RichardLOZ

Once prices go up they very rarely come down again unfortunately. We used to do Soy, but only use Palm now as Soy prices in Australia have gone really stupid - up to $185 AUD / box, and then where we are located you can add an additional $45 AUD for shipping. Now add jar, scent, label, wick, etc and the candles would be priced beyond the reach of most people. We do love making candles, but not to just sit and look pretty on the shelf.........

Hey Laura Thanks, its great to be back again. I have missed it all

Logo's and labeling is fun Hahahaha Luckily we have a daughter who does Graphic Design, and she finally made us a new logo after many years of asking. She has also been invaluable in helping me with labels, as we do ours in Photoshop and getting them lined up correctly on the printer is a challenge as they all have a checked border. certainly makes life interesting, not to mention many label pages and ink later to get them correct. We do all of ours on Kraft, however I also usually buy plain white for alignment and testing purposes as they are less than half the price of the Kraft, so does not feel so bad when I go through a bunch when testing.

Ah, labels and logos, such a fun task to get completed. From my perspective I think it looks great and not at all too gothic. I think however before you can decide on colours, backgrounds etc, you should possibly print out all of the combinations that you may be looking at and pop the label on a jar to see how it looks on the finished product, and sometimes what looks god on the page does not always work on the jar.......

And it could still be a little higher for me, but works for Tracy

Nightlight - we always encourage customers to remove the gingham prior to lighting the candle for safety reasons. These are recycles steel cans, and yes they do have a seem, however because of the way that the tins are we have never had one leak across extensive testing as well as customer feedback. Palm works very well for us down here. It is a little different here in Tasmania, as it is generally cooler all year, but when we were on the mainland and making both Palm and say candles, summer was hell! All of the best markets were in December when it was regularly 100+ degrees, so you can imagine the fun with soy (GW 464) at outdoor markets

Hey Candybee - thanks! Did a small local market this past weekend. Not great, but then again everyone was saying how quiet it was. We have to face the fact that having moved interstate we are starting totally from scratch once again, so need to get ourselves established over the next 6 - 12 months I suspect. Seems more difficult this time, which all the raw material costs having increased along with shipping. The one win is that markets down here are cheaper per table to attend and there are so many markets to select from, so if one does not work for a few months, we can always try a different one.

Thanks TallTayl, we love the look of them and the fact that we can recycle. Well so much for my desire to only do the tins. Came across some jars today that I happened to like, so bought a couple and have already poured some testers. I guess I just cant help myself. Oh well here we go again........... Tracy will start on some pillars after Christmas. I guess once you get on the roller coaster it is very difficult to get off.....

Yes I fully expect that to be the case. Purchased tried and tested scents locally, tested all again to find that about 30% of them burn quite differently, which could be the oil or could be the wax. For the most part however the fragrance itself smelt and threw the same. We will never sell anything unless it has had prior testing, hence we are essentially starting from scratch once again. Oh what a joyful time

Nightlight - Unfortunately the scents that we want and need are all from NG, and have proven over the years to be great sellers. Once we are established again, I will bite the bullet and pay the high shipping to get what we need here. Ultimately it actually works out about the same as if we were buying locally anyway, just need to see how people in this new area we are in react to the Mid West Prim style which is really unknown here in Australia.

Don't even start me on international shipping! We always used to buy our oils from the States and have them shipped down here to Australia, Natures Garden mainly, (but also used Berts and Bitter Creek), however since the government brought in the 10% tax on imports under $1000 AUD which is up to the seller to collect and revert back to the government here, they no longer ship to AU. I used to get 11 1 16oz bottles shipped for about 70 USD (if I can recall, as it was some time ago) It is extremely frustrating as they were our best sellers and a much much larger range than what we can get locally here. I can still get them, however now need to use a freight forwarder, so I first have shipping from NG to the shipping forwarders warehouse, and then the cost of them shipping down here to Australia, which obviously increases the price substantially. I think we are going to have to wear the increased cost if we want to restock our best scents, however as we have only just started back up after 7 year, we want to first see how what we make is received, and if all goes well, we will take the chance of the increased cost to get the specific scents that we want. I just checked Bitter Creek and 1 x 16 oz bottle shipped to Australia is $210 USD for shipping!!!!!!!!

I tend to always do this as a percentage and then convert. In your case above, assuming 6% FO load, that would equate to 1.5% of each of your desired scents. So in 1000 grams wax, to keep it easy, 60 grams oil in total (yes I realise this is only 5.6% - but I am keeping the calculations simple), or 15 grams of each (1.5%) I guess in the end, you need to work it the way you are most comfortable with, and what gives you the result you are looking for Richard

Have you thought about using once of those plastic squeezy sauce bottles that you could get from the dollar store? Not sure how well it would work, however it should be faster than the dropper and still give you some amount of control?

I am getting way too old to be annoyed by trying to pour minis this small. we do make mini melts, however they are just small versions of the fluted full size, and they are painful enough to pour, coming in at about 13 grams each.

