doris

What specifically do you have a problem with? I usually use the one from summerbeemeadow.com, and I love it. You type in the # of oz. of each oil, decide how much superfatting you want, and hit the button. It will even resize your recipe for you.

How hard would it be to wick a container candle in a nice, round bowl? I haven't got the bowls yet, or even the container wax (but I would probably be using one of the Ecosoya waxes), I just want to know if it could be fairly easily done.

Very little is organic, even some of the things marked organic are sometimes suspect. A lot of land is quite polluted, as is much of North America's water, as well as the rain and the air. More toxins are continuously being spewed into the environment at a fantastic rate. Many of the things in common usage are full of cancer-causing or possibly cancer-causing materials. The list includes common household cleansers, many detergents, shampoos, carpets, stain repellants, insect repellants, flea sprays & collars, non-stick pans, and the list goes on and on. I don't think that the pesticide residue in a soy wax candle would make the candle very high on the list of dangers.

Thanks, I had searched, but in the recipe section only. I just looked again, and there is a ton of stuff on them. Can't wait to try them.

I'm sorry, what is a salt bar, and does anyone have a recipe for one?

The amount of work needed to keep track of your supplies, and then add little bits and pieces of shipping on to your final cost would be astronomical. Imagine figuring out the cost of 12 votives, and keeping track of the shipping costs of your 12 wicks, your 1.5 lbs of wax, your 12 shrink bags, your 12 labels, etc. I don't think the public in being cheated, and the few cents per item that is the shipping, I don't think most people would have a problemwith that.

Henry, I just ordered and received a large order of wicks that I ordered specifically for testing in beeswax and soy. 50 pieces or 50 yards of every size of square braid, ply, LX, HTP, cotton core wick I didn't yet have. The only ones I didn't get were the LX14's and 16's. Wouln't you know!

I've been testing soy votives, (ecosoya pillar/votive) and being new to this, am just burning unscented, undyed. HTP73 tunneled badly, as did HTP83. HTP93's are giving quite a good burn, with a little hang-up on one side of the holder. HTP105 is also burning well, a little faster, but also with a little hang-up left on the side. Is this acceptable? I'm doing one long burn, and they are currently @ 16 hours, HTP93 about 1/3 left, HTP105, less than 1/4. These seem reasonably long to me, would it benefit me to go up one more size? The next size available to me in Canada is I think HTP1212, and they look huge. The HTP93 is burning in a tightly fitting holder, the HTP105 is burning in a holder with about 1/4-1/8" around the candle. Would this make a difference? I'm finding it difficult to find a well fitting votive holder around here, and am assuming that most people would just stuff them into anything. I've done quite a lot of looking for answers on the site, but have never found any specifically to those questions. I was burning some at my shop yesterday, and a friend said, "why are they doing that (full melt pool). Are you sure that's right? Every votive I've ever bought just burned down the middle. That doesn't look right". And she's right. I love candles, especially votives, and seldom burn them because of the work involved in getting the remains out of the holder. I'm so impressed with these, you can't imagine!

Yes, everything in moderation. Everybody is always going nuts about something, and people's eating habits are often swinging from one extreme to the other. Then they find out that whatever it is they were gorging on that month is not good for you. We use soy or canola oil, have always meant to try tofu, but aside from that, have never jumped on the soy bandwagon. I do love the idea of soy candles to add to my beeswax, and have started testing in a small way. The references to FO are interesting. While I don't think FO's are contributing to cancer, I do think that they are a major contributing factor to the vast increase in respiratory diseases. Many people can't tolerate them, myself among them. I have only ever gotten sick once from them, but going into the candle sections of local stores leaves my mouth feeling thick and soapy. I thnk that the increasing use of highly scented products, including all these air "fresheners?", and hugely scented candles, in our increasingly air-tight houses, is definitely a problem. I've read of people testing several candles in their houses at one time, that would make me move into the barn with the sheep. I realize that many people on this board use FO's and love them, but keep in mind that there are many, many people who get very sick from them. I've used EO's for years with no problems, I sell only EO scented soap and bath salts in my shop, and have heard frequent comment from people how pleasant it is to come in because it doesn't smell as strongly as many other shops. And in fact, many people can't shop in stores where there are strong FO scented products. Excuse my rant.

I bag all my soap in gusseted cellophane bags, and then cut a little corner off the bag to allow some air movement. For a wedding, these could be tied closed with a matching ribbon, but mine are always stapled. I would make and include a few extras, in case some break during shipping.

If it is CP soap, the lye will turn almost any botanicals brown. My lavender CP soap is light brown with darker brown flecks of lavender. Smells wonderful. Calendula is one of the few botanicals that will retain its colour.

iMy mother died in 2002, and about a year before that, I had given everyone in the family a box of soap, CP with EO's, along with their Christmas gift. My father has been making a point of downsizing, and has given gifts back to the person who gave them. So last fall, he gave me back this box of soap, not even one had been used. Still nice soap, although the scent (lemon EO) of one of the bars had faded. Two years ago I spent a week with my family, and since one of my sisters had expressed an interest in CP (she did some M&P), I offered to do a batch with them. I premeasured everything at home to save having to pack my scale, and packed my lye in a little plastic container, which was then taped closed, placed in a plastic bag, which was then taped closed, placed in another plastic bag... to the point of having about 7 layers of plastic on this little bit of lye. I stayed with my father, and when he found outabout this little bitty bit of lye, he nearly went ballistic. How dare I bring this dangerous stuff into his house, etc. This from the man who drives 50 miles to get a better price on gas, and stores 5 cans of it in his basement. He also suggested spreading some poison on a large part of my property that has these awful bushes on it. The gas and the poison are OK, but the lye is a problem. Go figure. Nobody in my family (siblings) uses my soap, but my daughter, when going on a school trip last year, wanted me to buy her one of those plastic containers to carry your soap in. I said why, they will have soap at the hotel. But she didn't want their yucky soap, she wanted one of mine. What a kid.

