FarmerJill

I hate it when I get caught not checking the date of posts :smiley2:

tlc, I've been using Accu-soy 10 for just over a year now and haven't had any issues with cracking other than once in a while a slight crack right up next to the side of the jar, barely noticeable in my square masons. At first I used a heat gun but don't bother anymore since they weren't big enough for customers to care. I heat to 185, add FO at 175, pour at 155. That was the info I got when I first started.

1941??? Don't know where that came from but back then the farmer's share was probably half a cent. Nine cents is a reference to the recent (VERY recent) past. And, sorry, but it is outlandish. I like your post, Top, but now I think I gotta :lipsrseal on this thread. :smiley2:

Uh, no. Not in the same light you do. What some would call "artificially manipulating crop prices", others would call stabilizing or sustaining the agricultural community. You can put it in as bad or good of terms as you want. But even with price supports, any fluctuating price like we're seeing today still has to do with supply and demand, so I repeat....I've never raised a crop where the price wasn't based on demand. It's just that basic no matter how much anybody wants to lose that concept inside railings about ethanol, government policies, conspiracies, importing food, or evil oil companies. High economic growth in world markets, coupled with bad crop weather in places like Argentina and a worldwide search for alternatives to oil, have created a vortex for high prices. Supply. Demand. Yeah, I feel the pain of paying for a high-demand product, too, but the continued insistence on labeling somebody as the bad guy is baffling. You mean like the good ol' days when for every $3.37 you paid for a box of Cheerios, farmers received about 9 cents for the grain in it? Woohoo! Now it's up to about 33 cents.

So soy wasn't a commodity before? I'd appreciate a link because I can't wrap my head around that one. I've read the definitions put out by the Department of Ag and they didn't list individual crops - just the specific requirements of what makes up an agricultural commodity. Yep. Welcome to the wonderful world of farming. I've never raised a crop where the price wasn't based on demand so don't understand why soy should be any different. And despite our unhappiness with the price right now, this is all nothing but simple economics - the same principles that apply to our candle businesses. Create a demand and business booms, along with price increases. Lose the demand and we can hardly give a candle away. Right now soy is booming.

Taxes!! Once I'm done with those I have a few new bottles of FOs to crack open. Trying to get a real outdoorsy camping fragrance so have fireside, oak moss, log cabin and balsam to play around with.

Jeana, I've been using Accu-soy 10 for a little over a year now and really like it. I'll qualify my opinion by admitting this is one of the first soy waxes I ever used so I can't really make comparisons to other soys. When poured at the right temp, the AC-10 has delivered on the promises on Swans' website - very smooth tops, one pour, good throw and adhesion. Most times little or no frosting. Red/pink is most likely to have frost and is worse when I get in a hurry, don't pay attention to room temperature, as is likely especially when pouring testers. There are a few FOs I absolutely cannot wick in this stuff. On the other hand, lots of times I end up wicking down from the recommendations other folks here say about their soy wax. Go figure! Bottom line - I like it so much that I never bothered to pull out any of the other soy samples I have on the shelf. Try it - it'd be nice to have other people on this board to talk with about it.

I'd love to use a hang tag but after trying them it was nothing but a PITA to keep them looking tidy on the store shelves after customers handled the jars a few times. I'm jealous of you guys who can make it work. I use labels directly on the jar. Might have to consider putting them on the lid - that sounds kind of nice - yet I have more confidence in being able to precisely print a rectangular label rather than a round one.

Every so often on special collection days our county waste site accepts hazardous stuff like paint thinner and garden chemicals. Seems like old fragrance oils would fall into that category but I haven't had to check into it yet.

Late night posting is never a good idea but here goes... Do you mean because he's warning about higher prices? I don't know if his post was appropriate or not, or if he was really meaning to be helpful but I do know when my local farm supplyhouse calls to warn of increases in fuel/chemical/fertilizer costs so I can stock up before the price hikes I pay attention and act accordingly. They're doing me a favor and hate the increases as much as I do, as I suspect the wax suppliers feel, too. The same suppliers who are themselves getting whiplashed by higher costs, just like us. ::sigh:: Please don't tell me you meant to say "billion". I do support windpower and think we should be investing in a whole lot more of it but let's not simplify all this either. Surely we can do better than just becoming a nation of windmills and cell towers. I've been staring at three gigantic powerlines out my front window for the last thirty-five years and learned at an early age what scenic pollution is. Metal is metal and it ain't part of nature. Not to mention trying to farm around the darn things. Where are all these millions of turbines going to be placed? They obviously work best in certain geographic areas and, yep, that also includes right in the middle of prime farmland or places like the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area (which, so far, as a federally protected area has managed to keep them out) And then you've got the question of impact on wildlife. Everything we do in large scale has impact. Just like the worries that the Alaska pipeline impacted migrating wildlife, a "few million windmills" would have a huge effect. There's lots of publicity now about a company wanting to harvest the wave energy off the Oregon coast. Sounds great - very clean and green, just the kind of thing Oregon likes - and I hope it works - but the big unanswered question is will the 18,000 migrating gray whales and the salmon like it. Don't get me wrong. I agree that the status quo is not acceptable but as a previous poster pointed out it should start with doing something about our obscene consumption of this planet. And I don't mean pointing our fingers at the other guy with his SUV, either. Shopping is a national pastime. We want stuff and we want it NOW. We want to go places and we want to go NOW. We feed the voracious appetite of that free market that's been talked about so disdainfully here. Including this thread?

