coconut

My goal is to burn top to bottom without trimming, assuming people will not trim the wick. BTW, much easier said than done.

Once you choose a container, you will find you also have to pick a wax and a wick. Once you settle on all that and start trying different fragrance oils, you will find you have very different results from different scents. I got lucky on a couple of scents and was able to wick fairly quickly. But on others, it took me a year of intensive testing to find a good combo of wax and wick that worked. The percentage of FO you use may vary also. On some I had to back down to 4.5%, tried two different waxes, and several different types of wicks and wick sizes. When you consider that even a small candle takes about 20 hours to test burn, and you will need to do many test burns on a candle, it really takes a lot of time. If you work outside the home, takes lots more time as you have only your time off for testing. Then when you get a perfect candle, you need a non-candle maker to test for you. If I get really lucky, it takes at least 60 hours of testing to get a good small candle. I test with an unfixed wick, then a fixed wick, and then test the fixed wick again. Usually you wind up pulling out the wick and trying a different size or wick material.

That's why it takes so long.

Recently in our area, someone's house caught fire and it was blamed on a plug-in scent warmer. I would not do it, personally.

I had a sample of this and it was really nice stuff. Anyone ever try it or do you have a favorite lotion base? TIA

Yep, perfecting the recipe will be first. I'm actually interested in unscented soap for myself so that is where I will start. Some of the scents I use in candles, I really would not want to smell like personally. Thinking about all the options for scents and oils made my head spin! Thanks again!

This thing was wrong with this wick it almost created an "O" it had to be over wicked the wax was a 70/30 soy/parrafin. It did not tunnel it melted a small amount of wax it just did it so fast. Now that I look in the light of day I see the black soot. Bah! I am getting the diffrnt wicks this week. Also the self trimming was totally absent the flwme became huge. I guess this is a part of testing btw if I did not mention it before it was a stabilo size 6 wick. Usually I use 24-27 ply for these jars and they work well. My web page is acting up it takes a lot of work to get an image in.

The huge flame is an indication of overwicking. I use a 4 oz. jelly jar and go for a flame height of 1/2 to 1 inch. More than that, I kill it.

I don't "poke" my soy wax container candles, but that's a result of my personal experience with NatureWax C3. If I began using a new soy container wax, I would "poke" until the wax demonstrated to me that this was not necessary. Any depression is suspect.

I don't rely on claims of "one-pour"... A wax is "one pour" if everything goes right and all conditions for the wax to be "one-pour" are met. For those new to using any particular wax, I hope they will pay close attention to this issue and not rely on the claims or experiences of others. Like thee & me, they will quickly discover what's appropriate for their situation. :-)

You're right, if I pour when the wax is too hot, it forms quite a depression.... only experience will show you what to expect. My guess is that waxes that need a higher temp, which therefore cool faster, might be more prone to pockets. But it is just a guess.

I want to try some beet juice for coloring. Have beets growing in the garden and everytime I prepare them, everything in my kitchen gets turned a bright red color...counters, hands, towels, etc........a shame to waste such beautiful color.

Hm, now that's a thought. Let us know what happens.

Thanks everyone, for your input. I'm not ready to make soap yet, but wanted to give it a lot of thought and this helps me to narrow down my focus of research.

I've never had an air pocket and I use a one-pour wax so I don't poke it...anyone else that doesn't poke their candles? When I first started, I used to poke, but did not find it to be necessary.

I will never use any but branded ink for my personal printer. At work they make us buy non-branded ink and toner and we have trashed more printers this way!

Wouldn't hot chili pepper or hot paprika be a no-no in a skin application? Just askin'.

Reading and reading about soap making and I am curious about one thing. How on earth do you ever decide what scent you want to use, or what combination of oils? When I make candles, some scents I only make to order. But with soap, it has to rest and age so special orders don't seem so feasible. And if you pick a scent nobody likes, you are stuck with a lot of soap nobody wants? Or do you just make what you like? It seems to be a rather different process than making candles. More like making cheese or wine. You have to wait a lot to get a good product, and that changes the way it works. I mean I know you cure soy candles, but not as long as soap. I have read some people think it is good to wait six months for a soap to rest to be sure it won't go rancid on the shelf.

Your thoughts?

The reaction was the same it was just about 20 seconds longer before the reaction or heat kicked in... it kept getting larger then took off by igniting the wax.. flames were about 3" tall and spreading across the top of the wax.... it was at that point i blew it out before it got out of control. The "event" candle is the only one where it all went up (as seen in the pic), as it was in the customer hands and already out of control once he realized what was going on... all my inventory, etc from this same batch was heading that way when i lit them as it would had continued to get hotter and hotter as it burnt more wax had i kept them lit too, no doubt.

