FarmerJill

Me, too! Me, too! And I use a lot of bakery and sweet FOs, also. I guess I'll have to keep an eye on them but I've got a bag of a variety of scents poured 18 months ago that all look great.

Just a little different - I like "Sweet Baby Dreams".

If it's that good maybe I'll have to give it another try from a few other sources. I tested it once but didn't think it was anything to write home about, except loved the name. But am I reading the original post right - she uses Butt Naked fragrance but sells it as a different name? Maybe the problem is either the new name isn't as interesting as the original (sorry) or the new name doesn't match well with the fragrance. Or...or...or...who knows about customers sometimes.

FHG, I think you can do it - at least I hope so. I have a candle with a clever name and used a supposedly popular fragrance (even though I didn't care for it. Should've known better). People pick it up all the time and chuckle over the name but don't buy. You can bet I'm keeping that name but going to fragrance it something I really like.

It's nice and strong in my soy (AC-10 from Swans). I use 1 oz per pound, though, and a couple of days to cure. One of my favorites.

Portion cups. They hold about .8oz.

Ladysj, those are gorgeous! I'm wondering how they burned for you. I tried something similar a while back with long vertical chunks but when they burned they showed a tendency to split along the chunk line. Since it's vertical, that worried me enough to stop burning them and since then haven't had time to experiment any more. But I've been curious if it was my fault or the fault of the wax used for the overpour or if it's always going to be a weakness of that particular technique. Anyway, love yours.

Southernsoy, before you go buying some other wax, you might want to first decide how to present your melts and see if your current wax will work, even if it just needs a little tweaking. For example, I use Accu-soy 10 for both my container candles and for melts, which I pour into portion cups. Even though it is a soft container wax, it's just firm enough to cleanly pop out of the cup, yet it's also soft enough that some customers will use a butter knife to remove a little of this melt and a little of that one to create their own fragrance blends. This wax is also just firm enough to use in clamshells. It'll even pop out of molds but tends to smear in packaging so hence the portion cups. I guess what I'm saying is to see what your current wax will do before looking elsewhere. Mine has a meltpoint of 122 and I thought C3 was even a little higher so I'm wondering why it wouldn't work unless some other property makes it too sticky. And if it is too sticky maybe blend it with something to raise the meltpoint a tad.

Glad to help. That's not the only item that seems to be a little out of place in that section which is kinda good to know -- now I know it's not just old age when I can't find what I'm looking for.

Is this the same one? http://www.candlewic.com/store/Product.aspx?q=cMold+Accessories,p1162

That's beautiful! Love that red/brown you've got going on. I was eyeing my 6x6 mold the other day but then got too cheap to use up that much wax in one candle. However, yours is really tempting me.......

I vote without - but, dang, they all look cool!

Me too! Me too! Although this time I'm just going as a customer. Scoping it out to see if we want to be a vendor there.

Finally, finally, FINALLY got the wick for sweet orange & chili pepper figured out for a square mason so will be pouring that today. Don't know why that particular FO was so difficult to do in my wax when nobody else seems to report trouble with it. Then I've got to get some petunias planted.

Oooooh, yes! That's beautiful!

Gorgeous!!

Gorgeous colors! And sounds like a fun event.

Okay, here's a picture of a new set where I tried a few of Pam's suggestions - poured the larger ones at a slightly higher temp (158) and poured them faster. It made a little bit of difference yet still lots more frost. But I think Scented is right about the larger one looking like it has more because the 6" is...well...larger. That's especially evident here where they both have about the same on the first two or three layers, and then both have frost all the rest of the way down. I'm eally learning to like these, btw, so all is good!

I'll do some playing around with varying both pour temperature and speed. But, Pam, the funny thing is, after all my complaining about how mine look, I think your green ones - yes, with all that frost - are gorgeous! And you're right, any disappointment I have is that they didn't turn out exactly as I had envisioned. And yet, when I first started pouring rustics I had NO expectations for the end results and was always thrilled with what came out of the mold. Again, thanks all for the advice and the compliments.

Strangely enough that offers some comfort. LOL! I think so, Scented. But I'm not sure what to do to leave more residue in the bigger ones. Pull them out of the mold sooner? Chill them? That just seems contrary to all the fine instructions on this board. Pam, you've offered some good ideas to think about. Or maybe the best idea is to just embrace the results I'm getting. It's kind of funny because I prefer a certain look but when I show candles to people, they always seem to like the ones that look "wrong" to me. I guess I have no taste. Thanks all!

Beth, I've been trying to ensure that they're all poured at the same temp. Doing six pillars to a batch usually means pouring three, adjusting the temperature of the pour pot if necessary, pouring the last three. It just doesn't seem to matter whether I pour the large or small ones first, the large ones are always more frosted. That's what has me puzzled. FO is Rustic Jeans from Wildfire, btw. Pam, thanks for the suggestion of upping the pour temp, but pouring temperature still doesn't explain the disparity of frost on the two different sizes. Or are you saying I need to pour the 6" faster than the smaller ones? I'll give it a try. I just want them to match, darn it!

I need advice form the rustic experts......and you know who you are. I'm trying to pour two different size pillars with each batch (4" and 6") to make a matched set. But the 6" invariably comes out with much, much more frosting. In fact, too much for my tastes. Obviously, all the ingredients are the same for both - dye, fo, stearic - because they come from the same batch. The only thing I can see as different is that the 6" gets slightly thicker layers so I have to let it cool a tad longer between pours. And because it's larger, the mold heats up a little more throughout the process and takes longer to cool. But since it gets warmer and cools slower, shouldn't that have the opposite effect and decrease the amount of frost? I'm being patient with them, let them cool at room temp, no fridge and I wait until they slide out easily. But still the 4" ones leave a lot more residue in the mold which I actually prefer. The 6" are very smooth, very white-coated and little residue in the mold. It's Swan's 140 paraffin with 3 T. stearic, poured at 150 degrees and seems to happen with every FO. The only other thing I can think of is to reduce the stearic but that doesn't address the issue of the frost disparity between the two sizes. Help! This doesn't make sense unless it's just the wax gods way of screwing with my head. Here's a picture showing the difference. And, p.s., they look much nicer in person. :smiley2:

A beautiful sunny day here and I should be outside doing some spring cleaning in the yard but......finished up some testing this week so now get to pour those for stock. And as long as the wax is melted I won't be able to resist pulling out a few new samples to test, also.

Oh, e, I'm glad you posted these! I'd been thinking about rustics in sleeves - wondering if, from a customer's perspective, the shiny look would take away from the rustic finish. Those look great!

Nobcanldle may have gotten the pastille version. I assumed the pastille would be easier to work with because it would be scoopable. Instead it clumps together. It's still fairly easy to handle, although I may end up wishing I got the slabs since they were relatively easy to slice through. Never had a problem with odor, though. And, FWIW, I've never had a cracking problem like has been discussed here.