doris

As long as it's 100% lye with no other additives it should be OK. Although I've read that most lye is not pure. What you want to stay away from is stuff like Drano.

Most dollar stores have a large selection of attractive boxes and gift bags these days. Add some co-ordinating excelsior (Easter grass) or some tissue paper and you're done. Also: flower pots, little tin buckets, plastic buckets, large mugs, kraft shopping bags...

newdirectionsaromatics.com have a good selection and reasonable prices, I think. I've bought stuff from their Cdn. site. You will always get a better deal if you buy in quantity; they keep quite well if kept cool.

Cut the oil amounts in half, then run the results through a lye calculator just to be sure. You should be running all new recipes through a calculator anyway, as errors do occur.

Some people dye bits of soap and use that.

I think they're beautiful, however changing the background colour a bit would make the ribbons more obvious.

Try not to have the section of extension cord where the blender is plugged into, immersed in a bucket of water.

I think its awful. Might be harmless and all that, but I wouldn't let my kids near it. Yuck!

There was a thread on the dish about wooden wicks. Apparently some of the wicks have been known to shoot sparks.

It shouldn't colour your skin, not unless you soak in a tub of very very strong tea for hours. Just including some in a scrub or whatever shouldn't be a problem.

I can't imagine filling antique glassware with hot wax and making a candle out of it. One of the vendors is our store makes birdfeeders out of teacups; they're really cute and sell quite well. She came up with the idea of putting a wick and some parrafin in a cup and making candles; some of these cups are fairly old. Anyway, once she was informed by me that there's a little more to candlemaking than throwing a wick and some wax into a container, she lost interest.

I think it's good that they're trying to keep out the junk, but the way they're doing it is bizarre. There are a lot of petty people out there; there is a good possibility of people ganging up on someone else and having them booted out. Also, it is not your responsibility. IMO, craft shows have gone to the dogs. The fees have skyrocketed, and everyone and his aunt is holding one at their school, church etc. Also, some of them are run by the stupidest people: a fair at a local school charged $150 for a table at their 2-day, 10-5 show. This was unadvertised; they didn't even put a sign on the school lawn, or send a note home with the kids. Yet when I questioned the fees, I was told that the shows in Halifax have even higher fees. Well guess what: they have a much larger population base (ours is about 7000), and they ADVERTISE! I've done very few craft fairs, but the last big one I did was over-run by junk. It wasn't just the ugly imported stuff, I swear that some people paid the $450 to have a yard sale. There were also, I think, 7 large or biggish fairs in the city that weekend. That's way too many. I think that it would be a really good thing if there were less of them, and the quality definitely needs improving. And I still think that asking the craftspeople to jury is ridiculous.

RE the tunnelling, maybe that's why there's 3 wicks.

I know how people on this board feel about these things, and I agree that it would likely be dangerous in the hands of a large part of the population, but I don't see why it wouldn't work with someone who is careful. I think the problem is that it is being marketed as a "candle", something which is usually burned for several hours at a time, and often left burning till it is gone. I think it shoud be considered as a cream or a lotion, which happens to be made in a form which makes it easy and attractive to heat. As far as I can tell, there are other oils etc added to it to lower its melt point, and increase its effectiveness as a lotion. Candle flame is beautiful, and to me seems to be a pleasant way of heating up your lotion. Also, I have arthritis in my hands, and the thought of pouring warm lotion on my hands sounds really good. The 3 wicks are probably too much, even for heating up a lotion: with other oils and FO or Eo's in it, it does seem to be a hazard. I would think that 1 wick would suffice. Do wickless candles actually melt, or does the heat of the warmer merely help release the fragrance? If wickless candles are made to melt, that seems to me to be a much safer and more effective way to melt them. Anyway, I'm tempted to try something like this for myself, but I don't think I would ever want to sell any.

