caryfh

I have been searching all over trying to find a duplicate for the fragrance oil/essential oil used in the American Crew lotion. A friend of mine was wanting some lotion in this particular scent and I cannot seem to find it anywhere. The closest I came was when I found someone with a listing showing... "Citrus Mint for Men - Dupe of the American Crew fragrance. Lime and Orange Essential Oils blended with peppermint and spearmint." but I contacted the person to see where they had acquired this oil and they said they concocted it themselves. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Nevitt Fragrance in Dallas, TX just did one for me. I had to send them 1 oz of the FO and the fee was $250 for the reverse formulation. Minimum order after they completed it (can take a few weeks to months) was 8 pounds.

I use Quickbooks Premier. Had been using QuickBooks Pro, but wanted the ability to track inventory and use that inventory to build items with my inventory which was only available by moving from Pro to Premier. I really like it. Especially the Snapshots it gives me of how I'm doing in comparison to last year.

She should have something like a reseller's certificate that she could provide a copy of to you in case you wanted to have something to put with your other tax paperwork to be on the safe side. It's the same thing that local suppliers would need from you if you were trying to avoid paying sales tax on supplies you purchase.

Honey naturally preserves itself, probably because there is so much natural sugar in it any free water is tied up. Sort of like how companies can use sugar and salt to tie up free water in their products to preserve the shelf-life. But honey, cannot be used to preserve other items. Perhaps the woman at the show was confused by information she had received. Honey is naturally preserved, not a "natural preservative". And even in that statement there are issues, I mean there is a reason why they don't recommend feeding it to children under the age of 1 - but of course at this moment I cannot recall what it was that could be present in the honey.

I use Quickbooks for my business, and I would say I'm as satisfied with it as you can be with a merchant account. I use Quickbooks for my accounting software, so initially I used the Quickbooks merchant account that you process through Quickbooks. Then I moved on and was using their service that processes cards directly through my website. And I added onto that with the GoPayment service - which is the swiping device you can connect to your smartphone. They have a monthly service fee - which they typically wave when your account is new. And then they have % rates that are charged when a credit card is swiped, or entered on the website. The thing to be aware of is that there are different rates based upon whether the cards are swiped or manually entered. A swiped card has less chance of input error, so the rates are lower for those, but not by much.

Your soaps are so beautiful. I especially love the blending in the one with the 2 shades of green, I think it was mint? Just curious, what Owosso? I don't make soap, so maybe it's just a soaping thing, but I'm always looking for new molds for creating wax embeds.

Has anyone ever heard of/smelled this scent and/or come across a good duplicate? I have a customer who is wanting something in this scent. She found this description for it "A fresh and clean fragrance that starts with Crisp Bergamot that transforms into Melon Rind and Green Floral notes ending with Bamboo Woods" I couldn't say that I've come across anything of this sort, so I thought this board was a good place to start. Thanks in advance for any leads anyone might have.

I would have to dig deeper to see the exact regulation for organic. While I'm sure that there are organic soybean farmers out there, it seems as though they would more be using their crops for food purposes as opposed to creation of soy wax. Also, I would wonder whether the processing (hydrogenation) that occurs to convert the oil into a wax flake would remove the ability to consider it organic. Might be a question that could be answered by USDA.gov as I think that's where I've looked up info regarding organic claims in the past. Sorry I don't have a clear cut answer for this one. Hoping someone will weigh in that does know the regulations.

Oh thank you so much!! Have the aroma beads, but hadn't used them for anything so I guess I sort of forgot all about them. The beads would work great since I'm not actually going to be at the parties, it was more for putting together a little kit for those who wanted to offer parties. And it's for the body butter, lotion, sugar scrub, etc., that for the most part does not have the same scent as the candles. Thanks again.

Sorry, I guess I should clarify. I'm good on the containers for this purpose, I was just hoping someone could suggest something they mixed their FO's in that seemed to hold the scent for quite sometime that I could then put in my sample containers. It's doesn't necessarily have to be something they would use on their body, just needs to be able to keep the scent strong for a long time so that I'm not constantly having to make new batches every couple of months. But thanks for the suggestion of containers mzphee as I do like the one with the little compacts pictured, but would need to find something to put in those that wouldn't fall out if the tester opened it to smell it and got clumsy.

I have been putting together some sets of supplies for a handful of people who want to offer parties with my products. I was curious what other use when they are providing sample scents. With my candles it's easy as I just put together a set of smaller candles, so they can smell the candles while also seeing the containers that some of them come in. With the body products I'm unsure how I really want to do this. Thus far I've been combining the FO with dendritic salt and then I put this into little lip balm-sized containers that have an insert that rotates open or closed. While this works okay for now, I would really like to find some sort of base or medium that I can combine with the FO that will hold the scent longer than the salts seem to. Any ideas? I don't want to do air freshner paper as this seems to die out quickly too.

