology" as fairly ineffective in a market where the vast majority want something soothing and relaxing and want to feel good about a product (rather than "thinking" about it).

Most marketing is a little "over the top", though. I mean, did Calgon literally ever "take someone away"? Is Centrum's "specifically formulated" vitamin pill really that much different from Rite-Aid's generic brand?

It's all an attempt to impress. I question the effectiveness of her particular brand of advertising hoodoo, but it isn't much different than getting the customer all excited about how your (the royal "your") candles will bring them the Relax-O experience of their lives by talking about how well your candles scent the bathroom and how well they fit into tub corners.

Proprietary 100% stabilized soy wax? Proprietary to who?

Sounds like 100% soy and stearic.

What's wrong with marketing? Seems like attempting some sort of marketing is a lot smarter than "Here's a candle, now buy the dang thing."

Fragrance oil + Diffuser oil base. I've seen recommended (in parts) 1 to 3 all the way up to 2 to 1, depending on the grade and strength of the FO.

Diffuser oil base can be DPG or isopropyl mystrate or a house blend of both, I suppose. The base has to be a low enough viscosity to allow it to be wicked up through the reeds, but heavy enough to keep the FO from simply evaporating. DPG has a reputation for being lesser as far as viscosity goes, but some FO's work just fine with it.

Many FO companies offer a premade base+FO combination as well, which usually runs price-wise at slightly less than pure FO.

Siphon. Siphoning.

I've never had luck wicking down; it only drowns out the wick.

That said, I've also noticed a difference in the shape of containers; that is, I don't get a big 'shroom in a 3.5" round container using a cotton cored wick, but the same wick and the same wax and the same fragrance in a square container that is 3" across and 3.5" diagonal will produce a huge 'shroom that is unresponsive (mushroom-wise) to changes in wick size and must have a coreless cotton made for an equivelent (3.5") round instead.

Go figure.

So if I can't get the 'shroom to disappear with a wick-up, I switch to coreless and that usually fixes it. YMMV, of course.

Taylored Concepts' Taylored Coffee has an impressive throw in soy and is "coffee" enough that it blends well with other FO's to make proprietary "flavored" coffee fragrances.

Their Coffee House was also excellent but my husband thought it had enough hazelnut in it to classify it out of the realm of coffees and into actual food scents.

Esp. if Crowded decided to whip the wax .

Well, I do stir the FO in but I don't get that nuts about it.

Seriously, I think it's the scale. Five US quarters is giving me about a 1.15 oz reading, and 10 US quarters come in at about 1.85 oz.

I wondered about some of it urning off-I know that water will evaporate, but will wax?

Well, where does it go when you burn a candle for a while?

Who's ridiculing? Obviously BarbaraC has done a good job getting her costs down. That's been great for her and a nice eye-opener for everyone who has been paying more.

I appreciate someone who is willing to come on here and provide a benchmark for lower costs.

As far as the "arguing", I think most of it has been a lot of us correcting each other's math.