southern.scents

I use 1 1/2 FO PP. This is what is reccomended by most FO sellers. CB 135 will hold 10-12% and CBA will hold 8-10%. Its not really gonna hurt to step it up a little. You may have to adjust your wick size.

Right now, I sell mine for $5.00 each. When they get here, I open each box, add a tealight if it does not have one, add one melt, close the box, seal the lid, and label. I thought about going up do about 7.50 but I sell more at $5.00 than I would at 7.50 so it pretty much evens out in the long run. At $5.00 each with a melt included, they become a great option for Christmas presents for co workers, employees, teachers. I know that I sold out at one of my wholesale account store because a lady came in and bought all of her emplyees one. My grandmother bought the last few that I had last night to give as gifts to her Sunday school class on their birthdays.... They are great sellers. Here is a quick question though, I am assuming that you are including your cost of the melts in your cost right? The warmers didn't cost me but .93 each...

I use muffin pans but I use the silicon(spelling?) ones, the flexible kind. They work great. I also use the cookie cutters for more fun shapes such as hearts, stars, butterflies, feet, flowers, suns.....

You can stop right here in Forest on your way. We can split them 50/50.

LOL...Love it...

I think its a he. The site seems to be functional. Some of the products are available for purchase such as...VOTIVES....

LOL. I played with some coloring. I will post pics later. I have to work so I don't have time right now. I am, however, gonna give you credit for my tye died hands.....

I just wanted to update on the scent throw. So far they are doing great. They are actually doing much better then what I thought. I figured that the places that droop down would be where the FO stopped going up the reeds but so far, the reeds sucked FO all the way to the top except for one of the ones I cracked while I was playing around with it. The more that I play around with these, the more feasable they become. NOW....someone mention coloring. I guess I'll have to play around with that too. I'll be back in a few after I play with that.

I don't keep up with Yankee. I have too many things that I need to worry about with my own business. BUT.......HAVE YOU SEEN THE PRICE OF SOY???? Yeah, thats probably why....or the other things that cause issues with mass producing of a product such as the frosting, the scent throw trouble (which, I doubt they really care about), they may have not been selling enough...

I prefer to let my soaps cure for a week or two before packaging. They are much easier to wrap. Curing them on the counter????, no, we gotta have somewhere to pour candles......I was just removing them from their curing space so they could be packaged. I do everything in the kitchen which makes for an angry mom. She hates not being able to be in the kitchen cooking. Coming summer 2008, a custom built 15 x 30 workspace with a small amount of retail space, plenty of counter tops, all the applicances I have wished for.....oh buddy, I can't wait. I'll never be at the house.

Here are a few bars I have been "allowing to harden" aka, I have been too lazy to package.... The first one shows how long I have been too lazy. You can also see toward the bottom right hand side an orangish bar with a few other colors mixed in towards the top. This is my first bar with micas. I used a few different colors I bought off the classies. It is scented Jelly Beans, (not a favorite of mine at all...) The second one is one of my favorite soaps yet. It is scented Bedtime Bath. It contains ground Lavender and Chammomile Buds. It also contains a little Lavender EO The third one is scented Cool Water. The last one is my version of Clean Cotton. Its a mixture of several different fragrances from a few different suppliers. I used my new micas from the co op in this batch.

Well, I do HP and there are multiple stages that my soap goes throught during its cooking process. I know what the stages it will go through, which ones it is going through, and which ones are left. When I soap, there is even color changes as the soap progresses through its cooking. My soap starts out at a white but as it cooks it slowly turns a more yellow-y color, then, right when it is ready for FO to be added, it gets a sort of quick change to a whiter color. I guess to answer your question, yes, I can see every stage that my soap goes through. As far as pouring after no zap, no matter what it looks like, Im not sure. I have not been doing this that long, I did my 40th batch last night, and I have never just poured it. I really can't say wether or not it will set up okay. I would however, think that you would need for the soap to get to its final stage for it not to turn out weird. I HTH and if I am wrong, I hope someone who is more experienced will chime in.

Well, it sure look purty....