I believe the UPC code has to be different for each version of the product you wish to sell. So each color of the same style melter would have its own UPC code. You might also want to see if you can get an exemption regarding the UPC codes - there is a place on there to request this - although it does seem to take some time for a decision to be made (I filed a request for this about 5-6 weeks ago and still haven't gotten a response). I think the only drawback to using the UPC codes from the places on the internet is that instead of someone looking up the code in a directory and seeing your particular company listed, it will instead show the company you purchased the UPC codes from as the "owner" of that code. Hope that helps a little.

Try looking for IPM not "IPG", but I get mine from Lotioncrafter.com - I'm not sure where you are located so you may have a closer supplier that offers it. Lotioncrafter is up here in Washington, which means it only take 1 day for it to get to me, and cheap shipping for such a short distance.

Thanks Everybody!!! I feel so much better today! Time to start formulating. I think what helped was when I started to envision my final product - and how the components and look of it is something I could picture anyone desiring, not to mention the fantastic benefits of using it!! I figured I just needed to sleep on it, and let all that information I compiled sink in so I can make use of it today - instead of feeling like I was walking around in a fog. Glad to know we all go thru it at some point. And I totally agree that it is truly the sign of perfectionism and attention to detail as the self-doubt makes us work just a little bit harder to make sure no one who tries our items will have once second of buyer's remorse.

I am just using pure IPM and mixing it with the fragrance oil or essential oil in a ratio that is the same as what others have been using with their diffuser base. I think it works great! The best part is that it doesn't have that rubbing alcohol-ish scent that some of the other bases I tried seemed to possess. It had no scent at all so it just carries whatever I put in it. I'm not all that familiar with the California regulations, so perhaps someone else can help with that.

Does anybody else go thru that horrible period of self-doubt when they start researching a formulating a new product? When you start looking over all the material available on the ingredients you want to use and you suddenly start feeling like you know nothing, simply because you are faced with an overwhelming amount of information? I sure do. Suppose I should move forward and get to formulating and testing, which is when my self-confidence kicks back in.

Wow, thank you to all of you for all the help on this. We are hoping to be able to stay put in Washington State, but if we have to move then it would be to the area near Jacksonville. I had contacted the state licensing agency which referred me to their agriculture department for the regulations - but I hadn't gone there to read up yet. I truly don't mind jumping through a lot of hoops, since I've already established that side of my business and would hate to give it up, but I could certainly see people not wanting to start up a business in that realm if there was a lot of regulations. I just feared from what I had heard that it wasn't possible... but then the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there must be some way to do it as companies do not became gigantic entities overnight, and had to start in a little studio somewhere. Thanks so much!! Hopefully we don't have to move, but if we do at least I know that I don't have to throw away all my years of hard work.

My military husband came home yesterday to inform me that a move may be in our near future. I am anticipating this may be to Florida. So I started trying to find information online about whether Florida has specific regulations for candle and bath & body companies aside from obtaining a business license. I have found the Florida licensing website, but then thought I might try here to see if anyone presently operates out of Florida and could give any input or advice. Thanks so much! ~Cary P.S. The thought of packing up my entire shop to move has my eye starting to twitch already, seriously dreading that activity.

I saw one the other day, and now I'm trying to remember what size it was. I think it came in some sort of push up tube and was maybe 1-2 ounces. I honestly would guess that most of their expense went into decorating the box that the paperboard tube comes in. I never asked the price, but never in a million years would have thought that they were going for $18! That is ridiculous!

I have scent descriptions for each scent along with the other parts of each product description. For items like wedding/party favors, though I have each scent organized into color categories so the customer could see what scent would smell appropriate with the color of wax they were wanting. If they see a scent name that looks interesting to them, they can click on the scent and a small pop-up window gives them a description of the scent. This way they could easily sit on the same page while browsing each scent if they wanted. you can check it out here www.westroadcandles.com/7.html as I know my description here wasn't so great.

In an attempt to educate myself, though, I have come across conflicting information. One source says that an EO is fine, while another says to avoid it. I asked at New Direction Aromatics whether a particular EO was safe during pregnancy and the customer service rep said they put a caution on all of their EO's to avoid during pregnancy. Then I began to wonder whether perhaps they were listing this as advice because some people might be ingesting the EO's - which would make sense to steer clear, but would be a whole different story than using them just for topical applications. Prime example... Mederma for stretch marks contains Onion Bulb Essential Oil - now according to the New Directions website, it says avoid allium cepa during pregnancy, however they are using it in an application that is typically targeted at pregnancy women, and it does not carry a warning for pregnant women to avoid using it.

This may have already been asked, and if so please point me towards the post. I was curious if anyone has come across a list of Essential Oils that are generally recognized as safe (GRAS) for use during pregnancy. It seems like some suppliers indicate not to use any EO's during pregnancy, but I can't tell if that is because they want to protect themselves or if there really is a reason to avoid all of them.

I do use the 80, and the % I use would be different than what you use since my recipe is different, so I would just play around with it until you get a consistency you like.

If you are trying to get it creamy, why not add a butter to the equation? I personally don't use either of those ingredients, so I can't add an opinion either way, but will say that I use Polysorbate in mine and it works wonderfully.