SheilaW

That is some pretty soap!

Don't forget the red banana, it's scrumptious. ( sorry it's not earthy )

Prehaps you could take one of the gel recipes and add thickeners/emulsifiers until you have the consistency you want?

I haven't seen a recipe for a shaving balm that isn't a gel, sorry.

What brand do you use? I have some from Bittercreek, too. I may end up tossing the millcreek brand if they are going to all turn eventually. Sucks! :undecided

Sorry, I looked and couldn't find the info. I got them from a co-op here quite some time ago.

I made up a bunch and have them segregated into scent types stored in the plastic drawers and I toss them in gift baskets as needed or give to friends and occasionally pop them into my tart warmer at home so I know they still smell good.

Oh man, that is beautiful! Those are just the colors and the swirls that I was trying for with my seized batch. ( I can only dream about the swirls:embarasse )

When Wendy does a prebuy you need to get in on it. Every single one of her oils are beyond awesome!! The VBN is my favorite, it throws like you would not believe. Also I'm pretty sure that they all get tested in CP.

Love the black and white.

First batch, new recipe, new fo "Green Clover & Aloe" from "The Chemistry Store " I'm doing the happy song and dance because everything is going smoothly, I add the fo, stir about 3 times and it goes beyond soap on a stick, I had chunks of green concrete sitting in my bowl. So I smooched it down in the mold and hoped for the best. yeah, forget about the swirls I wanted to try.

Second batch new recipe again and peppermint eo, it behaved beautifully and I actually thought I had swirls for a change NOT EVEN CLOSE!!

Last batch I'm brave and new recipe again. Used goats milk and honey with apple fo ( I could have used oatmeal milk and honey but I was in the mood for apple ) I didn't think and accidently let it overheat and when I noticed the plastic mold warping completly out of shape I threw it in the crockpot. It looks like crap but it feels really nice.

I'm not and will probably never be a proficient soaper but I have fun trying.

I put a 3x3 candle beside it to show the difference. This thing took almost 6 lbs of wax!

resized compare snowman.jpg

This is the other side

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That is a beautiful shade of green but that deep green with the white top layer that you posted in the gallery was absolutely perfect for snowy pine.

Also your jar and lable are awesome. Really shows off the palm to advantage. Very elegant looking.

If you're putting the wick pin inside of the mold then use metal tape. I never had any luck using mold sealer. Like you said with pouring so hot ( I pour at 200) the mold sealer leaked every single time!

I prewick so the metal tape is easy plus you can unmold while the wax is still pretty hot so the candles slides out and no problems.

Must be the clamshells. I have some that are more than a year old and still smell great. No plastic smell what so ever.

Man, I was really looking forward to seeing your pictures and they're gone:cry2:

There is a page on the soapcalc called soap qualities and I refer to it a LOT

Their summary of values is

Hardness 36-50

Cleansing 14-22

Condition 45-80

Bubbly lather 14-33

Creamy lather 16-35

There is also an oil list page that tells you which oils are high in Lauric, Myristic, Linoleic etc.etc. (another words which fatty acid contributes certain qualities to the soap.)

Soap Calc is a great site.

Those are some great looking candles!! I love the layered ones with two different textures especially!

I used it in GL 70/30 and the throw was light. Surprised me because all of "Peak" oils that I have tried in this wax have a great strong throw.

Those are really neat looking. I can't get over how much they look like rocks and pretty rocks at that.

Great job on the layering!

They look great and the colors are beautiful!

In 70/30 soy blend ( 4 oz hex jar ) I use LX-10 to LX-14 ( so far most fo's do well with the LX-12 )

I also started using these to test scent throw because I was using up a lot of wax just to find out whether or not the fo's I have will throw in soy or not, plus it gives me an idea of whether I'll need to wick up/down in my regular jar.

Hi Angela, since you are brand new to candlemaking my first suggestion would be to click on the link at the top of the page that says " Helpful Links to Newbies" and then click on each link and read through the posts. There may be things that you don't understand and information that doesn't necessarily apply to what you want to do but it will give you a great starting point. There is also information about what the abbreviations and all the different numbers mean that you'll see used a lot here. ( When I first started out with candles I thought I would need an interpreter just to understand what everyone was talking about :smiley2: )

There is also a section here on vegetable waxes that has a wealth of information about soy and soy blends and the numerous questions and problems that crop up and which wick works best etc.etc.

Good luck and have fun . Oh yeah, and welcome to the forum.

lol....I did a price comparison also...I guess it is just too much to hope that a big supplier would open house here in FL :undecided

There are a few suppliers in FL that offer straight soy and I found one that has soy, paraffin, and palm wax but the price on the palm was almost $40.00 more per case than from Candlewic:shocked2:

I bought a case of the GL 70/30 from the classifieds and it was almost as much to ship UPS from Miami as from Texas ( to central FL ) so we shipped parcel post for a third of the cost.

I'm afraid that shipping cost is what is going to kill this hobby of mine.

I have noticed recently that a lot of the threads are old, some from a year ago including this one. That tells me that peeps are doing a lot of reading and researching and that's a VERY good thing.

Wading through that many posts can be an arduous undertaking but it shows that someone is serious about learning and finding the right answers.

I see that you are also from FL

My initial thought was that shipping might be cheaper, and it is, but only by $3.00 and the wax price is the same. Oh well

Wow, is this something you asked for or did hubby surprise you?