DonnaP

Yes Gaye, gelluminations..also called creativeluminations...has awesome..strawberry and also apple cinnamon. My wife and I have used both for quite a while now from them...they are great. They also have ..hot cinnamon which is also great. By the way if you are looking for great fruit scents...you gotta try thier Concord Grape...smell just like sticking your nose in a basketful of ripe Concord Grapes...

Concord Grape and Blue Rasberry....they smell good enough to eat. My favorite perfume scents are V.S...Heavenly and Halo.

I heard this scent is absolutely awesome. I've been trying to find it in an FO for gel without luck yet. Just wondering if anyone knows ....is it even available in an FO for gel. Thanks, Bill Jacksonville Fla

Thanks for the links...boy did we get taken to the cleaners this past weekend. My wife bought some jojoba oil to use in her bath crystals. She bought them from a dealer at our flea market...she paid $6 for a 1 ounce bottle. I believe that might have been a bit much..lol. bill jacksonville fla

My wife has been making and using bath salts (crystals) and using them in house for quite a while. She uses just epsom salts..FO's and water based dye. She bought a bottle of bath salts and saw that it has sea salt in it. Now she is wondering what is the purpose of sea salt in bath salts. Bill Jacksonville Fla.

Yes doing conversions can give you a big headache. It did me. Sometimes you just have to start from scratch and go about it in a different way. You can not find a conversion chart that will convert weight to volume. That is like trying to figure out how to make a cherry pie out of apples. So how many apples do i need to use to make 8 ounces of cherries...its the same question. Bill Jacksonville Fla

My wife and I have a permanent shop set up at our local flea market here in Jacksonville Fla. I can tell you this...no matter what you have your customers will be looking for something else...If your candles are strong scented...they will want light scented..and vise/versa. If you do pink gel with bubbles ..they will want pink without bubbles...you see what I'm getting at. No matter what you take it won't be just the right thing. So....take a variety and bite your tongue on the rest. I will tell you this...a friend of my wife wanted some candles with designer scents. So my wife got some Tommy Girl..Obession...Heavenly and Eternity. She made the candles for her friend. She had about two dozen extra's made. We took them to our shop on Sat. morning. We put the price tags on them, made a spot for them on a table...and 15 mins. later everyone was gone...SOLD.... We couldn't believe it. So we put in an order for several large bottles of FO's of each..and are now getting ready for this weekend. Hope this help you Bill and Donna Jacksonville Fla

Wasn't sure where would be best to post this question. When making bath salts...can you use the same FO's that I use in making gel candles or is it a different kind of oil. I've made bath salts before using essential oils but I don't know if that is the same as gel FO oils. Thanks Donna

I haven't found too many places to buy gel in bulk...if by bulk you talking in 55 gal. drums. I have looked. The shipping on what I found and the cost of the drum of gel will run you in the neighborhood of $800. I haven't checked with buying direct from penreco..there is a good bit of paper work to fill out with them and they do not show thier prices on thier website. Nor, do they show a minimum purchase amount. But I may look into that in the future. Bill Jacksonville Fla

I think a lot of the problem with people over or unscenting comes from not realizing that there is a difference in measurements between weight and volume. You can measure out in a measuring cup 1 ounce of FO....then you can measure on a weight scale 1 ounce of FO....there is a big difference then when you look at them in the amount.

Now wouldn't you think anyone with just a little common sense would follow what the patent holder of the gel (penreco) says it will hold. If they say up to say 5% I would think there is a reason for that. If someone says their gel candle has 1oz of FO ...then I believe it...as long as it is at least a 100oz gel candle. Bill Jacksonville Fl

Oh contrare citygrl you can make bubble free candles. Like was said ..put them in a sunny window. Or, I put them in my oven on warm and watch them until every bubble is gone. Or you can buy a debubbler. I have never tried one but I hear they work. Bill Jacksonville Fla

Well good luck with finding one juggy. I've been looking. The closest I can find to me in Jacksonville is outside of miami. I'm not driving 12 hours round trip to pick up gel. So I guess I'm stuck with paying $200 or so for shipping on a drum of gel. Bill Jacksonville

Hi Juggy...if the one you are referring to is in St. Mary Florida ...which I think is the one you mean...it is not open for some reason. No one has been able to contact them or find out what happen to them for about 3 months. The owners name is Melody if that is the one you are talking about ..I think you will need to find another supplier. Do you live near Jax. maybe I can help you find one. Bill Jax Fla

Well the same can be said for wax candles. The wife and I was burning a commercially made wax candle on our fireplace mantle about a year ago. We had burnt it before. It was burnt down maybe half way...if that much. We heard a loud pop and there was wax on the wall and mantle and pieces of glass on the mantle and floor. So, now I'm wondering ....does that mean wax candles are unsafe and explode. No. It just means there was some type of defect...probably in the glass. It happens. No matter how careful you are. Glass can have a defect that you really don't see or notice. The glass gets hot. It expands...and pop...you hear what sounds like a little explosion. Now you know why they put warnings on candles ...especially ...DO NOT LEAVE A BURNING CANDLE UNATTENDED. Hope this answers your question...there are other reasons why a candle might explode... like not mixing your FO with your gel or wax completely..and it leaves a pocket of unmixed FO. when the wick flame hits it..it doesn't actually explode ...it flares up. Bill Jacksonville Fla

