Casey

I really like the chunky!

175, all FO's, All waxes (okay, I only use two, but I've tested more!)

beautiful, awesome and all that good stuff.

too low of a temperature. I add @ 175 with soy as a rule, to make sure that it gets a chance to bind with the wax, and no, it does not burn off. I gave up on the VB, though. Too much cracking no matter what temp I poured at, sometimes only 1/2 a batch would crack, I couldn't find a common denominator to eliminate the problem. And I wasn't at all happy with the ones that didn't crack. They were dry and kinda chalky. Even if they don't crack when you've just made them, they could still crack later, especially if you have to move them around for shows and stuff. I tryed KY, and it performs well every time. The finished products are creamy, and it takes color much better. Great stuff!

awesome. I love it.

the Scent Work's Spiced Hot Cocoa blows the freakin doors off. Smells up my whole house w/out even being lit. Seriously. I use Soy. I think I will use less than 6% next time:rolleyes2

They do look very nice. It was hard for me to figure out the name. I'm just not sure people can make out Lip Smoochers though. Maybe the letter O's with lips over them.

Yeah, it took me a few to figure out that the lips were o's. Love the look, tho

Indescent my darling, you have nothing but virtues in my eyes

Oooooo! Somebody has a crush!

My wax of choice for votives is KY Pillar/Votive Blend. It has a great throw and nice appearance.

The VB just plain sucks! I had the same problems, no cause that I could find other than the product itself. Kaybee told me to try the KY, and I haven't looked back! I just ordered 50lbs.

Casey

the 1st one best. It invokes both types of products while the other two don't so much.

All I could come up with was "That Girl Potions" or something equally as lame. I wanted something that was kinda playful but relevent to candles, and not limiting in case i ever wanted to expand to soaps and such. Something kinda urban, maybe a little hipsterish, definatly not country, homey, prim or gender specific. Something that allowed for changeable packaging styles. So...nothing. Finally, I decided to stop trying so hard and just let it happen. Then one day it just came to me, while alphebatizing our ridiculiously massive cd collection..."i melt with you". It can mean whatever I want it to mean, and I can go in any direction. Maybe a bit dated, if ya even get it, but I am happy with it. Domain name was avail and that settled it.

Cute Cute Cute!

And of the two I woulda chose the Pure, but in the end went w/ CB135. The Pure had a good throw and I liked the fininshed look, one pour. I don't use color so frosting is not an issue for me. The Advanced took a longer time to set up, needed a re-pour, and there was some cracking. Wet spots are just as likely to occur, and the throw was not better. To be fair, i had already decided on going forward with my choice, so I was kinda looking for reasons not to switch, but had to try them anyway. Maybe HenryK will chime in, he seems to have done a lot of detail oriented testing on these products, search the archives, there was a lengthy discussion.

don't have 10, but here are my faves anyway:

Clean Cotton

Honeysuckle

Pink Sugar

Sweet Pea

Warm Apple Pie

Blackberry Sage

a candle of theirs too recently, but I believe I rememeber that they're using a parrafin/soy blend, it was in the fine print of the packaging. The cold throw was just okay, I've never burned one tho, I could not pay $20 for a 8oz tumbler just to satisfy my curiosity;) !

well. there are lots of great ones out there, but my top 3...

Candle Cocoon

Enchanted Lites

Peaks

It makes great mottled pillars very easy. It is parrafin, btw

Awesome links Scrubzz, tks!

Casey

Cute! Embeds w/ the clear lids is a great idea!

don't get yer panties in a bunch folks, geez . In hindsight "contaminate" was really not the right word to use, it's misrepresented my tone. Sub with "dilute" or "alter". I really didn't intend to suggest diminished quality, or suggest that using a blend is not perfectly fine.

As I said, I have nothing against parrafin, It's very cool stuff, I use it seperatley, and support the use of it:) . If only all industry by-products were so useful! Honestly, it didn't even occur to me that the "naturalness" wouldn't be a main reason for using soy. I like the slightly cleaner, renewable, natural angle of soy, and it is where I'm coming from when I say that blends don't make sense to me. Now I know better .

To my mind, using the phrase "soy candle" strongly implies "natural" "healthy" and "alternative" to most everyday folks. When the average person purposely purchases a soy candle, they believe they are purchasing an alternative product, and the emotional pay off is part of the reason they are attracted to the idea in the 1st place. I think that the desire to use buying power to support your ideals is a positive thing, and deserves to be honored and not exploited. One could debate the semantics of the word natural, it has a hard meaning that can be used to argue that lots of things not generally considered natural actually are, but out in the world, the marketplace, in everyday discourse it has a more general application. For an alternate example, if there's 2% beeswax in your candle, and someone asks if it's vegan, you'd say no. Partly for these reasons, I stand by my percentage comment. Having a parrafin content in any amount and just saying it's a soy candle reads to me as a deliberate misrepresentation. If "blend" or some similie is included prominatly/equally with soy, then it's all good.

Thanks everyone for your help . . . . I really appreciate it!

Casey: Let me know how the KY works out for you.

I think I may just order samples of both waxes - but it seems as though KY is a winner!

Thanks again everyone!

Okay, it's the next day, and I have think I'm going to go with the KY! Henry K's description of the difference is dead on. The PB is kinda dry, and over time, I can imagine them getting brittle and fragile maybe. But the KY is smooth, creamy and very dense, seems like parrafin almost. A repour was necessary to perfect the tops, but I'm okay with that cuz the effort yields a positive outcome. HTH

and this may not be popular , blends aren't soy candles, they're parrafin candles that have some soy, regardless of percentage. Maybe a blend is easier to work with, but more expensive and why spend the $ and time on the soy at all if you're just gonna contaminate it? I don't have anything against parrafin, and of course the fragrances and dyes I use are not natural, but the wax is, and I'm very upfront about that. I just would not be comfortable marketing a blend as a vegetable wax candle. It would feel like lying at worst, misleading at best.

me threethier!

wrestling with that EXACT same desision myself!

The Ecosoya VB sucks, so that's out. I tried like 5 diff fo's that work great in the CB135 and almost every single one from every batch cracked, also a needed repours which still didn't yeild a nice top.

The Ecosya PB seems to be pretty good for votives, worked for me with 1 pour and they held up and throw well.

I just recieved some KY and my 1st test is setting up as I type.

I think, unless the KY blows me away, I'm going to go with the PB. I'd like to carry the same scents as containers in votives and I think i'll be able to get more consistent results with the same wax manufacturer.

My problem now is wicking. I've been testing CD's and HTP's but with the natural bendy thing they do, it leaves hang up on 1 side that may or may not catch up. Okay, so maybe this post is no help. Anyone got anything to say about the wick ?

You'll need a wax meant for pillars. It has a higher melt point.

HTH