Starr

How about something like "Winter Pastry"? Dried fruits and nuts are often associated with the cooler months.

Good to know.

Hm. I guess from the outside looking in I always figured that the seam work was the hardest part. Admittedly, I've made exactly 1 garment in my life and it was so agonizing to me that I swore I'd never do it again. I remember the sewing machine that I used doing most of the work with the buttonholes and I hand sewed the buttons on so it just didn't seem that hard to me. Then again, that was some of the last of the work I did on it so maybe I was just grateful to be done with the project and that's why I remember it to be so easy.

I got my soap mold on ebay from MrDoRight. It's acrylic not wood so that may not help you much. As for carrier oils, I get most of mine from Soaper's Choice in Chicago and I'm always happy with them. I don't remember off the top of my head where WSP is but they do a lot of carrier oils. There's a supplier database you can check into that's separated by state. I think it's up in the General Candle Forum but it'll show soap suppliers too.

Do we have any? One that might be willing to make something slightly risque? (Only slightly... I promise!) I'm in desperate need of a fairly simple project, or at least it would be if you have more knowledge of sewing than I do. I'm looking for a roughly knee-length black shirt dress that buttons all the way up and down the front, made from at least slightly stretchy material with elbow length sleeves and white for the cuffs and collar. I can send photos of what I'm looking for and measurements (warning, I AM plus-sized). I would like it ASAP (preferably in the next 6 weeks). Please PM me if you think you could do this and give me a rough estimate on how much it would cost. (Not sure if this needs to go to the classies, sorry in advance mods if this needs to be moved.)

I was really excited to try theirs but it just wasn't what I was looking for.

Blends are a lot of fun to play with. I have one that I did last fall for the Halloween swap that's got Patchouli in it but I'm pretty sure the particular type of patchouli is no longer available and I haven't tried it with another type yet. Other than that, my current "OMG!" is CS's Oakmoss & Amber. No significant Patchouli notes but it does make an amazing perfume and is fairly gender neutral. Some other musky/earthy types of stuff that I like is AH's Incense. It's the closest (and nearly identical at that) to this amazing Dragon's Blood that I used to get. It's definitely got some of what you're describing. Fall scents are favs of mine and rarely limited to just fall but I think those two might be a good place to start for what you're looking for.

I'd try calling them. I've dealt with C&S face-to-face and over the phone many times and found them pretty easy to work with even the one time I did have a problem. I'm fairly certain they have a toll-free number on their website (or did the last time I was on it). Let them know that you're not happy with the quality on account of what looks like outright rust and possible oxidation. Maybe you'll get better results that way.

If you can manage it, try lowering your FO amount, that should at least lessen the green, you may be able to use smaller amounts of the additives or colors suggested with less problems in burning. I suppose you could also try some white beeswax, that's pretty opaque stuff, it may help color your wax more white, it'll probably mean test burning to get your wicking right.

I'd love to try doing an ice candle with a core. I made several attempts at doing one without and whereas it was a beautiful candle it never survived unmolding. I think I've just got too much of a bad taste in my mouth to start that whole mess from scratch again.

What's your recipe? Maybe we can put our collective heads together and try and figure this out.

I bought a couple of FO's to try from them once and wasn't overly impressed. Fast shipping but I'm not TOO far from them. IIRC I tried a strawberry and a pink grapefruit. Both smelled great in the bottle but once I tried using them... eh.

Nope, no oil on top and it colors beautifully.

You needed to keep mixing hon. I have Sweet Moon from sockmonkey, does that to me all the time. It seizes hard as a rock, I pull out a rubber spatula and do my very best to keep it moving, within about a minute or two it loosens back up on me and then I keep going like it were any other batch. I'm willing to bet you needed to do something similar.

I stopped trying to use whatever I could find handy, waiting for friends to make it for me, and a half a dozen other things that just didn't work. Earlier this year I broke down and bought some molds from MrDoRight. http://myworld.ebay.com/mrdoright123/?_trksid=p4340.l2559

I had a supplier once give me the wrong 'grade' of oils as she put it. The incorporated fine in B&B and she swore to me that they were fine in B&B (we did use some in some soap and lotions without a problem) but whatever was in them was a disaster whenever we tried to make a candle. We'd end up with this somewhat slimy bottom that never fully incorporated. When I wrote to her and told her what the problem was she told me she must've accidentally sent me the wrong grade of oil and that what I had was fine in B&B but unusable in candles. I never bothered pressing her further about it since she replaced all the FO's and the B&B stuff we made we kept just for us in case there was a problem down the line with it but there are FO's that will not work in candles.

