racolvin

It depends on how your business is set up to take orders. When I do fundraisers, which are admittedly few because I don't like to do them, I create a special discount code on my website. The fundraisers go out and promote the candles and give out that code, which people use to buy candles just like any other customer would. At the end of the fundraising period, say 2 or 3 weeks, I tally up all the orders that came in during that time that used that given code. I then give the fundraising organization an agreed upon percentage of the sales (not including taxes or shipping). Using that method means that the fundraisers (kids in many cases) never touch the money or the product - I get paid via the website as usual and I deliver/ship as usual, just like any other order. Which actually makes it really easy on both of us. I did the tally sheet thing once and I swore I'd never do it again. Oh and I forgot to mention - doing it this way means I get a receipt from the organization for a tax-deductible donation

Definite congrats! Free publicity is a good thing

My FO's come in plastic bottles that have pop-up squirt tops. I put a plastic party cup on my scale, zero it out, and then squirt FO into the cup until I have the right weight I need. I then just pour the FO into the waiting pour pot Even if your FO bottles don't have a squirt top tho, you can use the same method.

It makes perfect sense but the answer is: it depends My personal method is to put raw wax in the Presto for melting. When I'm ready to make a particular candle, I draw the amount of melted wax I need from the Presto (via spigot in my case) into a pour pot. I weigh the pour pot while I'm drawing the wax from the presto, so I know I have the right amount I need. I then add FO, Color, UV, and anything else I'm putting in the candle into the pour pot. I do my mixing and stirring in the pour pot and then when it gets to the right temperature, I pour it into my containers. Does that help at all?

I'm probably just a freak When I started candlemaking in '02, I went straight for the Presto Pot w/spigot. I stick as much raw wax in as it will hold, then draw off into a pour pot that I weighed n' tared first. I never used the double boiler method so I never had to deal with that side of things. I may try the custom blend thing in the future tho, so I'll have to figure some new processes for myself.

In that process, that makes perfect sense. The OP was being told to weight it yet again and that's the part I'm not getting. Doing it twice shouldn't be necessary unless there's something going on I'm missing.

I don't think it makes a difference whether you weight it before or after, depending on your process, I just can't see why the OP would want to weight it twice I'm not saying I'm right, just that I don't see it

Interesting, thank you for replying. I need to pull the MSDS' out and see how viscosity relates to all this.

All: We've all done various testing for our waxes, containers, wicks, FO's, combinations. I'm curious about other folks experience and how it compares to mine on this particular subject: How FO's affect wick selection. As you look at your FO's on the shelf, you'll notice some are very light in color, others are very dark. If we assume, for purposes of this discussion, that all FO's are sold by weight (not volume), I notice that the darker my FO's get, the heavier they are - as evidenced by the lower volume of the FO in comparable containers. For example, a new 2lb bottle of my Lavender FO (clear), is full to the brim, while my new 2lb bottle of Birthday Cake (very dark) is nowhere near the top of the same type of container. This observation leads me to the conclusion that the darker the FO, the more dense it is. I have not yet looked into how the viscosity relates to all this so for now I'll stick with talking about density. In going back through my notes, it seems that the darker (more dense) the FO, the more I have to wick up from my baseline. Baseline for this purpose is the wick I need to get a proper burn in the same container but with just the plain wax, no additives, FO, etc. Forget for a moment that the same scent from different manufacturers can look totally different in the bottle, does everyone else notice this same trend, or is it just me?

I can't for the life of me figure why you would weigh it before you melt it. I use a presto pot to keep a quantity of raw melted wax on hand while I'm working and I just scoop more into it as I draw some off via the spigot. That said, I most certainly DO weigh it as I draw it off into my pour/mixing pot, since that's where I'll add my FO, color, UV, etc.

There is an old saying that I am a personal believer in: Perception is reality. In our case, if a customer perceives, or is sold on the perception, that Something A is better than Something B, then that becomes their reality. We've seen this happen with the whole paraffin vs. veggie debate over and over but for this discussion I'd like to talk about glass and see how we feel about it. I personally do not like the thin glass jars used for container candles. Examples of these can be seen everywhere, Yankee included. To me they just feel like they'd shatter if I passed gas too close by them. Right or wrong, that's my perception. I use jars from Anchor Hocking which are a very heavy and thick-walled glass. I have no scientific basis for this perception, I just feel like the heavier/thicker ones would be less prone to heat stress, bumps during shipping, etc. Unfortunately my perception of quality glass also means that I pay more for them - I could get cheaper jars if I used ones from suppliers like Libby rather than Anchor. My reason for bringing this up is twofold: 1) Am I needlessly subjecting myself to higher materials costs for no good reason, and 2) is my mindset of the "heavier/thicker is better" total luncacy? Thoughts anyone?

