Crowded House

It's the busy season for suppliers, too. If you ordered on Sunday you may not hear back until late today or even as late as Thursday if they're backed up. Getting a one day turnaround this time of year is pretty good. Of course that's for all suppliers, not just Keystone.

Anybody use their fragrances? I got a bit of Strawberry off of the classifieds and WOW, it's amazing in soy! Just wondering about the rest of their fragrances. They are a bit pricey for the 1oz'ers, and I'd like to hear opinions from others before laying out $3 apiece for samples.

The only way I have gotten 100% soy "votives" to work is if I make the votive holder the container itself (essentially making a tiny container candle). If you have your heart set on 100% soy for votives I would try that instead.

I would suggest using a soy wax designed for votives.

Never heard of them.

There really isn't a huge difference between the CD 18 and 16, just enough for "tweaking" purposes. It could be the amount of FO you have in there is too high, or you might need to wick down a lot. How long did it take you to get a full melt with the 16?

I have never seen clear round labels in an office supply store, but I recommend labelsbythesheet.com. She even ships out on Saturdays. My experience with them has been around 4 days from checkout to doorstep.

FO to cutting agent ratio probably has something to do with throw, too. I'd be amazed if Walmart's FO/CA ratio was 2:1, or even 1:1.

Waxidermy!

Full sheet labels and Circle Scissors (tm, I think). Very time consuming, but cheaper than a printer.

Kinko's will only do full sheet labels (at least in my town). You might try a small independent printer and see if they will do it, but I was told by Kinko's that they were too worried about the labels getting caught in the printer and wouldn't do anything but a full sheet (as opposed to precut).

I'd suggest some sort of foliage garland (ivy, or maybe fir, closer to the holidays) draped in "swoops" and stopping about 1-2" short of the candles at the lowest point. And the wood grain is okay but draping it in fabric might be nice on the eyes as well.

The number one thing that will help pics load fast is to resize them on Photoshop or a similar photo editor, and not resizing them by outlining the parameters in your HTML. In other words, if your picture is 640x480 pixels and you want a 120x100 pixel picture on your website, resize it to 120x100 before you upload it to your host. Don't take the 640x480 and resize it to 120x100 in your page code, because your picture will still load just as slowly as a 640x480 picture (because technically, it still is one).

I'm just basing this on what I see other, larger companies do of course, but yeah, it can't be the "same" candle. There has to be a reason immediately obvious to the customer that it is a "premium" candle. For example, pricing Apples and Maple Bourbon $5 less than Hey Hey Cute Cabana Boy in the exact same jar with the exact same packaging and calling the latter a "premium fragrance" might not go over too well, but say, putting the HHCB candle in different packaging and calling it something more upscale and adding a description about the history of San Tropez on the back of the box might. It's like the Cabbage Patch doll 25 years ago, with it's own little "adoption certificate" and history page and "no two are exactly alike" hook, and priced way above some mass produced doll thrown in a box with a bottle and change of clothes. The little additional things about the CP doll made it immediately unique and more appealing to the consumer.

Thanks Hope and Top. That was very enlightening.

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It probably would be.

You could sell them all for the same price, or you could do a "premium line" with your more expensive FOs. That way you cover your costs and also appeal to another segment of your market (those who want a "slightly better" candle).

I found the HTP information on Braidway here. Maybe it was outdated. Interesting.

Hm. I went to the Braidway site (I already have the WU pdf), and the RoC information for zinc core was identical to WU. HTP RoC was fairly different between Braidway and WU though, however yield was off as well. What would cause the yield to be noticeably different between the two companies?

I absolutely did. Thank you. I've also found that ROC seems to make enough of a difference when comparing similar sizes between brands (to narrow a choice down even further). For example, the yield of the LX 20 and the CD 7 are fairly close (402 and 408, respectively), but the ROC of the LX 20 is slightly higher and therefore performs noticeably better or worse depending on the application. I'm glad you brought up coreless vs. other wicks, though, because I had not made that connection yet. It will be an interesting thing to test.

Illuminati Candles - Control your world. Acta - Candles speak louder than words. Isthmus Candles - Connect with us. Nouveau - Freshest candles in town. Piddlywax - The cutest little votives anywhere. ZincWick - Wicks with pure minerals. Good luck. I even had trouble naming my pets, so I know what you're going through.

It sounds like what you're experiencing is "bloom", something that also happens to chocolate when it is stored improperly and/or for a long time. I don't think you can fix it, but you can probably prevent it; either by not storing them for a long time (more than a few weeks), or storing it properly. From Everything2.com Sorry, I couldn't find anything on soy bloom, probably because it is marketed as a positive characteristic of soy candles, unlike chocolate, where it isn't.

Their Christmas catalogue doesn't have any Sweet Cupcake Candle items on it.

It would be better if we could find some way to get scent to come through the computer, wouldn't it? Click on a site, smell vanilla or something?