Sounds interesting, my mom's always on my butt that she *LOVES* handmade soap but goes through it too quickly. It's just not hard enough... *RME whatever mom. I think half of it is a ploy to keep herself in constant supply of new soaps. Anyway... any ideas on how this would work with babaseu instead of coconut?

:tiptoe:*Is so glad to be a cat owner*:tiptoe:

Can't say I know what's causing your problem but I do like the crackly effect, it reminds me of stone. Not sure how well it will hold up to use but it is nice.

Okay, I started using this recipe over a year ago, used to use it with Coconut Oil but switched over to Babassu a few weeks ago as I now have a Coconut allergy in the house and it was making me squicky. No problem, I plugged the new oil into SoapCalc and it actually said that in a lot of ways the change would improve the recipe. Yay! Anyway, so I made a batch with the new recipe, it's beautiful (I really should post pics). Well, then I decided that a 1.5lb batch would fit in my mold better so I re-calculated the recipe to accommodate the extra half pound. The numbers all seemed like they matched and I made the soap. So now admittedly, the first batch I made was a custom blend of FO's and I know those can cause weirdness. I wasn't terribly surprised when the soap acted funny (I'll explain 'funny' in a minute). Did another batch, this time it was Southern Soaper's Dragon's Blood, acted funny again. Okay, maybe that FO is just weird in soap. Decided to go for one more batch, this time it was one of the Amber Scents I picked up recently, I believe from Peaks (I hate when the memory trolls beat me about the head). Again, it just acted funny. Now, let me explain 'funny'. I did all of these as CPHP, my new favorite way to soap. I add the FO at trace, what seems to be happening is something, not sure exactly what though it does seem to have a slight zap to it so I'm assuming it's my lye solution comes leeching out of this soap insanely fast. I tend to wrap my molds in these old ugly beach towels and I can usually leave it folded in quarters and still get all the way around the mold at least once, usually if I'm careful about it 1.5 times. The last time I did a batch, all 4 layers of towel was SOAKED and lucky enough I left it sitting on a glass top table because there was liquid all over the table. The recipe I'm using is as follows: Babassu Oil 20% Castor Oil 20% PKO 15% RBO 20% Shea Butter 5% Sunflower Oil 20% The only reason I'm thinking something is off is because a 1lb batch works just fine but all 3 times I tried to go at 1.5lb something went wrong. Planning on doing a batch today at 1lb w/Peaks MidSummer's Night, going to see how that goes. I should also add that I did cut and am curing all of the batches that acted funny and whereas they aren't zapping me when I handle them, the texture is vastly different then what I'm used to. It's very crumbly and much more prone to cracking then I've ever had a soap be. Any thoughts?

I've done more with MP in the past than I'm doing now. These days I've found a few scents that I love too much not to have in soap but they just don't process well, so it's MP or nothing. Another point for the MP side is that it's generally much more accepting of FO's. That aside, I've bought all the different bases (GM, Shea, Cocoa, White, Clear, etc... etc...) I typically stick with a clear and a white. Both will accept ingredients pretty easily and then I have a more... uhm, plain (for lack of a better term) base to work with. That's my opinion, do with it what you will.

The effect is beautiful, I'd love to know where to get it/how to do it.

I tend to use rubbing alcohol a lot when I'm making B&B, I started using it because it cut through the oils I was using but have noticed that it does pretty effectively kill any FO's I get on my hands. The downside is then you're hands are REALLY dry from the alcohol, but when I'm doing B&B it gives me a really good excuse to try out whatever I was making.

Melting the wax on the wick is pretty common in my experience. As for a quick, hot heat vs. a slower, cooler heat, you're likely better off with the slower heat. It does take a little longer but when you melt the wax the FO comes into play, if you heat the wax too hot, you can burn off your FO so I would use the 'slow and steady' approach to help preserve your FO for your customers to enjoy. HTH

That sounds horrific. I hate when businesses drop the ball like that. I don't know that I'd put the whole blame about the late refund in her court though. From a few years of working for a large bank I know that whereas *MOST* refunds post within 5 business days, it can take up to 30 business days regardless of what the merchant or the bank do. It's all up to Visa/Mastercard/whichever CC company services your account.