Caramel

Well, I bought Red Hot Cinnamon from CSci and compared it to Wellington and I found that the CSci was more "spicer" than "candy-like" (I also bought Cinnamon Stick, which was cool and I am thinking of mixing the two, to see if I like it, or sticking with one).

HTH

Do you think I could use the C3 I have? I am not using it and it will just go to waste, otherwise.

Maybe shrink wrap?

That is soooo cruel! *LOL*

OMG! I bought smaller CD wicks (I think it was 10-16?). I SO hope I will not be sorry... will have to check when they get here.

ECO wicks have not worked for me in this wax, burns too hot or drowns out.

Ivy Honesuckle is also a blend using English Ivy (love!).

I am not selling (newbie in testing phase), but I have been testing blends with Q-tips and tins while waiting on my wick delivery.

Not to give away the ratios, but I have mixed the following:

Gardenia/Strawberry

Coconut/Lime/Violet

Rose/Lilac/Honeysuckle/Hyacinth (named after my company that I plan to open... one day!)

Honeysuckle/Jasmin/Amber

Mind you, not all of the ingredients are mentioned (I got to keep SOME mystery). But I got rave reviews for them when I did tealight samples to my testers (they look for scent strength and if it smells great hot and cold).

You guys are good, changing out the scents with the seasons. I would just have them all available, but then, I like getting what I want year round (I do florals in winter).

Well, I used Asian Amber from Candle Science that made a great fragrance mix (and I use GB 464, too).

i know they do:

http://www.jarstore.com/catalog/product_cat.php?subid=23

What is FCO? I was trying my hand at perfume making, but could not figure out how to make it last longer.

Thanks!

ETA: Is that Coconut oil?

I forgot to take "before" pics, but I burned them and I am a bit disappointed. Me nor the Warden can smell them! And the wicks were either off or too small. There is a bit of hangup on the sides.

The cold throws were amazing and the packaging outstanding, but- after reading posts here- the hot throw is not what I expected from a high priced candle (the Tahitian Gardenia was ok).

Bugtussle- Illume's candles are lovely... I really love their packaging (as mentioned above), but so is Pacifica.

ETA: to report that the Illume tins and one of the Pacifica's caught up.

Here are some more vendors:

http://www.uline.com/BL_203/Drawstring-Bags?desc=Drawstring+Bags

http://www.pluspackaging.com/poly-bags.html

Great looking soaps!

I have to post pics, but I bought a three mini-candle gift set from Pacifica and two travel tins from Illume (I was NOT paying $20 something for the status jar).

They all smell great, but I noticed something on the Pacifica. I will wait until I get home to check for sure, but it looks like the candle was glued into the holder (eventhough it is a container/timbler candle). Now, before you say, "No one would do that", I also saw this done in a Paperchase candle (or that is what it looked like when the WHOLE candle fell out of the container- as if it was a votive instead of a 20 oz container candle!). Now, like I said, I could be wrong, but the wick was not attached to that candle (it was totally smooth on the bottom), so I will check the Pacifica... eventhough it is adhering to its glass.

I also noticed that the Illume mentions that it is not 100% soy, but a soy/paraffin blend. I kinda respect that they state this and inform the customer who may nitpick over it.

I also FLOVED the Pacifica packaging (for the sets). I like researching packaging (to get ideas/insipiration); they proved that an idea I had is possible to do. I also like the Illume packaging on their website for the smaller tumblers.

Ok, enough rambling... just wanted to share. Will be testing them all week for burn and scent. I figure these are some of the people I want to be comparable to, when I am successful with getting my candles together and start selling.

Welcome aboard!

Pardon my ignorance, but what constitutes a power burn? I tried looking this up and came up with nothing.

Thanks and sorry for hijacking!

coffeebean i've never heard of an lx 37? do they really come that big?

caramel, whose scents do you use? i've had really good results with the eco wicks. i use candle science FOs. in the beginning when i didn't get a good burn/throw, i would increase the wick size. then one day i tried two sizes in two testers of the same FO, load, jar, dye, everything the same, and the smaller wick actually worked better, the bigger one choked. i think it was burning too much oil and got clogged. i'm really not sure, but i've wicked down on most things and get a better, longer, "throwier" (ok, so i made up a word ) burn. might be worth a try.

anyway, good luck whatever you decide to do!

Hi! I have used scents from CSci (I did a blend that smells GREAT hot and cold, but burned too hot- I used their wick guide). I have also used scents from Wellington. I posted my test burn pics and they were buring too quickly, even when I wicked down... or the flame drowned out (did four jars, two sizes with different wicks in each). It was a bit frustrating.

I have ordered some CD, HTP (both WSP) and CSN (CSci) wicks to try and see if I get any luck. But I will definately keep in mind to keep trying the ECOs in different fragrances/sizes.

I am not having any luck with ECO and 464; buring too hot or not at all (drowning out). I am trying to get some CDs.

I did a floral blend, just to test, and it was very light, airy and definately a floral. But then, my vanilla was already a blend. I ended up mixing equal parts of three scents (which were blends, themselves)... but there was definately more florals/woodsy amber notes than vanilla.

Sorry, I think I am now confused. I was responding about the wicks.

Sorry if I misunderstood.

Funny, Stella! Yeah, "Candle in a Box" type jars are what I am NOT going for. *lol*

All candle wicking is soaked in some stuff to make it burn nicely instead of going pooft when you light it up. Sometimes the exact same wick is treated in more than one way to create different versions that work better in different applications. That's the deal with CD vs. CDN.

Stuff like stearic acid or certain fragrance oils in the candle mixture can cause wicks to deteriorate too quickly or otherwise perform badly when burning. The treatment that CDN gets helps it work better in these circumstances. You may see suppliers selling LX wick with the NST2 treatment, which is the same idea.

None of this has anything to do with the priming wax. The wax coating is not part of the wick. It's added by a distributor or supplier as a service to customers.

The way a wick performs is a combination of the wick design and the candle design. Until you put the two together, there's no telling what will happen. There can be a dramatic performance difference between CD and CDN or no difference at all, depending on the circumstances. You can't generalize about it. Same goes for LX with and without the NST2 treatment.

Wick test data doesn't tell you a whole lot about what to expect, because the test conditions have nothing to do with your candle. CD 14 is a bigger wick than CD 12. To know how they work in your application, you just have to try them.

Yes, the wax was showing frost- sorry if that was not clear.

The Paficia (tumbler) candles did look a bit better, but still had wet spots. But then, the Illume candles were bigger and in staus jars, but the tins had the frost on top (tops not on properly, etc.).

I plan on buying a few to test how they look after burning. I felt better when I saw the tops.

Stella- you scare me, woman. *L* More information to take in...

So, I was in Borders today and saw some Illume and Pacifica candles. They looked nice and smelled great, then I noticed some tins were frosting, possibly from people removing the lids and not replacing them in addition to being near a drafty area; and the jars had some wet spot issues.

And I thought of you guys. I always find myself laughing when I notice things like this (even when I see jewelry in places like NY&Co and The Limited).

This leads me to wonder: can you be responsible for this if a store does not display or store your product properly? And would it matter to you as a consumer?

I found myself still not bothered by this, HOWEVER, I WOULD be looking at performance, such as how it burned. What do you think?

Oooh! I have been wanting to test the palm wax (actually thought of doing a soy/palm mix, but could not find info about this and if it was good... no one posted results).

I can't wait to see your findings! *S*

Congratulations!

My fiance's niece runs her small shop (she does soap and B& from her garage and has yet to get her sign (but has her websit up). That is a big accomplishment!