The colours are very muted which would lead me to believe that they are probably "natural".

I've been following this with great interest since the beginning. I don't understand what her hurry was with getting her website up and running. If it was before Christmas, maybe, but in January, what's the rush. There are hundreds and more candle sites out there offering high quality candles and supplies; it's not as if she's offering something not readily available already. I also have serious problems with shoddiness. I've been in the craft business for years, and before you open a store, you have to be ready. You don't just throw stuff in piles, and then say, I'll make it better later. Before you open up, there has to be a certain degree of readiness. The same with a website, in my opinion. Just throwing together any old mess, and then asking for suggestions is like going out in the morning in your underwear and asking people if they think you should put on your pants. All that's been going on, with the fuss over the pictures and the candles etc etc etc is stuff that should have been dealt with in the very early stages of putting together a website, long before anyone else ever saw it. Again, what's the hurry? People had serious problems with the quality of some of the pictures: I'm not a good photographer, but even I wouldn't put out some of that stuff. And as for "borrowing" pictures, if you haven't had time to take pictures, then why are you open? I'm not saying that everything has to be absolutely perfect, because I know that there will always be a certain amount of tweaking going on, but it should definitely be a little more finished than it is.

Not bad. Fill the picture with product as much as possible, you don't really need to show much background. Fold the soap sack thing in half, and tie with a co-ordinating ribbon, and ditch the plastic bag. And yes, shrink wrap a votive and put it in the glass. There's something called paper shred that's like tightly crinkled strips of paper: very bouncy & filling, comes in lots of colours, and you don't need very much per basket.

I sew, quilt, knit, spin, make soap & bath salts, make jewellery, garden, cross-stitch, needlepoint, make candles, and there's probably one or two I left out. Some I haven't done in a while, mostly from lack of time.

If EVERYTHING is certified organic, then in theory your soap should be organic. However, I think you would still have to go through the process of having it certified. Probably not worth it. Calling it "natural" is probably the way to go, although the stuff that is sometimes sold as "natural" is a little much. I personally can't tolerate most artificial scents, and to see a bar of mp, dyed and scented called natural, annoys me. But it does happen, and quite a lot. However, most people who are fanatical about it are also label readers, and anybody reading your labels would then know what they are getting. Doris

If doubling your fo gives you 2.60/votive, that must be one hell of a fo. I make beeswax votives, unscented, and beeswax is pricier than most others, and they cost me less than .65 ea. Doris

You can probably puree it and use it as part of your liquid in cp soap. Don't overdo the quantity otherwise it could go bad on you. Doris

Don't know about M&P, but in cp, probably 1-2 tbsp per lb. Be sure it is ground up fine, it can otherwise get a little scratchy. Doris

Re: having a good quality product and feeling threatened by competition: most people wouldn't know good quality if it bit them on the nose. It would be so easy for someone to buy wax and wicks and make candles without any knowledge at all; then when they were sold and didn't burn or caught the house on fire, in the eyes of many people, this would reflect on all candlemakers. Most people probably wouldn't feel threatened by a good quality candlemaker unless they themselves were producing garbage, but the ones producing garbage are a threat to everyone. Also, there is a learning curve involved with anything you do. I've been involved in the craft business for years, and knew people who would take 3 pottery lessons, start selling, and then wonder why no one wanted their stuff. They saw it as a quick money-making opportunity, and were uninterested in putting any real time into it. You have to learn first, and you have to do your own research for the most part. This is how you learn. When people come wanting quick answers, I for one would steer them in the right direction, but from then on it is up to them. How much they learn depends on how much effort they are willing to put into it. Doris

There is a good book by Melinda Coss that would be excellent for a beginner, also beautiful photos. The books by Cavitch are a wealth of info, however her recipes are a bit on the soft and greasy side, and would need to be run through a calculator. There's a book from the soapnaturally.org people that's also quite amazing. Avoid the Norma Coney book. Spend a few weeks reading, use the internet a lot as there is a ton of stuff on there, and then take the plunge. However, when you do start, do a simple recipe: don't start with something that uses 12 different oils. It's not hard to make soap, but keeping it simple at first is a good rule for most people. Doris

Don't worry, you still have a whole 3 days. But seriously, anything which is not too sensitive (like a bank card password), I usually write on the wall in an unobtrusive place. Try losing that. Doris

I re-sell a lot of things, and also make stuff to sell. Things that I re-sell, that don't have a msrp, I always figure out all my expenses, including shipping, as cost. I re-sell beads, and also make jewellery, and the info I keep includes for the most part, the cost per bead, etc, and this includes the shipping etc. You can't accurately figure out what to charge without knowing what you pay, and shipping, in many cases, plays a LARGE part in what you pay. Doris

I'm with a list that originates in Australia, excellent info & recipes etc, etc., but when it comes to sources and supplies, which are such a BIG part of candle & soap-making, you could only names those that were approved by the list. That meant a couple in Australia & NZ, 1 in US and none in Canada. Get serious, who can afford to order cocnut oil from Australia? Might as well wrap your soap in gold & have done with it. Anyway, I'm very impressed with this board, with tons of soap and candle info, both of which interest me. I was sick over Christmas, and spent 2 days in bed with my laptop reading old entries, and had a number of questions aswered just by looking around. Now if you would only get going on knitting and spinning, it would be perfect! Doris