ah-soy

I've been searching online to buy some Kemamide powder for mold release but can't find a supplier that still carries it. Kemamide is the trademark name - it's chemical name is stearamide. Ooops just noticed I spelled it wrong in my header. Any help appreciated!

I would go ahead and re-melt and add the right proportions of your butter and oils.

Beeswax and candelilla will both work, BUT candelilla has about twice the hardening power of beeswax. If experimenting, I would try half the amount of cand compared to your beeswax recipe.

I love the JW 9900. Great hot and cold throw, beautiful appearance and little to no wetspots. Wish it was available at more than one supplier though. It probably is, but they all rename their blends. Hate to get locked in to one with suppliers dropping like flys.

Just what I was gonna say. It's all in branding and marketing and they are THE big boys in the industry.

I think I've pretty much eliminated mold as the problem...I made another batch with vanilla scented icing and cakes and tested them...it was not mold. They tested negative for mold/bact/fungi...nothing was growing. The icing and cakes though turned brown where they touched each other. I iced some with royal icing (but did not boil the distilled water...hmmmm, should try that) and iced the others with FBB/beeswax recipe I've been working on. There is water in the FBB base... I do use a touch of water in my cupcakes. The strange thing is that when I use the same recipe for bath bombs and heavy vanilla scents I get no browning at all - not after weeks or months. It's got to be something in the icing.

Dendritic salt is mixed with bath salts to help scent retention so might work with bombs. I wonder if orrowroot powder would help also. It's a fragrance fixative. Read about these online but have yet to try them.

Thanks to all of you for your replies! I certainly need to carry a few florals and you all have given me some good ones. I am such a bakery and fruity scent lover I have a hard time with the florals.

I know it will differ greatly by region, but just wondering how many of you carry some/or a lot of florals in your candle line? I have the hardest time pouring and testing them because they give me such a headache!

Well, first you have to tell me what ironic water is...ha! I've seen ingredient labels with "de-ionized" water and I believe that's the same as distilled water (which is what I use) that has had the minerals etc. removed.

I pulled some bath bombs out that, believe it or not, I made 4 years ago and they fizzed and whirled like crazy...no scent left though. I've read that using dendritic salt and/or adding some orrowroot (sp?) powder will preserve fragrance. I think I might order some and give it a try! Maybe it will extend the fragrance life some???

Wondering if those who used Greenleaf oils and now gets them from JBN are finding the oils the same? I ordered two from JBN that I used to get from GL and they seem to be a bit different...maybe they've been reformulated or it's just my nose...nothing but colds and allergies this spring! Please, I don't want to start a "bash a supplier" thread...just wondering if anyone else has noticed anything?

Thanks everyone. LouLou, these are made with the 60mm plastic molds and with the extra mix from each batch I use the small stainless steel bombs from the co-op (not pictured) and call them pedi-bombs. If your bombs are squishing and flattening, I suspect your mixture is too wet. Try mixing it a bit more to dry it out some before molding, or use less liquids.

I'm always surprised at the number of online stores that don't list ingredients in the product description or on their website. Guess they're afraid of others ripping off their recipes.

I pulled this off the video: 1 C Baking Soda 1 C SLSa 1/3 C Cream of Tartar 2 TBS Glycerin 3 TBS Cocamide DEA 3 TBS Coco B... (however it's spelled) FO and Colorant On another board a lady posted some pics of hers and said she didn't use the glycerin at all because it made them soggy but didn't say if she increased the other liquids or not. HTH

I didn't save the link but if you Google "Southern Soapers bubble bar video" it should come up.

It's one and the same.

Try the souther soapers recipe...it has two foam boosters in it. Cocamide DEA and Coco....B....??? something else. There is also a Baking Soda derivative that is a water softener. I'll see if I can find the name of it. Found it: Sodium Sesquicarbonate

Ashee Beans posted what might be happening (page two of this thread). She had trouble with vanilla scents browning in between the icing and cupcake. Sure enough, all my cupcakes had a lot of vanilla notes in them and they all browned...I thought it was mold at first also. I made another batch of cupcakes and icing with an FO with no vanilla notes and guess what...no browning! It's been weeks now and cakes are fine. LouLou Girl has had some luck using WSP Vanilla Neutralizer in her vanilla scented bubble bars so I am going to order some and try it with my vanilla fo's and cupcakes. I want to use some bakery scents in these and almost all of those have vanilla in them.

I'm impressed! I'm such a soaping wanna-be

Been playing the last couple of weeks with foodie scents. Still working on my color formulas and being more artistic with my colors/designs. Top row left to right: Candied Apple, Orange Juice Cake, Toasted Marshmallow Bottom row left to right: Frosted Lime Cupcake, Raspberry Zinger All fo's from NG

Yeah, I should...I'll have to order one. The only Lush here is way over town and I never go there...to far through heavy town traffic. Say, speaking of bubble bars, how did your Blue Hawaii bar do with the Vanilla Stabilizer?

Thanks LouLou...another question...are they smooth or rough feeling like bath bombs?

Ha...it took me two shampoos to get the night cream out of my hair...I think next time I'll try a Shirley Temple bomb! LouLou, I love the Lavender Martini FO...very subtle lavender amid some complex other stuff that I can't identify. I'm not a huge lavender lover, but I do love this FO.

I'm playing with different recipes and wonder what type of texture bubble bars are suppose to have when "dry"...I've only seen them online and never actually held or used one except for my own experiments... TIA