Seems I can never really answer this question until I'm well into the weekend, which shows what little planning I do :smiley2: I'm making storage room for wax, candles and supplies this weekend. Stuff that hasn't seen the light of day in years is getting emptied out of cupboards. Then I'll be making a run to Goodwill!

I agree - he has really good waxes. I like the Accu-soy10 for containers but haven't tried the natural pillar wax.

I don't understand what that has to do with only stirring for 30 seconds. Guess I can't argue with her, though, until I've tried it myself. I was taught to give a good two to three minute stir so it's one of those things from which I've never wavered.

Thought this was interesting from that second site: "Add the 5 ounces of candle scent, and give a quick stir, just enough to have the scent oil blend with the wax. This is about 30 seconds.......not 10 minutes! Remember people, the heat is going to release the scent from the wax.....common sense is needed here."

Three nephews! Well, they're not technically "in my pot" (Okay, now I feel sort of like the Hansel & Gretel witch ) but I've got three nephews coming today for a three day visit. At first I was going to put all the candle stuff away so that my work table would be a dining table again but changed my mind. I think the boys will enjoy making a few pillars to take home to their mom. And they'll love test-burning the new fragrances I poured this week.

The same reaction I always have to your rustics: :bow: !!!

I'm pouring containers for an account and still working on testing a few new fragrances. The weather here has taken a sudden warm turn (in the sixties!) so this weekend I also have to....ehem....get the outside Christmas decorations taken down and put the indoor snowmen stuff away. Is winter really over?? And good luck, Robin!

Thanks, y'all! But, again, it's all the result of getting such good advice and instruction here (JV, you might have notice one of them looks a teensy bit like the one in your tutorial. ) Kimmeroo, going from left to right the fragrances are monkey farts, cucumber melon, black raspberry vanilla, winter blast and pink sugar.

Oooh, I'm no longer a rustic virgin! After spending months admiring the rustic creations of others on this board, I finally took the plunge - something I never would have done without inspiration from such talents as JudyVega, Scented and Eugenia. So thanks, all, for your help even when you didn't know you were helping (and even though I've got a long way to go....) Now if I can just get the wicking down.

Poured my first rustics last week and thought they turned out darn nice (if I'm allowed to say so myself ) but wasn't entirely happy with how they burned. So this weekend is forgetting all the pretty layering stuff in order to concentrate on reworking a basic formula to see if I can get a flame I like.

Maybe there's something in that first label space that's not showing up in the preview, such as an empty text box which is printing with black as its fill color. You might have something in there that needs to be deleted or its fill color removed. Try clicking around on the bad label area and changing the order of things, bringing the label image forward, etc. Good luck! Heavens knows I love my computer until it starts doing goofy little things like this.

I'll be playing around with rustics. Oh my gosh, I finally worked up the resolve to make my first ones this week and can't believe how incredibly cool these babies are to pour! And what fun to unmold them and get that first peek. I'm in love!

I'll be pouring some summer fragrance testers which I couldn't bring myself to pour while the Christmas music was still playing. AND re-thinking my line of fragrances, wondering if more isn't necessarily better.

Well, I thought nothing candle-wise would be going on this weekend but I was looking at my Christmas decorations last night and realized I needed some tealights. So now I'm sitting here in a bathrobe trying to decide which is more trouble -- trudging into town to buy a bag of the cheapo ones or heating up the wax and pouring them myself. Heating up the wax is going to win out, though, because I can do that in the bathrobe.

We use those every year at Easter vigil Mass. IMO 5" would be way too big and awkward to carry whereas 3" is about perfect. You can make your own by cutting some circles on cardstock and then cutting an "x" in the middle for the candle to slip through. It will look nicer than a paper cup; plus, if appropriate, you have the option to make them colored (as in pink for breast cancer, etc.) Or do a search for paper or plastic "bobeche" to get ready-made. I know Swan's carries them although that's pretty far away for you for shipping. :smiley2: