Molly

Oh gosh that's frustrating! And why is it that the fugly candles hardly ever crack in the freezer, only the good ones??

You could set the hurricanes on some pretty, heatproof ceramic tiles. Places like Home Depot usually have them.

I usually do this and try and burn both at the same time in two different closed up rooms. Then you can walk from room and room and smell to your heart's content! Keep a couple coffee beans around to sniff to clear the smell from your nose each time.

I've had that happen a couple times, very scary stuff. Once it happened just a couple days after I'd taught the employees how to use the fire extinguisher (you'd be amazed how many people don't know) and boy was that a good thing! Glad to hear nothing major bad happened!

That's too cool! Special personal touches like that are what makes a gift unique and memorable!

And if all else fails, you could imbed them on the outside of a hurricane!

I have a couple of "bakery" FOs that came with directions to either shake or shake AND heat before adding to the wax!

There is or was a company that used to advertise exactly that! They manufactured soy candles, but I can't remember who they were now. Personally I think that's a very silly idea!

I like this statement

The candles, which range in aromas from pear to Moroccan cedar, are made out of all-natural soy wax. Belasco says that soy wax is so pure, you can eat it. And he has, once using soy candle wax to fry chicken to prove his point.

LOL

Sheesh... most decent wax used for candles IS rated food grade!!

Those are really cute, and thank you for posting the pictures, I'm one of those people who does much better if I can see something rather than just reading about it.

Please do check. I'm curious to find out too. I got one of these molds a couple weeks ago, but haven't tried because I have no idea where to even start with wicking

I was awfully tired yesterday apparently!! How about if I usually use #5/0 and wick up to #1/0 square braid???? heh. That makes MUCH more sense!

Seems like someone once mentioned cutting out little circles representing the burn area of a wick then placing them in the mold/container as a guide or something. Now I can't remember, nor can I find the thread

huh! I can see that working for a container, but my 3 wick molds came pre drilled with wick holes so I have no choice about where they are!

I'm thinking maybe that's supposed to be #5 rather than #5/0? Or maybe wicking down, though that doesn't make sense with a "think" scent.

thick! and you may be right about the #5, but I'm home now so I'll double check tomorrow when I'm back at work. Sometimes I look at the spool ends a little bit too fast!

Thanks guys

Im still up in the air as to wether to blend or not, I want to make a candle everyone is happy with, currently right now, I am planning on offering both Soy and Paraffin candles, and letting my customers choose which it is they want to buy. I will try pouring a little pure soy, and a few blends at different ratios and see which I like best. Do scents that do not "work" in soy work in a blend?

In my experience if a scent is a decent scent to begin with it usually will work in a blend if it doesn't work in soy. I've gotten to the point where I almost always use a blend now, mostly for cosmetic appearences AND scent throw.

But I do call mine a blend, I don't call them just soy.

Can't help you with the wick part, but if the candles are burning at the wedding or at the reception and they're indoors, that's going to be a LOT of smell in an enclosed area!!

I haven't used it, but it sounds like it should be good! I'd be curious to know if anyone's used it too.

I use a square braided wick for those, um... just a second here let me go look at the number. Ok, mostly I use a #1/0 square braid wick, but in a couple cases with black dye or a "thick" scent I had to wick up to a #5/0 square braid. Good luck!

You don't have any problems with the molds cracking pouring that hot? For some reason I was under the impression that polycarbonate molds were kind of like the other pastic types, that you needed to pour colder.

I make a lot of sphears with the palm...PQ. They are great. I think the differece might be the wick. I never wick the mold. I always drill the hole after. I also scrape out the excess wax around the seam before breaking the seal and make sure that once the mold is hot with wax, re-press the seal. I find that the expansion of the plastic can allow the wax to seep out.

I also pour at 200.

If you have any plastic ball molds the part without the hole in it works really well for floaters too, so I'm thinking something along the lines of a big salad bowl?

It's the scent. I've had a couple of different Lilacs that would turn ivory colored wax a weird pink color after a very short period of time. The scent wasn't seeping out, it was sort of oxidizing I guess would be the best way to describe it. I've become very wary of Lilac scents!

There were several posts on the old board on how to test new scent combos. The short version is to use Q tips. For a 50/50 mix dip the end of Q tips in each FOs. Then put the Q tips on a ziplock bag or small glass jar. I save my glass spice jars for this. For a 66/33 mix you would dip 2 Q Tips on the 1st FO and 1 Q Tip in the 2nd. And so on. I take my little scent jars to our weekly race party and have the ladies sniff them and give me feed back on the combos. Then I take the ones they like and make a test candle. HTH

Now this is really cool info! Somehow I never saw posts about that on the other board, so I'm really glad you mentioned it!

Arrgh! Had this happen once with a small wax tank with about 100 lbs of wax.... luckily it came out slowly enough that it puddled and then formed a stalagmite and plugged up the spout so I "only" lost about 50 lbs. Good luck cleaning it up!

Hee! It's like the ladies in my factory keep telling me, you need to be more patient...... but oh gosh, it's SO hard!

Just to add another alternative, I use powdered dyes which are much easier to measure if you find a set of measuring spoons that go down to 1/32 tsp.

Liquid is also easier than the chips, but personally I find powdered dye easier than both. Just a person preference!

Hi. I'm trying different waxes and two days ago poured an 8 oz. square mason with the Cargill. It turned out the nicest of four different soy waxes. No wet spots, no frosting, no holes. I had almost decided to order it as my main wax but maybe need to test more and see about the issues brought up in this thread. My question is what % FO do you use? I thought the directions said about 6%, and I am used to using more than that. Do you get a good throw at that amount? This forum saves so much needless purchasing! Beth

You'll run up against that some FO's work better in veggie wax than others do.

I have some scents I do only use about 6% with the C-3, but a lot of others I use 8 and even 9 percent, which you can't always get away with because of seeping problems. Even some high quality scents just won't work right in veggie if they were originally formulated for paraffin.

That was very helpful, thank you Mine look just like your pink ones if I use an LX 30.

I have a couple of questions. When you are testing do you keep your wicks trimmed to 1/4 inch every time you relight? I ask this because I have had some customers tell me they don't do this, so I'm thinking if I should be testing both ways. Personally I like the flame better when I trim it before relighting. The flame stays prettier longer. If you never trim it, it can look smaller and almost clogged.

What do people mean by a blowout? When people say "hug" the candles, does this mean (for parrafin) turning the warm wax on the sides down?

Also, from the first lighting, do you burn it for many hours or do you burn it for only the amount of inches of the diameter of the candle?

When I'm burning at home I always keep the wicks trimmed. When I test burn, I always do it both ways so I can see what the worst thing that could happen is..... A blowout is when you develop a hole in the side of your pillar while burning it and wax spills out. Hugging is just what you think it is.

Again, when test burning I always do things correctly (buring one hour for the number of inches of the diameter) AND I do it wrong too... this is only when I'm pretty sure I have the wick I want, when I'm figuring out the initial wicks I only do it correctly. I call burning things wrong "idiot burning" which I do for those folks that won't follow directions!