I used to raise honey bees. They do get diseases but they are closely watched by the agriculture dept. If a problem is found it is treated but in the case of certain diseases the infected hive of bees must be destroyed by burning. In some cases the entire colonies the bee keeper has must be burnt. This is to keep the disease from spreading. I find it very hard to believe that it would get so out of hand that so many hives in the country or even one area would have to be destroyed. Bill

Very sorry I have gotten around to posting the pictures of the forever candles that I told you the wife and I do. We opened our candle shop two weeks ago and we have been swamped with work. Until I get time to take the pictures and figure out how to post them on here I'll try and quickly tell you how we do our forever candles. I use a 9" or 11" glass pie pan..usually pyrex. I sit either one or two glass votive candles in the pie pan. I then design a scene around the votive candles. I've done sea side scenes. Snow scenes. Seashore with a lighthouse. I'm a big florida gator fan...so I did a swamp scene with grass and bushes and of course a gator. Once your scene is done and your gel is poured over and around everything in the scene...let the gel cool. You can then either pull out the votive glasses and put in other votives that are filled and finished with gel...or put the empty glass votive back in and your customer can drop in wax or soy votive candles in them..whatever type candle they prefer. If you just hold your fingers on the gel beside the votive candle and pull on the glass votive steadly and gently the glass votive will pull right out. We offer to our customers ...if they return the empty votives to us ..we give them a discount on the replacement votives for in their forever candles. Hope this made sense to you how to make the forever candles. The great part is...the scenes you can make are endless. Good Luck Bill Jacksonville Fla

If you have your gel wicked properly and all else is as it should be...ie: correct amount of FO, and your sure the gel is good...I only use penreco, ...then the answer is....the length of your wick is the problem. I watch my gel candles closely and after several hours ...say maybe 3 or 4 hours the candle will start to produce soot. I blow out the candle..let it cool...turn it upside down and trim the wick back to about an 1/8 of an inch and relight it...problem solved..no more soot. Bill Jacksonville PS.. I have burned even.... yes...Yankee candles and guess what..after a while of burning they produce soot.

I've come up with a new type of forever candle...at least I think it is. I've never seen any like it anywhere. It permits you endless possibilities for designs. Have I perked your curiousity yet ??? I will try to get a picture or two of the ones I've made on here in the next few days. Bill Jacksonville Fla.

I was just wondering what you all make your forever gel candles in...what type of container ? Bill Jacksonville Fla

Sorry...I have to go the other way and disagree here. No licenseing. That is just another way for the government to stick its nose where its not wanted or needed. Being licensed or even certified is not a cure for being unethical, or shoddy in production of your product. All it means is you read a book probably and know what you should do. If a license or certification was all it took to force someone to do what is right....then you wouldn't have so many lawyers filing so many lawsuits against doctors and hospitals. Well I ranted enough...i'll put my stock in the good morals of people, rather than the good intentions of government any day.

Well the answer to this question ...was on the news last night... The boy who at 16 years old ..melted some crayons to make his mother a candle for Christmas. That was the start of the Yankee Candle Co.....I wonder if in 1969 when he did that if he asked ...can candle making be profitable. Yesterday Yankee Candle Company was sold....selling price... 1.7 Billion Dollars Yep I would say it can be profitable Bill Jacksonville Fla

We don't weigh the dye colors either...only the FO's. We also use a presto pot to melt large quanities of gel. I drilled and tapped the presto pot and put in a shut off valve. Once the gel is melted in the presto pot, we put it into a corning ware pot that has the volume measurements on the inside. We can fill it from the presto pot up to 4 cups. We use a large candy thermometer in the corning ware pot on an electric range to get it to the exact temperature we want. Into this we add dye until its the color we want. As far as the FO's...I cut (facet) gemstones so I have a scale the measures very acurately in oz/dwt/carat/grams. We put a little paper medicine dispensing cup on the scale...the cup weights .9 grams. then we add the proper amount of FO. A little left in the cup really isn't going to make a noticeable difference. Hope this helps Bill Jacksonville Fl

We think the FM are great. We started selling there part time in December. Ours is open year round on Sat and Sun. We did so well there we are opening a permanent shop there the first weekend in Feb. We are really looking forward to it. You meet a lot of great people there and you never know who you will meet and what kind of business deals will come your way. Like someone who stopped by our booth and loved our gel candle designs. They own a tourist based business up north...we are in Jacksonville Fla. anyway...they want to buy our candles and put them in their store up north. So you never know who you may be talking to at your booth. Also keep in mind...have a good friendly but business like rapport with the other vendors ....they are also a good source of business and will send business your way. Its kind of like the pyramid effect... 1 vendor knows 3 vendors..who know 15 vendors ..who have 20 friends ..who have many friends. And if you have a high quality product there is no telling where your business there can go. Bill Jacksonville Fla

Has anyone tried putting photographs ...like family portraits in a forever gel candle...just wondering if you ran into any problems Thanks