candlemandave

That is interesting, the one I just made is a lot more straight forward and better suited for test or figuring your wax blend if you blend your wax first before mixing. And, it is good for figuring how much stuff you'll need for 1 style (size and scent) of candle. I am a little confused with the enchanted lights one because it is not broken down by style of candle in regards to scent. It gives you the amount of wax you'll need, but not for the individual scents. It appears the only practical way to use it is to do a batch with 1 scent which leaves me to ask why have space for 3 different types of scent? The one I've created for myself has all styles of candles available and all scents. Then a,b,c,d,e,f,g scents corespond with the different sizes. That way, if you enter 2 "a" scent 26oz, 2 "a" scent 16oz, 1 "b" scent 26oz...etc. etc. then it will give you all measurements for what you are needing to make broken down by scent. I also have it connected with a book that analyses the cost per candle, how much I charge and the percentages I make off each style. There is also an inventory tracker, all my scents are priced in..etc. etc Unfortunately, I do not have a generic spreadsheet made up, and it would take a lot of time to create one. Plus, it would take time to explain to people how it all works. That is why I would have to charge people to customize one for them. But, I hope the one I made will work for some.

Hey all, I was trying to help someone working on percentages and mentioned I use MS Excel to do my calculations. I said I'd share it with the person. I went to check what I have and realized it is way too personal for my production so I created 4 different files that can be used by anyone. This would definately be a beta version and there is a "can't hold me liable diclaimer to this." Spreadsheets are awesome because you just enter your numbers and voila there's the amounts you need of each ingredient. You must have MS Excel (Office XP or later) to use this. It won't work with microsoft works. Also, I got to thinking, if people wanting a more personalized version of this, I would be willing to negotiate a fee for this kind of service. Never thought about it before and will post this on the classified section or the business section after I think more about it. But for anyone that wants a free copy of this one, email me and I'll send it to you. Two notes, 1. You need Microsoft Excel (had to say that again) and 2. This is only for soy wax candle makers because it is only set up for 1 pour and not 2. Thanks dave

cool beans, another local company is www.candlewic.com I"ve only bought dyes from them though but they are in doylestown area.

First, if you go to the basic instructions section of this site, they have calculators that may help you. Also, if you have microsoft excel, I can create a file for you that you can easily use. It is what I use and I have it set up to where all I have to do is type in the numbers and it instantly figures out everything. VERY IMPORTANT Water and wax are different chemically which means in this case they will weigh differently. even two different waxes can weigh differently, so don't base your measurements by water. Image this...you start with a lb of candle wax (ie all your stuff blended) which is 16oz's and you pour into a container. If you weigh whatever you have left in the pouring pot and subtract this from 16, then you know approximately what your container held. So...I started with 16oz's and poured my candle. I am left with 6 oz's in my pot. Then, I know my container weighed about 10oz's. 16oz (what I began with) - 6oz (what is left in the pot) ____________ 10oz what my jar holds Now, you can take the same size jar you poured into, in this example the jar that held 10oz's and figure what your wax to water ratio is...bare with me If you pour 9oz of water in your jar, then you know that for this blend, 9oz of water is equal to 10oz of your wax blend. I would give you the more detailed math formula to get it more accurate, but this is a good place to start.. finally, don't go by what the jars say they hold, because it is not accurate to the candle weight. I knew a guy that sold "32" oz candles and the only reason he said so is that they were made in jars that said 32oz capacity. The wax content was only 26oz and he was forced to alter his marketing.

I am in PA too...Lancaster County... for wax I would highly recommend people in Quakertown at www.candlesandsupplies.com . They have a soy sample pack that you can try the different kinds before buying a lot. Also shipping will be saved as they are PA. Also, if you are doing this for a business, you can get awesome prices through them that are in many ways as cheap as you would get going to the source when you are buying pallets. good luck

Has anyone used LIghtning Labels? ARe the labels waterproof?

another thing to add is that peoples sense of smell vary greatly. I've had people say they couldn't smell a candle while another will say the candle was too strong. get at least a couple of people to help with your test and especially find some people that will be honest with you, AND try to find people that burn the heck out of candles because they may turn into future customers and will be a much better critic than people who burn a few candles. But, also understand what types of candles these people burn too. If they are getting candles at a dollar store then unless they are the glade candles, you are probably not going to get good information. If you get people that are buying quality candles, then you will get an idea of where your candles are going as far as quality. Also, some scents I've had to let burn an hour or so to get the scent to work in a room. My method is I have a point in my home that I burn a test scent and if I can not smell the scent in that spot in an hour, then I do not get that scent. And, most importantly, please understand that a candle can catch fire very easily if too much scent is used. Every scent that you buy has what is called a flash point. What this means is if the scent is heated to this temperature and a flame touches it, you have fire. Too much fragrance will create a pool of scent which can then catch fire. I had an almond scent that had such a low flashpoint that the test candles were catching fire, like torches. I just wanted to mention this in case you didn't know. I don't want you to go adding tons of scent trying to obtain your desired goals and get a flash of trouble. good luck to you