I don't think that it is always necessarily that they are bashing something to make their own look better, I think that often it is because when a person makes something of quality from scratch, they feel differently about things made from mixes or bases or whatever. I would sooner eat no cake than a cake from a mix; why I couldn't tell you, because some of the cakes I've made were worse than anything a mix could produce. I truly love handmade things, adore knitting with my handspun wool even when it is lumpy, and especially love knitting with handmade needles. There's such a human connection. I'm a partner in a craft store, and all our finished crafts are handmade: there is nothing from a kit, even though we do use patterns and tools etc. We have a lot of tourists, and at a time when tourist-related stores in my area are hurting, our store's sales have gone up. People love to come in and talk with the people who are making the things they are buying. I love my handmade soap, and have no intention of ever using M&P; however since joining this board I have become much more tolerant of people who do use it. I now consider it a different way of making soap; I just prefer my soap "from scratch".

Actually Top, you did answer my question. To me, knocking over a candle, or having a curtain blowing over the flame, are really obvious dangers, especially when I heat with wood and have a really healthy respect for open flames. They're also, from my point of view and in my house, preventable, because I'm a little weird about fire. It was the "turning into a torch" that had me wondering. Thanks for the info.

Hi & welcome. I agree with fire and ice, I was sick over Christmas and had just discovered this board, and spent 3 days in bed with a laptop going through the archives. It will give you an idea of what you are getting into, what kind of wax to look for, and will even give you answers to questions that you hadn't come up with yet.

I feel your pain. We had a lice scare once, and I poured several ounces of tea tree oil on my scalp, rubbed it in, and left it there for several hours. My ears peeled for weeks. I also rubbed my eyes once after using Ben-gay. Ouch.

I'm using Ecosoya votive/pillar blend with nothing added, and HTP wicks from Canwax in Toronto. I was quite amazed at the fact that the 73's didn't work, because from what I've read, most people do well with a 62 or a 73. The 73 just burns a hole down the middle and then drowns.

I haven't found a source for CD wicks in Canada, and am afraid to order from the States, last time I did the duties and taxes added were astronomical. I'm waiting for some LX wicks. I'm just amazed that I have to go so much larger than the recommended size to get anything resembling a proper burn, and that different people have such varied results with the same materials.

I've done a lot of reading here the last month or so, and I've been wondering what it is that makes candles so dangerous? I understand about the open flame, and cats knocking the candle over, and jars breaking etc.; but what would make a candle turn into a torch? I have burned a lot of candles in the last few months, mostly rolled beeswax, poured beeswax pillars and soy votives, and I've had tunnels and mushrooms and drowning wicks and floating wicks, but nothing resembling anything even remotely scary. Would it be the fragrance oils?

Not everybody wants to use products that have preservatives in them. I will never make lotion to sell, because of the danger of spoilage; however I do know people that make it in small batches and use it up quickly. I also have made my own linen spray for years, out of our well water and EO, and have never had a problem with mold, even when it's been sitting for months, but I wouldn't sell it. I would sooner dump the occasional batch than spend a day of sewing inhaling a bottle full of preservatives every time I sprayed, and when I sew and press I spray a lot.

I have always found the shipping to be nuts, it usually doesn't matter who or where you order from. I would have to be totally desperate and with extremely limited funds to place such a small order; it is always worse when you order only a little bit. Try to make a point of ordering less often, but in larger quantities, it will probably make quite a difference.

I'm sure it's easier to learn to knit. I've never used one of those, but ir sort of limits what you can do. As a compulsive knitter, I can tell you that there are thousands of gorgeous things out there to knit, and most of them could not be made on a Knifty Knitter.

Plastic molds this time, the 93's burned for 25 hours (1 long burn) with some wax left on the side, and the 105's burned for 19 hours with a clean votive holder. The 93's flame was a little hesitant at times, but the 105's had a nice flame throughout. I will be ordering some LX wicks on the near future, and will also try some HTP's from another supplier in Canada to see if there is a difference. I had some poured a while ago in the metal molds (standard size), and the 73's tunneled really badly there too.