Lantern Light Mama

I know we all tend to be really hard on ourselves when we make candles, but the average person would consider this an awesome burn. When you buy candles that are mass produced, you rarely get anything that burns remotely as nicely as your picture.

You are SO SWEET! Thank you so much for your kind words! I was ready to burn another that had cured longer (this one was a new pour...about a week old) to see what happened, but I have faith in myself again! We've had two shows concurrently this weekend, so we've been a bit nuts. Thanks for all the support!

I don't know about lucky...makes it a bit harder to sell because they are higher priced. But people don't usually complain about the price, so I guess I am a bit lucky. Wish I could get my stuff local like you!

That's, what, 35%?? I wish I could sell my 16oz for $12! With shipping my wax and all mine are $18. I do about 40% also, so it sounds good to me! Good luck! Some people do their fundraisers at 50%, but I feel that is unrealistic since you are probably printing forms and doing some processing.

I just took a picture...let me see if I can get it posted. It's not as nice of a burn as the other picture of the 3.5 inch jar as far as "clean" sides go, but my very first wholesale account (which has fizzled) was for LiveGreen, and I had to use ALL natural products. No zinc, no paper wicks (cuts down the trees you know), no paraffin coated wick. These jars, in retrospect, are a bit big and I would like to go smaller for cleaner sides, but I have like five boxes left! But the square braid burns really slow, so the jars don't get real hot, and you can let this one go for four hours until it hits the edge. If I didn't help it go even, it probably would catch up. The peach FO burns a bit weird though. Anyways, I'll get that picture up in a bit. I use C-3, USA, a bit of coconut oil, color chips, and FO.

Here's the pic!

I wick my 4 inch apothecary jar with #5 square braid wick and it burns all the way across. My candles are 100% C-3 soy wax with the USA added and a touch of the coconut oil (still playing with that). The first couple of burns you have to help the candle level out with a spoon on just the edges, but once the flame goes down a bit it's good to go. You have to burn it for 3-4 hours to get it to go all the way across. I didn't like double wicking either for the same reason. Mine is a 16oz jar, and the burn rate is about 0.1 oz per hour. Hope this helps!

I burn my soy plastic cup tealights straight on the floor of my hurricanes until they burn out (about 4 hours) on purpose to see what happens. They just barely stick to the bottom, and i just give a tug to the side and they pop right out. I've found that when I use a tealight holder the glass acts as a magnifier for the heat, and then I actually damage the hurricane. I like the sand idea though.

Wow, Snow! Bummer! I don't know much about the properties of paraffin as I mostly do soy. But we do a lot of the photo canes, and I don't get these cracks you are talking about. I use the hurricane 160 wax from genwax, and I add 1-2tsp/lb of mold releasant. I pour the hurricane into the mold a bit over 190 degrees. Then I stir inside the mold to release anything that sticks to the sides of the cold metal. I then put in my photo and use the side of a long iced tea spoon to run up and down the photo to press out all the teeny tiny bubbles (these tend to be my problem). When the picture adheres all on it's own, then I run an ice cube straight on the side, then plunk it in the water bath. I have never ever measured the water bath temp, but I use the large pan that came with my turkey fryer and do four canes at a time, so the water gets pretty warm. I hope you can fix the problem...I know how it feels to go bald over photo canes!

I'm breaking my own rule here freaking out over wet spots! I bought frosted tumblers, thinking how cool they would look. I found foaming Dawn, washed the thing, let dry, added the coconut oil, let cool slowly. It looked great. Three days later..WET SPOTS! They look worse in the frosted tumblers than in the clear glass! I use the C-3 and have two cases left. ARG! I don't get wet spots in my apothecary jars, and even some of my old tumblers stored in the garage don't have them. We were thinking it was the tapered sides of the tumblers, but this has been a recent problem. Maybe it's the Banana Nut Bread FO? Try another scent? Luckily I only have one case of the frosted tumblers, so I can switch. I am slow-ly go-ing crazy...1,2,3,4,5,6 switch...Slowly crazy going am I...6,5,4,3,2,1 switch

I use #1/0 square braid wick on my 3 inch crystallizing palm pillars...I've never tried any others because these work well.

They hold about 2.5-3 oz of wax. I retail them for $3.20. They cost me around 80 cents to make. What you would do is figure out what it costs per oz, with FO and shipping, wax, etc... multiply that by 3 (because it should be around 3 oz of tarts), then add the cost of the clamshell. Then multiply your total cost by 4. This way, if you get a wholesale account, you will still make some $ even if you cut your price in half to wholesale.