Cindy, My email is candlemandave@yahoo.com I got 10lbs before the holiday ended and have made all the candles with it. I made the following... 16oz apothecary jars 26oz apothecary jars both jars are from Anckor Hocking...got these from a company that is local to me called fillmore container, I"ll give them props because they treat me right and they're good people. They're in Lancater PA. www.fillmorecontainer.com I buy pretty awesome oils to go into the candles, I haven't seen any of the suppliers listed on here though as it seems more people go to the scent distributors rather than manufactuers. I am using a uv absorber from candlescience and unfortunatly, I am not sure the kind. I just started thinking wholesaling candles and naturally need to worry with this. I mixed .0025% of UV to 1 lb of GB444 That is all for my wax base. I weighed out enough wax and scent for 1 each of the 16oz and 26oz for RED Apple Spice @ 10%, Kiwi @ 11%, Pumpkin Spice @ 11%, Rainforest @ 4%. I use less of rainforest because it is a SUPER SCENT but is a true bitch to get the right wick size for reasons I"ll get to another time. Regarding temperature, I did not worry with temperature because I was pushing the limits of the scent and if a little burned off, it's not a big deal. I use a squirrel mixer that I got at home depot and have it on a drill. I have a different contraption at the shop I use to make the candles on a larger scale, but this thing works great on small test batches I like to do at home. BTW, if you don't already have one, definately try the squirrel mixer made by this company...damn, can't think of it...but it is called a caged squirrel mixer. It's patented and claims it can mix 3x faster and believe me, it does. It is awesome. If interested, I"ll get the company name. Here are my results that render these candles useless to a degree... They bled, even the 4% candle when briefly exposed to sunlight at 65F March in Pennsylvania. Which means the summer time will kill them. They even bled with the cap on. What is interesting is that I brought them back to the cool room and after about 2 hours, the beads went away. When I say beads, it was almost like a pool of wax for the Kiwi and Pumpkin Spice, where as the Rainforest was just a dribble that looked like sweat. I had similar results on a vegewax that once the bleeding began it was much larger and stayed for months (this was 10-11% also) Someone said that a candle will bleed in direct sunlight on a post I made about this but I've never had paraffin do what soy does in regards to bleeding, and I"m sorry, if someone buys a candle from you or from a shop that carries your candles, they may not be too pleased to get home on a June afternoon and open their new candle and find this pool of stuff at the top. Or, telling a shop that will carry your candles, "Hey, don't sell these in the summer or to people that are not going to immediately take them home." To me though, the good part is that once back inside, the candles returned to a normal state and even in direct sunlight, they do not bleed anymore. What I hope this means is that with the soy additive, I have the freedom to go up to 10-11% if I need to. But, so far my test have concluded that at 10-11%, you get substantial bleeding that once it has bled and reshaped itself does not bleed again(either the scent is evaporating or I don't know what the hell). There is a direct relationship between high fragrance load and bleeding because the 4% scent bled little, while the higher ones bled more. This is why it is pointing to the scent as the main culprit. Good notes though...the look was pretty damn good. I poured them hot as hell and there was only a little crack at the top of the 26oz kiwi and the others were fine. If I monitored the temperature, then the look would have been awesome. It did leave a little frosting but the little I got is miniscule compared to other soy waxes I've used. I used different amounts of drops to color, I use the high concentrated from candlwic and usually, I make up wax chunks to then use by weight, but haven't got this far with the soy. So far, 2 weeks in, the blue candle in direct sunlight has not faded a bit. which is a good sign for the uv i bought. But, I gotta put all of them in the sun once I"m done taking pictures. As you can tell, I"m a scent hog because I firmly believe that is what will sell a candle and keep customers, that is why I like the freedom to go as high as 10% if I need to. I used Archer Daniels 135 melt point w/ 5% palm stearic and 3% beeswax and was able to get 11% in and there is no bleeding whatsoever. The problem with this wax is in the mass producing. I have never seen uglier candles before in my life. They frosted something fierce and no matter how much I blended this damn stuff, it would at times turn out to look like, oh god, its hard to describe it, only it was like lumps of tumors and just plain gross. But, it held the scent. (Scent wasn't the factor, because it would do it without any scent). Anyways, I'm keeping an Excel file of my work and will be willing to share the details. I too just ordered 50 more lbs and I hope to have it figured out with this batch. I should get it next week sometime. It seems that we can not do a precise comparision because we will not be using the same scents, however, certain factors like bleeding and color holding can be assessed. hagd dave

