racolvin

I'm so sorry to hear about your trouble and hope you get your $$!

I wanted to avoid this possibility from the get-go so I make my wholesale accounts buy via my website, which they pay with a credit card up front. Without knowing your situation I don't know if that would work for you or not but it's an idea.

Good luck!

I was at a craft fair this weekend and there was a person selling soy candles that when melted became lotion. Has anyone any idea of how this is possible?

Vicky is right, you'll find a lot of heated discussion about this in past postings. A search on "soy candle lotion" should turn up some interesting posts

At this point I was just looking to see that they existed and in what varieties, prices, etc. I'm very spoiled on the soy wax flakes that I use - just scoop some up and put them in my melter. I used paraffin ages ago and I totally hated having to break up those slabs.

Anyone know of a paraffin supplier that does NOT send them to me in 10lb slabs? Any info, links, etc appreciated.

Well, as promised I ordered some of the clamshell molds and the LX16 self-centering tabbed wicks with my last FO order.

I used my normal GW464 process except that I let them cool down to about 130F before I poured them into the plastic clamshells. Let them cool overnite and the next morning, guess what? They won't come out of the molds. Tried the freezer for a few minutes, still no-go. I did finally get them out but it was a PITA and they didn't look good at all by the time I manhandled them out of the molds.

So the verdict is: don't do it.

Now for the votives I did NOT add any coconut oil, since I don't really care about frosting in a votive. Whether that would have made a difference I don't know. Definitely need something harder to contract and come out of the mold easily and to withstand handling.

Sucks because was really hoping to not have to carry another kind of was Now I have to decide if I want to get another wax or to just pass on being able to provide votives.

I ain't no chocolateerin' dude either so I can't say one way or another I just know it's been working for me, I never said I understood it completely

There have been times I've considered some of these "tempering" machines that were intended for chocolate but I've never ponied up the cash. Between getting the temperature curve correct AND compensating for humidity and the ambient temperature during the cooling process, I've pretty much said to curing the frosting problem completely

For any of you that use GW464 specifically, I will share a bit. I've had better than average results getting rid of frosting by following these steps:

1) Heat raw wax in Presto Pot to around 150F. This is the "R" in "Warm" setting on the Presto Pot dial. How's that for precise

2) draw off the needed amount of wax for your batch into your pour/mixing pot and place it on a heat source. I use a special lab device called a Hotplate/Stirrer that heats and stirs my wax all by itself.

3) Add FO, UV, 1/2tbsp CO, and colorant while the wax is still around 150F. The FO will cool it off a bit at first but that's not a big deal since we're gonna heat it back up

4) Heat the wax up to 180F, stirring constantly. I use the Color Crystals so coming up to this temp helps get those fully incorporated. This level of heat also helps break down any existing crystals present in the wax.

5) Turn off the heat but continue stirring while it cools down to 120F

6) Heat back up to ~145F, stirring constantly, and then pour.

Following this procedure, I've totally eliminated frosting in some batches, reduced it greatly in others. Sadly I have no way to control humidity in my workshop so that messes things up once in a while, depending on the weather around here. Certain FO's respond better to this procedure than others do as well, so your mileage may vary.

No clue how these steps would work with other soy waxes but it might be a starting point. Having my Hotplate/Stirrer has helped me tremendously, as have a digital clip-on thermometer that stays in the wax constantly showing me the temperature. I would love to have on of those instant-read infra-red pistol thermometers but having to stop what I'm doing (wicking other jars, etc) and take a reading every so often would be distracting. With these thermometers I can just glance up from my wicking station and see where I am in the temperature range.

Hope this helps someone. I'm trying to avoid going with blending paraffin into my recipes but never say never, right?

I tried for months to get a good burn in a 4" apothecary with a single wick. CD, HTP, RRD, LX, and Zinc of every size and none of them could get all the way out to the edge satisfactorily. In addition, single wicking a jar that large makes getting the wick precisely centered very critical - drift a few millimeters off dead center and you get hang up on one side. Heaven forbid it be a jar type with corners at that point as well.

