CandleLytes

nope. Me neither.

Fingernails are little white cracks sometimes just in one spot, sometimes in many. Mine always seem to happen at the top of my wax, all the way around. Not to mention freakin' frost marks!!!! LOL... it's going to be so nice not having this headache anymore. Woohoo!!!! I'm free!!! I'm free!!!!!

Poured 4 soy candles last night and I want to cry right now. 2 had fingernails and frost marks (despite all the additives that "claim" they will prevent these) and hours and hours of testing and hoping the candle "turns out right". And two cracked. Talked to some of my customers who have been return customers and asked them how they will feel if I go to paraffin candles. All said they wouldn't care, they just like my candles. So that's what I am going to do. Might daddle in para-soy some time in the future but not for awhile. Thanks for listening.

I still haven't heard anything and I am really frustrated right now. No... that's not right... I am totally pissed off! I'm trying to keep a level head, they are business owners just as we are but... I need consistentcy. My candles need to smell the same. At least if they knew their oils were changing they could have told us in advance so I could alert my customers or look for a oil from another supplier. Awwwrrrgh!

Woohoo! A friend of my sister's owns a coffee shop here in town and my sister took her a candle. Well she wants 3 cases of my 4 oz. jar and 3 cases of my mason jars. Never thought this would happen. Espcially so soon after I actually got the process down! I'm dancing on stars right now! She is going to push them out before Thanksgiving. No pressure, right? LOL. I'm so happy

I had some soy that was giving me the worse time ever. I have had issues in the past but this time frost was 100 times worse and hardly ever got smooth tops. I bought this slab on the 5th of September so it wasn't that old. But it sat outside (it was divided into ziploc bags) for about a month or so because my house caught fire and I had other things to take care of. But it was not in the rain or anything. Just bought a new slab today and it has been good to me. Really good to me. Which is nice. So..... does it go bad if it isn't used right away? Is there way to prevent it if so?

I have a 16 oz. round jar that I recently started making candles in. CD20 seems to do ok in the thing but there is some hang up on the jar. I wouldn't care if I could see through it because that usually melts but I can't. I am going to try to go up to CD22 but I am also wanting to try CDN wicks. Am I just pre-banging my head on the wall? Should I just go ahead and double wick it? For some reason I am not to keen on dbl wicked jars. Opinions welcome.

Nothing yet but like you said, I am sure they are busy. I am a patient person... most of the time.

I don't. My Dig. Camera burnt up in my house fire in September. Plan to get one for my B-day next week. Anyway, what I did was set teh jar in the middle of the tissue paper then folded the paper upwards and kind of twisted it as I did it. I tied the ribbon around the neck of the jar then cut of the extra sticking out paper so it didn't look ugly. I twisted the paper a little more to get a "swirl" look. Applied my "new" label and there ye have it! I will do another and find some way to take a pic.

Emailed them this morning so we'll see what type of response I get. I have always, ALWAYS, had good FO's from them in the past and would never bad mouth them. I am just concerned because although a little variation may not matter that much, these bottles I got this week are a HUGE difference and I am not willing to deliver the candles to my customers and say "It smells different than the last ones you bought but... there's not much I can do." that just doesn't work for me. i will let you know if/when I get a response.

this is before I put it in the wax. I know you can't go by the FO in the bottle how it's going to smell in the end result, but these three are like I said, no where near what I thought they should smell like. Asked some co-workers to smell them because I thought it was my nose and they said they are "different". I have Mexican Vanilla and love it! One of my most requested scents by far! Maybe it's just us... I don't know.

Anyone else have issues with their scents not smelling like they are suppose to? BEFORE they are added to the wax? Almost every scent I have gotten from them in the last week has not smelled like it should. Gingerbread Pumpkin Pie Banana Nut Bread All 3 of these smell nothing like what they should.

I already posted a very similiar post like this in the veggie section because posted it was about hiding frost marks or ugly spots on soy candles. I talked to a fellow candle maker who said frost marks or not, she dresses up her candle by wrapping it in decorative tissue paper, and securing it with a matching ribbon or raffia. The tissue paper doesn't go all the way up the jar so there is no worry of it catching on fire. I had a candle for my aunt that just did not want to behave, went out and bought some halloween printed tissue, wrapped the jar and tied it off with a orange cloth ribbon. She came to pick it up about 20 minutes ago. She loved it! I told her she could take the tissue off if she wanted and she said "Hell no! That gives it character!" Just a help hint if you were having trouble like I was or looking for something "different"

I was talking to a friend of mine who is also a candle maker and she doesn't care about the frost marks because she disguises them! She takes some wrapping tissue paper (the kind you use in gift bags and such) and twists it a bit as she wraps it up around her jar, ties a pretty ribbon around the candle to secure the paper (she never puts the paper above the widest part of the jar) and adds her label. Says she got the idea from wine bottles. Her customers love it! She tells the people they can either remove the paper or leave it there (again, the paper is not even close to the opening of the jar so there is no fire hazard). What do you think? I get paid on Thursday and will be trying this out. I bet you could get really creative too, because they have so many designs on the paper....