I always convert to grams 454.4 grams because is equal to a lb. If you weigh in grams, you are using a smaller unit of measurement and since it is very hard to be precise without very expensive equipment, the smaller unit will bring you closer to perfection. I bought a $500 scale that can weighs in increments of 1/2 grams and even with this type of scale I am not perfect, but pretty darn close. Remember that to get your percentages correct, you take your total weight and that is where you start from. So if your candle is 1 lb, then you start at 454.4grams. 7% of this is 31.808, which is better said 32grams or 31 to be on the safe side. You have a wax percentage at 93% left over then or 423.4 (i took the safe route of 31 grams) This is 454.4grams - 31 grams. How you do your wax is up to you. I always blend my wax first except for the dye and have this to work with all the candles I'm making. If your wax blend is 3% bee, then you have 454.4 x .03 which is 13.632 or 13.5 grams to make it easier. So 13.5 grams of bee and the rest (97%) is your soy or parrafin. When adding teaspoon things to your wax blend, the teaspoons rarely are that much in weight (like UV) ( I don't have my spreadsheet with this data here with me, but maybe a gram per tsp). I hate using teaspoons because it is much better to know the number of grams you need and weigh this. So there is my method. I blend my wax base up first, then do the percentages.

I just bought a little bit before xmas to test for this year and so far I like it except for the bleeding/sweating. I am still not sure if what I am seeing is scent or wax that is beading up? See the problem I am having is when the blend is exposed to heat it begins to bleed or sweat.(basic sunlight at 65F) I put a lot of scent in these testers though, 11% of some awesome scent that is the biggest bleeder of the ones I have. Thing is I have another scent that is so powerful that only 4% is necessary and I still got the bleed with a raise in heat. When I first tested soy/vege wax 2 years ago, the stuff i got sucked so bad that I couldn't use it. But, it sweated without any scent added. That is why I am curious as to what I am actually seeing with this current problem. The obvious first step will be to make a candle without any scent and expose it to heat and see what I get. I'm glad you told me about this deal because I was just getting ready to order more and that is a good price for only 50lbs. I am buying the uninversal soy additive to add to this wax in order to get more scent in. The thing is with the amount of scent I put in some of these testers, the other wax that I originally bought would still have scent pooled at the top. The 444 was minimal in comparison. And, compared to other waxes that I"ve used, the look is pretty good too. If you are going to be testing this wax blend, I would love to share experiences in regards to test results. Let me know if you're interested. dave

Chem point can kiss my well, you can fill in the blank...I ordered from them over xmas and and a week goes by and I call and they say. Oh yeah, we aren't carrying that wax anymore. No phone call, email, letter, nothing..so I called ADM and the other supplier was a company that is one of the largest, if not the largest soy candle maker in the country, which the wax they sent was different. My advice, unless you are buying in tanker loads, run forest run from ADM soy at this time. It seems ADM isn't spending the resources to develop candle wax rather they are developing alternative fuel which you do the math. Maybe they will change in the future, they certainly have the farm connections.

Hello, I am currently testing new wax. its the golden brands 444. I first bought vege wax about a two years ago and it bled so much scent and I kept addding parrafin, adding parrafin to the point it was pointless so I stuck with parrafin. So I bought some ADM 135 soywax, blended it with beeswax and palm stearic and it can hold enough scent to sink a battle ship but it sucks to work with because it looks like the elephant man candle when it hardens a lot of the times. I liked the golden brands wax. i made a few candles with it and the look was cool. it was rated at 10% fragrance hold and I put 11.5% to test it and it held, burned ok, found my wick height. I was testing the UV inhibitor and noticed the candles that were sitting in the sun were bleeding (unlit.) So I took all the others I"d made to see what was up with them and they all bled while in the sun for a little time. Here's the mystery. The first soy wax that bled, obviously bled scent. These candles were unexposed to the sun and there was a pool that persisted for a long time. With this latest batch though, once cooled down, the candle goes back to a more normal state with only a few drip marks showing sorta like fossil tracks. I"ve read on a thread that some company stated that the wax will sweat due to the makeup of the wax. That's bizare and makes me question what I actually have as far as chemistry goes. If I test burn a candle inside and all is well, what happens if it has been exposed to heat which changes the whole chemistry. Am I more suceptible to fire from scent flash? Will it look goofy after 4 hours of heat/sun exposure but not 2 hours? It is a testing nightmare. Anyway, I am looking to find answers from general experience, AND I would really like to find someone else that may be working with this identical wax and share notes and experiences. Also, aside from stepping down the fragrance load (which didn't work) and adding paraffin(which is a last resort), I would like to know of any solutions other people may have come up with to combat this problem. Thanks, Dave

Hello, I am currently trying to understand the chemistry behind UV light inhibitors and then finding manufactuers, not dealers of this. Years ago when I was making sand candles, I was able to go directly to Baker Hughes for Vybar and saved a lot of money. Once I get to 1st base on this, I am looking for any people in the Lancaster County PA region that may wish to go together and buy large bulk of UV. Thanks, Dave