R.S.

One of three things: 1. Wick is leaning over into melt pool 2. Too big a wick and it's too hot for the wax 3. Reaction of fragrance oil to heat. In order of probability, I'd say the liklihood is 3, then 1 then 2 (remote)

Peak's Cranberry Citrus is one of my favorites and was my best seller for the holiday season.

I burned mine today. It is wonderful, nice scent throw. It is very creamy and buttery, I think it will sell very well. I did notice that I need to keep the candle out of sunlight because it did discolor quite a bit while curing.

I am waiting for my Very Vanilla from CS to cure. It's been a week and the cold throw is fantastic. I'm waiting two weeks.. so I'll report back here next week.

RRDs will mushroom because the wick is straight up and down. I use CDs which are close to CDNs and with the self trimming, I find the candle remains very clean.. the wick disapates, not falls into the wax. My CDs will mushroom if overwicked or just slightly with the right size. I definitely recommend you try it.

Citrus Cranberry (Peaks) Cinnamon (Peaks)

They bend towards the upward pointing V

I don't know what Lava palm is, but if it's palm, a zinc wick will not work. I tried it and it just tunneled down... no melt pool at all.

I find minimal shrooming with CB135 and CD wicks at 7% fragrance load.

RRDs mushroom because the wick stands straight up and the end of the wick is in the hottest part of the flame. The carbon builds up and causes the mushrooms. "Self-trimming" wicks like CDs and HTPs have a lot less mushroom because the wicks curl when burned, moving the end of the wick out of the hottest part of the flame. So I think if you keep with RRDs you are going to have mushrooms.

Sometimes it doesn't.

Peaks has cranberry dye chips

Some fragrances have over 100 notes in them, I find it hard to believe a nose can distinguish all of them.

OK, no direct experience here, but I find it hard to believe that any of the candle supply companies or any chemist can smell a candle and come up with a dupe. The proper way to have it done is have a spectrograph test done. ( I think that's how it's spelled) and that gives a much more accurate description of the composition of a fragrance. I believe that the fragrance manufacturers like IFT etc will do that for you fairly cheaply, but then you have to order a large quantity of FO to have them custom make it.

Set your pricing up to give a discount when more of the same candle is ordered. Ie: $12 for one candle, $20 for two. Encourages ppl to buy in bulk and cuts down on your work time a bit.

Thanks, I guess I think of those as warm, wintery type scents that would work well at this time of year.

So I'm just getting started and an opportunity arose through one of my best friends. Her company has an annual "craft fair" at their office for employees to sell their crafty stuff. My friend offered to sell my candles for me. It only lasted an hour and a half over lunch and I had really no idea what to expect so wanted to play it conservatively. (Would rather sell out and take orders off of an available order form, rather than have candles left). So I made 42 candles, 7 candles of each of 6 different scents. I was not actually there to sell the candles, my friend did it all. Well the candles were a hit! Cinnamon, Pumpkin and Cranberry Citrus flew right off the shelves with orders for more. But.... not a single Banana Nut Bread or Vanilla Hazelnut sold (both Peaks). And a couple Mandarin Plums left. These are two of my favorite scents, the candles looked spectacular, they had great cold throw. I'm just stumped and now I don't know if I'm happy at my overall result or not. I know I should be happy, but just can't believe I didn't sell a single one of those scents. I asked my friend about reactions to those candles and she indicated that she thought some of them thought they were too strong. (I'm using about 7.4% Fragrance load). So no questions, I just needed to get this out. Thanks I feel better!

I'm going to suggest something different. I would suggest that your first test candle should be an unscented, uncolored candle in the glassware (if you're using a container) that you plan to use. Then you can work to get the proper wicking. Once you have that down, that is your base candle with which you start from everytime. Order a new batch of was? Do a test candle to make sure it performs the same as your base. If not, you need to make adjustments. Once you have a base candle that is burning perfectly, then add some dye, but still no fragrance oil. Ensure that the wicking is still ok. If not, make an adjustment and record that. Then add fragrance oil and test again, the oil may cause you to change wicks again. All of this information needs to be recorded, if you get a batch where the base candle needs a larger wick then you know that your final products will probably need a larger wick as well. Hopefully, the manufacturer has enough control on their process that that won't happen, but can never be too safe. Better to find out from one test candle that a batch of wax is no good, than to pour 100 candles and then find out.

Peaks and Candlewic

Are you giving your candles a chance to cure? You should wait a week minimum before burning them. And I agree with adding the FO at a higher temp.

Wax fragrance oils are mixed with a chemical (Dipropylene Glycol?? sp??) to get the fragrance oil to bind with the wax. I am not certain that that will be the case with these natural oils, so it may not work, or you may get zero fragrance throw. It's certainly worth testing though, please let us know how it works.

I have never done this, but have done so with Soy. I wouldn't give up on this idea yet. Try 85 Palm / 15 Para or 90/10. You won't lose much of the crystallization effect and you'll still get some softness to the wax.

BitterCreek South as well. Haven't tried it in wax, but sure smells like Wedding Cake.

Vanilla Hazelnut. It takes everything I have in me to not drink the oil!

That chart is off for me. I am using 7oz tumblers, 2.75 inches wide and I'm now going down to CD8 after I tested CD10 and still found it too big. I started at CD16.