I am glad you guys like them. I am gonna play around with a few more designs and see what I can do. Thanks for the compliments. Adam

Hey guys. I had completely forgot about this thread.... These are acutally made of rattan. I am testing the throw with them as we speak. They look to be working just like the straight ones do. The throw at this point is decent. I have it on our kitchen counter and you can smell it in the kitchen and parts of the dining room. Well, I am not sure if you can buy them this way or not. I am making them myself. Heck, I may need to patent the process and start production...JK. They are actually very simple to make. I just take my reeds and place them in hot water. Let them sit for about 3 to 10 minutes. After they are much softer,(you sould be able to touch the two ends together without them splitting or cracking), the process will vary depending on what you want to do. For the curls, I used a curling iron the has "teeth" on it. I wrap the reed in between the teeth. I let it sit there for a few seconds. The longer you let it sit, the tighter the curls will be, but, be carefull. Too long and your reeds will burn. Dont forget to leave a straight end to stick into your bottle!!! After removing them from the curling iron, I would let them dry for a few days. The ones you saw were stuck into the bottle immediately and they work fine but let them dry to be on the safe side. I also did some "zig zagged" designs. I did these with our iron. They are more work. If yall have any questions or need help, let me know. I will be glad to assist you.

Nevermind, you already have an answer

I hope you find some. Look for me some too while you are there, lol. I am looking into boxes for my candles in tins and would like a cutout. I never even thought about those stampers...

I have been playing around with several things for the Soused Swap and in the process of playing around with reeds and reed diffusers I had the though about how monotonous they all look. Near every reed diffuser looks just like the one before it. Well, check these out. This was just a small sample bottle that I used to check sent throw (Soused Swappers, youll be getting a different bottle. I have not decided on reeds yet.)

I bet they had the one FO made with three different weights or it contains different FOs all together. Oils with different weights settle differently.MIx Olive oil, cooking oil, motor oil, and water together and you get different layers. Looking further into the ways they might have done this, what if they did what someone suggested above. Maybe add a layer with water and water based fo and then oil based FO w/ DPG. I wonder what the water and water based FO would do to the reeds??

Adding the same FO to DPG at different rations does not work. It just all blends together....

I think 2.50 is a reasonable price for them. Someone was just saying the other day that you should charge 1.50-2.00 per ounce. I can't do it personally but depending on where you are, you possible could. PS. I really love your boxes and so will wholesale accounts. They add a tremendous upscale look to your product. I am not sure where you get the boxes from but to fix the opening and closing problem, get boxes with a cut out on top or on the sides for sniffing.

These are 16 oz abothecary jars that I have about 17 ounces of wax in.

Oh definitely too soon to tell for sure. That is why I said that there would be more testing to come. I have one burning now and it is about a day and a half into cure and it is super strong. I am really satisfied with it. I am going to test one again in a week, and then everyweek after until I am at three weeks. That will provided me with more sound results than those of my first burn. I was just too excited to wait for the first burn.

Thanks ya'll. The colors turned out a little pastel but I hope to fix that in my next batch. My labels also look off colored because I ran our of black ink and my printer had to mix colors to get it. I bought a new cartridge today. (I am so praying that I can get a Primera soon) HERES MY NEXT QUESTION, if you knew that they had an awsome throw, double wicked, hand poured, soy, great quality, what would you retail them for. I wanted to go with sixteen dollars but mom said that was a little steep in her opinion for our area so I settled on fourteen but when I sat down and really thought about how much time I put into them, I realized I was selling myself short so I went with fifteen. Should I go higher, lower???? I Know there are others here who charge much more but I am just afraid that the people in our area won't pay more that 16 even if it is a great candle.

I have been dying to try out some Apothecary Jars and after much search I bought a few from hometowncandles here on the board. They got here a few days ago and I have been testing different wick sizes like crazy. I finally found one that had an awesome throw less than 8 hours from the time it was poured with EcoSoya CB Advanced. I am very happy with the results. Heres a picture that shows a few of them I poured last night. I think they are a great addition to my line and a necessary one too since the largest (and only) candle I offered was 8 ozs. Now, I have just got to get them ready to retail...Many more test burns to come...