That sure is scary. I use 4630, not 4627, but I have noticed that if I let a candle sit for a very long time, if there is too much FO or it is poorly mixed (these were my early experiments) that some of the FO will separate out. I'm not sure how else you can find out if their was too much FO.

I don't do wood wicks and have never burned one. I have heated with a wood stove, and I know wood can be highly variable. How do you determine what size of wick to use? Off the top of my head I would have said those sizes of cotton were perhaps too large for the jar and I have seen some wicked flame with overwicking. An unproven theory is that different parts of the country and different sea levels demand different size wicks. I am almost at sea level and always have to use smaller wicks than everybody else recommends. Just rambling here....

Hardwood_wickster, when you burned the cotton wicks, did the flame just get large or did the entire jar catch on fire like with the wood wick?

http://www.craftserver.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-42729.html

http://www.teachsoap.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2912&start=0

Does this help? Is this the recipe in question? Found it with Google.

Depends on your FO. I do the 4 oz jelly jars, same diameter jar, and use either an LX 8 or 10.

I do not do palm containers so I cannot possibly say anything about how it works there. I did talk to a person at we do and they stated the stabilo/kst wicks are very similar to csn,. Don't shoot me I'm just repeating the info.

I have tested both and found that the CDN wicks are self-trimming and the CSN wicks are not. I think that is a big difference even though the treatment is the same.

I have a policy through Acuity--$250/year for $2 million products & general liability, $1 million "personal & advertising injury" limit. They didn't require any inspection, just asked the usual questions.

Now that's a great price. Is there a catch?

I received a sample of this from NuScents with my order of wicks and this is an awesome lotion. Smells nice too. It says it is a free sample from their blog project. I went to the blog but I can't find any reference to this lotion. Does anyone know anything about it?

I swear by the metal file cabinets, it really helps. I would definitely take them up on the garage. If it is big enough you could make your candles in there too. Just get a hot plate, if you use the double boiler method. You don't want the candles to get too cold though, but you said the garage is heated? You can rest them inside foam coolers to help even out the temperature.

Think this thing through. Is there any way you can build a room inside the giant space and separate yourself from it? 2x4s and drywall are not terribly expensive. You will need to separate the climate control and get a huge exhaust fan to use when you pour. Since heat is your priority that will be easier than if you needed A/C but be very careful with all forms of space heat. Stick with electric. Make sure you only make candles when the medical facility is closed. I keep my FO in my living room, which would overwhelm us, so I keep the bottles inside sealed plastic containers, and the containers are in a huge metal filing cabinet. You can find these secondhand if you search. It does a surprisingly good job of keeping the fragrances separated from the living space. You can tell when you open the cabinet. Also search this forum and find the right kinds of plastic containers which block FO transmission. Good luck to you!

I don't use CO in my recipe, I am allergic to it. I use sustainable PO and PKO .

Kitn, I didn't know anyone would be allergic to coconut oil. I read about peanut oil. Is this common?

Green heads would be people who do everything considered "green" without question. We don't need another inch of farm land even if we were to populate to 11 billion which is where they believe the population will stabilize. We need to stop feeding it all to cows. Soy and corn farming is destructive to the soil which is where we need sustainable farming practices, rotation and biodiversity are probably the most important. We also need to find a way to more sustainably produce farm animals. That is the most unsustainable farming there is... using 6-10 pounds of grain to produce 1 lb of meat is just crazy in my opinion...

All seven billion people on this earth now can stand within the confines of LA county. 11 billion I believe we'd all be able to happily stand side by side within the confines of New Hampshire. We don't need more space, we don't need to cut down any forests, we don't need anything like that. We need sustainable production. The solutions mentioned above are just part of it. We also move into more shared space (who really needs a 5 acre lawn for themselves?) and work in other solutions like vertical farming, and vertical living (aka city living)

Before I get the question I DO eat meat, I do choose grass fed though when I can.

Thank you for the explanation of greenheads. I see much sin committed against our planet in the name of "green" and it makes me crazy. "Green" doesn't mean living in a McMansion with solar panels after you tore down the little house that used to be there! All the things you say about farming is also correct. If all those changes were made, the Earth would be better off. Sadly, I don't think it will happen.

And I will happily send the seven billion to LA county. :-) Leaves more room for me here where we have large numbers of grass-fed cows.

Beware of the super cheap Canon printers. They use an all colors in one cartridge. One color goes, you have to buy a whole cartridge. Pay a little more and get the one with individual color cartridges.