Look great. I love the tiny melts, but they are a PITA to pour

Hi Belinda These are done with Glass Glow Palm. We are quite unique here in Australia doing the Mid West Prim style (which most Aussies just don't get) Here is a picture from 7 + years back of the completed product. We no longer put the rusty stars on - too difficult to get here and adds to the overall cost.

Feels so good after 7 years to be pouring once again. Here are a couple of pics of the first pour (apart from the testers done a few weeks ago), getting ready for our first market this coming Saturday, and then one more before Christmas. Easing in to start and will test further scents and some pillars over the Christmas / New year break in preparation for 2022.

A question - why not single wick the jar? We used to wick these jars with either a single CDN 22 or 24 depending on the scent. I used to hate double wicking so unless I could get an oil to perform well single wicked, it did not get done in that jar type. Cheers Richard

Hi Belinda and thanks! The site is looking a little sparse at the moment, and was only taken out of maintenance mode to enable us to get the bank account sorted for the business. Poured melts yesterday and have done some tins today with more scents to be done during the week. Once that is done, Tracy will work her magic with the pics and then both the website and FB page should be back up and running. Its great to be back and feels so good to be pouring once again. I now just have to work out how to get the oils from the US like we used to as none of our old suppliers are shipping to Australia any more, so may have to use a freight forwarder for that. Also due to COVID factory Direct is also not shipping down here either, so have had to learn how to make my own rusty wire. Such is life, just more challenges to overcome, but definitely looking forward to creating again.

Hey Candybee Thanks for the warm welcome back here - its been almost 8 years i think since I last posted, and only came across the forum again when I was searching for something. So happy you all are still here! As we are not planning on jars, and Soy has become stupidly expensive, especially as now being located in Tasmania, shipping from mainland Australia is a killer, we will be concentrating primarily on container palm in our Prim Tins, as well as melts to begin with. No doubt Tracy will start on pillars in the new year as well as she cannot keep her creative streak locked up! We have our first local market next weekend, with another the following, and that will be it until after Christmas. We are very excited to be back in the game, and looking forward to learning more as well as hopefully being able to help others here from the experience that we have had over the years. First batch of testers is almost finished burn tests, and I got about an 80% success rate with all of the new scents, so really happy about that.

I was a very active member here back from 2009 for a number of years. Unfortunately due to some circumstances and the fact that we moved states, we ceased making candles back in 2014. Now after having moved states once again, we have decided to revive our candle making. We used to use both Palm and Soy waxes, however with so many people making jar candles these days, we have decided just to do our own thing, with the unique Rustic tin candles that we make in container Palm and a few melts. Think of mid west American Primitive, but made here in Tasmania Australia. Will be interesting to see if there are still any of the old crown here from when I was posting back 7 years ago. In any case, nice to meet you all 😀

We do 2 regular farmers / craft markets each month, fees are $40 for one and $55 for the other. Both run from about 8:30 am through 1:00 pm and we now regularly do between $500 - $1000 at each depending on the month. Some months are a little more and some a little less. One of these we have been doing for only about 8 months now and it was awesome from the get go. The other we have been attending for the past 3 years and it did start slow until we built up our customer base, so now most of the sale are from existing customers coming back to restock, but still also getting some new customers each month as well. We are just about to move house, which will put us about a 2 hour drive from both of these markets, however we have deemed that for now they are both worth the drive to continue to do. We have also had a number of party and fund raisers come from both of these markets so they have been very good for us. Keep up with it for at least 6 months, and if it does not improve you can then make the choise whether you want to continue with it or not. Given the booth fee you are paying, you seem to be doing pretty well, so it will most likely continue to increase over time as people get to know you and your products. Cheers Richard

We do cash, debit and CC including AMEX. Have a mobile machine and it definitely increases the value of sales. Richard

Hey all Just wondering if any of you have played with making ball candles? We have been experimenting with one recently which is 8.8 cm diameter or just under about 4" in the middle of the ball. These are being done in palm wax and so far have tried CDN 14, CDN 18 and now CDN 10 from a wicking perspective. Both the 14 & 18 were pretty crappy, both leaving quite a thick shell. Never having burnt a ball candle before I am not even quite sure how they are supposed to burn, so if anyone has any advice or suggestions, I would be most happy to hear them. Richard

Speaking of lip balms we are also experimenting with recipes right now also. At the moment pretty much the standard ration of beeswax / butters / oils + flavour & sweetner. The only issue we are finding is that putting it into small pots it is actually quite difficult to get it out due to the cast that it does get quite hard. We do not want to go down the tube or plastic route and definitely want to use glass jars. The jars that we have hold approximately 10 - 12 grams and are 4 cm diameter and about 3 cm height. Besides changing butter from cocoa to perhaps shea, does anyone have any other suggestions as to what we can do to make it somewhat softer and easier to get from the pots. I have tried increasing the oil ratio, however that does make it somewhat more greasy in feeling, and we preferred it the other way. Any suggestion would be most welcome. Thanks Richard