Hope this helps.

This made me look at my prices again...I got a nice scale a while ago but hadn't reweighed everything yet! Mine cost me 93 cents with the shipping on the wax and scent, so my x4 price is $3.72. I round up to $4 because some of my other x4 are too high, so I do x3 or 3.5, and I try to make up for it where I can. Plus, when we do shows we pay the sales tax and don't want to deal with coins, so everything is a whole dollar.

OK Stella...you got me on this one! I only do small batches at a time in my Presto, so I measure before and create one batch. Either way, it is a pound before you melt it and after. The weight never changes, just the volume. Hope that makes sense.

It seems that with batch to batch that some things are just uncontrollable. We live in an imperfect world with many inconsistencies, and maybe we should just let some of it go? I hear so many of us voicing our frustrations and getting so bent over some of these things...I just want everyone to have a smile and be happy. I know, I'm a total goody-two-shoes! But I've always felt that if the candles burn properly and scent the room and are safe, that some things we can try to get a handle on (like frosting and wet spots), but after that we have to count our blessings when we use soy wax...it is so finicky that we have to let our customers know that they are all handmade and sensitive to things like the weather, the phase of the moon, what time zone you are in, the fifth dimension, etc, and let it go. Stress shortens your life, guys and gals...just keep it in perspective. ( I know-GAG!)

I've always used the Folk Art Enamel paint to paint my hurricanes, along with the glass One Stroke paint brushes. They are softer, so they glide better. Since the paint is washable, if you don't like the look you just run it under the water to come off. It probably would make floaties though, so you couldn't melt them. I've never heard of candle paint...

Thank you so much for all the info! They sound like fun. You are all great!

OK, it's been a while for me here, but what the heck is an "ornie"? I've gotten that I think it is melted Aroma Beads, which I have a huge bag of and never really used them. Could someone tell me or point me to the thread on how to do these? Sounds like you guys use them to hand out to potential wholesalers for scent samples? I really want to go wholesale, so this would be great. Thank you!

There shouldn't be any reason to weigh it after you melt it. The actual weight shouldn't change, whether it is melted or not. What changes is the volume. So all you need to know is how much wax (by weight) each of your candle molds or containers holds when cured, and melt that much wax (weigh before you melt) and you will have exactly enough to fill all the containers/molds. You may have a teeny bit of overage after you put in the additives, depending on how many you are adding, to fill a couple of tealights or tarts, but it isn't going to be enough to make a difference. So long as you are consistent in whatever method you are using so that your numbers/results with testing and creating are always the same.

I print out a business card sized insert that goes into the center of the hurricane and then I cello bag over it.

BCN has formulated new ones that match the old ones - but they don't have all the colors - maybe they will eventually?

https://secure.candlesupply.com/catalog_page.cfm?queries_index=index7&ProductCodeID=38&ProductSubCodeID=325

HenryK...thank you for the link to Bitter Creek! this forum is so great and saves people such trouble by all of us sharing info. I love it!

I have a Jack Frost scent from JBN I just bought, thinking that a cherry vanilla peppermint scent would be really funky. People love it because it's different, which is what I try to carry. Otherwise people could go to Yankee or Bath and Body works and get the same old stuff, right?:rolleyes2

Either stearic acid or try Mold Release Pellets. I got them from Pourette, but someone else must carry something similar.

Huge thread...all I can say again is "Holy Cow!" Thank you for the link Stella. Hope this helps others whose businesses are new,like mine, and don't order all that often.

I agree...it IS an alien wax! I had so much trouble with the votives doing just what you're talking about that I just dropped them completely and started doing only soy votives in 2oz containers from Genwax. I do just the 3 inch pillars now in a 3x3 and 3x6 using the square braid wick. I have yards and yards of the flat braid wick from Michaels (Yaley brand) and that works in this size too.

Box Bliss has stuff like this too. They are relatively new and I found them on e-Bay, but now they have their own site.

Pourette is gone!?? Holy cow! Thank you! I had been having real trouble getting my whole order in at once...no wonder. My business is slow going right now, so I've got tons. But thank you Stella!

I use crystallizing palm wax, and it's great. Mine is from JBN. I only use JBN scents because they test them in soy, which I also use, and Janice at JBN is fabulous with all my questions. My sister burns my pillars and loves them!