Check with Keith@superiorgiftwrap. They can do printed bags in as few as 100 and single sided printing is cheaper than the both sides I wanted. Single sided custom bags were under $1 each

Don't mind at all The bags were done by www.superiorgiftwrap.com because they were the only one I could find that had both sizes of the bag in the same finish that had a low minimum quantity order AND would put the logo on both sides of the bag for a decent price. I got 1000 bags (500 of each size) for an average of $1.09 per bag, not including shipping or the one-time plate charge. Keith at Superiorgiftwrap was extremely nice to deal with and they got them done for me in right at 2 weeks.

Now that's a very interesting idea! I'll have to explore how to do that in my cart .. thanx a bunch!

Oh total bummer. One of these days we'll end up not being able to produce a single thing .. we'll be the geographic equivalent of "I'm more of an idea man .."

Oddly enough I didn't choose to change to soy for some sort of perceived difference in carcinogens, carbon footprints, etc. I could never find conclusive studies either way. The National Candle Association is no help, since the vast majority of their members are paraffin makers, distributors, and candle makers, they wouldn't say anything bad about paraffin even if it were true, for fear of pissing off the members Honestly I went with soy for two reasons: 1) economic - soy wax from my local supplier was WAY cheaper than paraffin waxes I used in the past, and 2) the less money I gave the international petroleum markets the better I liked it. By using soy wax I have a greater probability of helping out my US soybean farmers, since the wax I use is made from soybean oil here in the US. No guarantees of course since Golden Brands could get soybean oil from anywhere but I'd be willing to bet the vast majority of their soy oil comes from local farmers.

For those of you who work out of your house/garage like I do: How do you handle getting your product in the hands of your local customers? Do you ship them like you would an out-of-state order, or do you let them come to your home and pick them up? Some have stated that they'll deliver to a customer for no-charge, if they happen to be in the area at the time on other errands but obviously if someone orders from an area you don't normally go to, you'd have to get them the product some other way. I added a Local Delivery option that I charge $4 for, which is cheaper than shipping but helps offset my gas/auto costs. My home business permit from the city prohibits me from letting customers come to my home to pick stuff up, unless it isn't noticeable by the neighbors If lots of traffic started showing up I could get in trouble. So how do the rest of you handle it?

hehe ... hey I had to go back and re-read it myself when you said it earlier - thought I had put something in there I wasn't supposed to I don't have a storefront where my customers can come to me so I almost had to offer the delivery service. Local customers really didn't want to pay for huge shipping costs just to go across town, which was affecting my sales. Frankly I couldn't blame them. I'm not sure how the others who work from home do it, though I know a few that deliver if they happen to be in the area on other errands, etc. Speaking of which, I may start a new thread on that .. thanx for the idea

Sharyl: I dunno what gave you the idea that the Local Delivery was free cause it certainly doesn't say that However, local delivery is cheaper than shipping it and has the added bonus of showing up in a nice bag, etc. I charge $4 for local delivery and the cheapest shipping option is UPS Ground which is around $7 or $8. There's no way I could afford to do the local delivery for free, given the costs of the packaging and the price of gas these days, but I wanted to offer a cheaper alternative to shipping for my local customers. I very much want to keep my business local and avoid shipping across the country if I can, so I try to make it more attractive for my local population. As for seminars, it would be the blind leading the blind I'm afraid In my case I would have to say I'm an example of the old saying "even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while" ;-)

As a man and an engineer trying to make and sell a product to women, getting the right marketing, packaging, etc is hard work I want to go for a classy, high-end look but it had to be something my male brain could deal with while being "female friendly". I'm still working at it but golly you ladies can be hard to figure out sometimes

I'm not certain this is so much a "centering" tool as it is a "keep it upright during pouring/cooling" tool. Once I glue down my tabs in the center of the jar, I use potato chip clips to keep mine upright and tight for the pouring/cooling process.

I finally got some good shots of my custom gift bags to put on my website and I thought I would share with the group http://www.madisoncandleworks.com/personal_products.html So far my customers are loving these new bags as my "packaging" for local deliveries. I'm slowly getting a hang of the idea that marketing and branding are just as important as a clean burning candle when it comes to making the sale Note to Mods: I wasn't sure what section to post this in, so I went here. If I'm in the wrong spot, feel free to move it with my apologies

You could also try http://www.sunshinecontainer.com They have lots of display and packaging things as well.

DAMN fine intro there Lindsay. I wish someone had explained it that clearly way back when I was learning it

Any customer, wholesale or otherwise, needs to be told that frosting is just part of the soy experience - it is not a flaw and it is not grounds for a refund or discount. You can certainly go with what Carrie suggested - no color. Frosting will still occur and if you look closely you can see it, it's just not as blatantly obvious. You could go with frosted jars that would hide the effect. Or you could go with a crock or some sort of container that isn't clear glass on the sides. Lastly, you could consider going with a soy-paraffin blend that would get rid of the frosting. All up to you and how you want to run your business