I just moved all the prices of my candles up .75. In a few weeks I will up them a little more. Thanks for the advice from everyone. I appreciate it. And the smell is WONDERFUL. I even made some of the candles for myself. Considering making it my "scent of the month" for November.

I bought a heat gun today (yay) and I tried to get rid of my frost marks on a pure soy candle. I heated the jar until the wax was liquid on the outer edges and had to reset. Was this wrong? If so, how long do you heat your frosted candles to get rid of the "majority" of the marks? I say majority because on the advice of many on here I also bought Print Master Delux, and will use labels to hide most of the marks.

I am in the prcoess of designing some candle labels which I hope will camflauge the frost marks for the most part. So people really don't mind a para-soy candle as to a soy candle? That's my worry. Now I am having a new problem. I recently moved and ever since when I pour a candle, after it sits for about 24 hours it has what looks like a crack around the top of the candle where the wax maeets the jar. What is it? Sometimes it isn't even either, may go down the candle about 1/4"

All you all for using pure soy, or do you use a para-soy blend? If you use para-soy, do you make your own or buy one from a company? The reason I am asking I have just about had it with the soy wax I am using. These frost marks are killing me.

He just laughed at my post to u btw. LOL.

SharonA you really need to keep your opinions to yourself......... JUST KIDDING... ONLY KIDDING..... really. You just won my boyfriend's argument for him. LOL. I really was only kidding by the way. Hopefully you didn't take me seriously. I have been dabating with him about the prices of my jars. I wanted to stay low because I know times are hard and the economy is bad, but he says if people want a better burning candle they will pay the price. he told me to ask other chandlers and they would agree with him. LOL. I hate it when he is right. It happens way too often......

I donated two candles at my work this week for our weekly auction. The money is then donated to Children's Miracle Network. Anyway, the two candles were Eggnog and Pumpkin Pie Spice chunk candles. One was Pumpkin Pie Spice orange chunks with cream Eggnog over pour and the other was the opposite, white eggnog chunks with PPS over pour. They were 12 oz Mason jar candles which I normally sell at 6.99 each. I was just called by my friend who said both candles sold at $17 each to two different people, That feels so good! I am the only one who makes candles in our area and people have begun banging down my door! My phone never stops ringing! This year will be the first I do a craft show for the holidays and I am so excited! Thanks for listening!

I was talking to a lady at a craft show this morning who makes soy candles. Didn't reveal to her I made candles but asked about how she makes them smell so good. She told me she uses 9% FO (I told her I didn't know what 9% meant, LOL, so she went on the explain the process of adding FO to wax) in all her candles, which is more than most use. I never use that in my pure soy! At the most I use 7%. I tried that much when I first started doing this and got huge mushrooms. What do you all think. Is this the norm? Should I try it? It just made me think maybe I am the one out of the loop, not her.

Let me add that if I was a normal customer and not a candle maker, I would have been quite pleased with this woman's candle I used in my example. I was in no way, shape or form critisizing her candle. I was shocked because how similiar mine was to hers, and that's a good thing. Just had to add that.

I did the same thing. I was feeling a little insecure about my candles. I am really, REALLY hard on myself and try to get as close to perfection as I can. So I had some extra money and bought some candles from a few other candle makers. There is one I bought from a person on here and let me tell you, although she makes it seem like on here that her candles are 110% perfect, it is not at all what I expected. In fact, you can hardly tell the difference between my candle and hers, other than the scent, which I don't have. A friend of mine came in and asked how I made that candle and I said I didn't. even she couldn't tell the difference but she said I dress my up a little more. She told me she would buy both candles and doesn't care much about the packaging, but wants the scent and performance to be good. Maybe it's 50/50. Some care about the name, others care that it smells good and burns good. All I care is that people buy my candles, and they do. I love those words "I want another candle" LOL.

I thought about making them too! I wasn't sure of what program to buy. I have Paint on my computer by default but it's really generic. What paper do you use? And is there a program that is more easier to design them? Paint Shop Pro or something like that? I researched Candle Labels and there are a couple of companies that make them but they are spendy and I am not sure I like the idea of having to wait for them to come in the mail after ordering them. It's less hassle to make them...