So after all that effort (I really did NOT want to double wick), I ended up going with a double wick setup and never looked back. I admit it, soy defeated me in my attempts at single wicking large diameter jars After I developed my Candle Target centering method, things have been much easier.

Alabaster has one called Hot Fudge Brownie that, despite the name, sells well as Hot Chocolate. I actually call mine Chocholic But it throws very well in GW464 soy wax.

Good heavens, its all so complicated .... I just take some of one FO and mix it with another till I get what I like Made Cranberry Peppermint the other day, 50/50 of each ... turned out pretty good

I'll be making some Cranberry Peppermint, Chocolate Mint, Butterscotch Amaretto, and Ribbon Candy this weekend.

If you like those Andes Mints, the Chocolate Mint is to DIE for!

Dawn:

Thanx but that's for storage/shipping/display .. I actually want to pour into this thing Thanx tho!

Really? Looks like wicking those things would be as much of a headache as tealights. What do you charge for them at retail? Looks like the jars cost $0.34 each (10 case quantity) so I'd be curious what they would go for.

In todays litigious society, anyone selling things to the public would be crazy to go without insurance unless you're SURE your customers can never find you again ;-) check out the insurance program through http://www.indiebeauty.com , it's for chandlers, soapmakers, etc

I would like to not make them ... thought I had left them behind when I quit using paraffin and my old metal votive molds. But I've got wholesale accounts that want them badly and I feel myself getting sucked down into the depths already..

BUT I won't do them if they're a PITA again, which is why I'm looking at using my same wax and those clamshell thingies. We'll see how it goes

Lol .. ok, I'll be the guinea pig on this one Next order I place for FO's I'll pick up a couple and some of the self-centering pre-tabbed wicks (LX16 yay!) and I'll give them a shot Stay tuned to this station .. further bulletins as events warrant

Oooh, thanx a bunch!

lol! You sound like me Once I get to "that point" in my frustration meter, all bets are off and hell hath no fury like a ticked off candlemaker

But if the 464 releases fine from the plastic tart clamshells, I can't think of a reason they wouldn't release from the same plastic votive clamshells, can you? I mean, same stuff both ways right?

Other than of course that it's not _meant_ to be a votive wax

464 seems to work dandy for tarts and votives are nothing more than container candles without the included containers - you don't burn votives without a votive holder anyway. Obviously the melt point is a little lower than we'd normally like for a votive but I don't know that it's a total show-stopper.

I haven't made votives for a long time since the molds were a PITA but I've been considering trying the votive clamshell molds - for some reason I get LOTS of requests for votives, mostly from wholesale accounts. Apparently customers want to try a cheap version before they commit to a larger container candle

Anyway, I'm looking for pitfalls of doing this. I don't really want to carry another wax just to make votives but it may come down to that I'm afraid.

Hi Everyone!

I'm looking to see if anyone knows of a clamshell mold that will make 6, 8, or even 12 votives at once. My normal supplier carries a small 2-votive clamshell but I've never seen anything larger.

Any assistance appreciated!

Rack up another vote on the GW464. Like Laura, I use it for containers and will be using it for clamshell tarts as well.

I leave mine on while I'm in my shop and working .. definitely unplug it when I leave tho

The use of "triple scented" in a product with only one scent just chaps my fanny....

Any wax type has a "saturation point" when it comes to how much FO it can bind with. Beyond that point the FO will just seep out and be wasted - throwing away your $$.

I always compare it to making sweet tea or kool-aid with real sugar - you add enough sugar and it will simply stop dissolving and settle to the bottom. At that point the water has reached its saturation point with respect to the sugar.

For someone to say theirs is triple-scented compared to mine, they would have to know how much FO I put in and since they don't know that, it's a bogus claim. As Stella rightly points out - a sales ploy.

Sadly the buying public still gets caught up in it ...

I'll vote for Alabasters French Vanilla ... throws in GW464 no problem

You'd have to clean out the Presto thoroughly. Whether that's worth the work involved (and the paper towels) is up to you That's precisely why I don't add FO or color, etc in my presto, since I don't want to have to clean it out