Jump to content

TallTayl

The Ones Who Keep The Lights On
  • Posts

    9,944
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1,031

Everything posted by TallTayl

  1. I just learned this through the Mercari discussion board on Reddit. You can get a more detailed usps tracking history right on the Pitney Bowes site without being a PB customer, or having to buy the label through them. I mailed a priority package Feb 14 to an address 3 zones away. At worst, even if there had been a weather event (there was not) it should have arrived in 4 business days tops. After 3 WEEKS it had not moved in the Chattanooga satellite office. The normal tracking doesn’t show much detail, but the PB system helped keep tabs a little more clearly than the typical usps system after it was finally delivered yesterday, more than a month later. some good news is I filed a claim and was actually paid for the temporary loss. The customer eventually received the package and life goes on. sharing in case anyone else needs a wee bit more info when packages take their sweet time to arrive. as an aside, my postal people mentioned that usps is consolidating nationwide operations in preparation for closing thousands of local PO offices. These new centers are having loads of trouble getting into the swing of the volume, so anticipate extra headaches to come. I have been using UPS for anything that HAS to be somewhere on time, and/or is a relatively high value. It’s an extra stop on the package drop off runs, but gives peace of mind.
  2. I was curious about what they used in the pretty little bottles when they came out. After reading the patents, ingredients and SDS documents, I wouldn’t recommend trying any of them in candles or melts. Those types of units use various volatile compounds to lift the aromatics into the air. Some contain hydrous compounds, polymers, etc. which would not play well with waxes. example:https://www.scjp.com/sites/default/files/2020-10/35-17092.pdf eta: my coffee cup is full, and it’s cold outside, so I found a comfy rabbit hole… Based on the CAS number, here’s the solvent they use in the one above: https://www.aladdinsci.com/d102242.html?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwte-vBhBFEiwAQSv_xakzneyIW7NWw97TLryWBaWNjRw73OBPSHwELo-L3Iecdiufxe-BwBoCOqEQAvD_BwE And the safety warnings for that solvent: https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ghs/#_pict seems like it might be a great one for reed diffusers, but not candles.
  3. I’ve been shell shocked at the prices too. Tuesday was the SCC Teamworks event in Chicago. I met with a number of suppliers, and saw my rep from The Perfumery. I need to arrange a Patchouli co-op for a group, and hope his insistence that we can get dark Indonesian at a fair price is true…. I’ll keep you posted.
  4. Welcome Bob! we are here to help as best we can. Your waxes and wicks will differ from what we get in other countries but we’ll get there. Enjoy the journey.
  5. I bought ammonium chloride when I started screen printing and made the fire paste. It screen prints like a dream.
  6. I 100% agree with your list. I tried to source some of those items at my local hardware store without much success. I’m determined to make my ceramic old-fashioned lamp replicas work though. It would be awesome if they worked well with common oils.
  7. Wax should be fine, just take care not to trip while carrying hot wax. It is akin to outdoor cooking and indoor plating to me.
  8. Multiple wicks are a struggle. No old rules apply. The combustion balance is short available oxygen that low. You can try double wicking for something that narrow and deep. Reserve 3 wicks for wider and more shallow containers. I like to aim the curl of those types of wicks in opposite directions to help create a vortex of air current to draw more oxygen down to the flam zone, but it’s a crap shoot sometimes.
  9. Could be several causes: -did you cure your candles before lighting? -seems a bit overwicked. Premiers are pretty efficient wicks. Smaller wicks often will allow better melt pool creation since the wick can’t sop up the fuel as fast. The carbon on the wick is indicating incomplete combustion likely from that imbalance alone.
  10. That’s a new one to me. I’ve been at this for several decades and have never read of anything like this in any patent or heard of any wax manufacturer that would add it to a blend. hot throw is a factor of balancing your wick with the fragrance and wax blend in a given container. We work with countless variables in each component. At first thought, I would not think a sodium derivative additive would burn well at all in candle fuel. How would it dissolve in any wax or oil based fuel? Maybe, possibly it could dissolve somewhat in some gel type waxes, but even then I’m not sure it could given sodium bicarbonate is water soluble due to it’s polarity. Wax is pretty much non polar so it would be nearly impossible to dissociate the molecules to dissolve. Wouldn’t you just end up with random grains of bicarbonate floating in the wax, likely precipitating to the bottom of the candle as the hot wax cools? The next thought is that baking soda is something recommended to extinguish fires 🧐 I have used wicks treated with sodium (cd, CDN for example), but not sodium bicarbonate in any fuel itself. The sodium wick treatment involves a dip in liquid form (dissolved in water), and the cotton wicks dried before packaging to consumers. if you’re an adventurous type, give it a whirl and let us know what you see in your experiments. I’d start with the tiniest mount, like 0.25% or even less.
  11. Can’t tell through my screen. Looks like it smells heavenly.
  12. Woot woot! I’m so proud of you!!!!!!
  13. Yeah, nobody needs that. I feel for you. Hope you can get it all out quickly and put this in the rear view.
  14. 100% agree. Our materials cost are so fluid I need to check at least once a quarter. My wax is about a grand a case now. Ouch on that. Every penny counts.
  15. Yup. I feel ya. But I have to give Etsy props as it is still a super profitable sales channel for me. They pay more to market than I ever would, and not every sale has that extra marketing fee. I kept a really close eye on it and happily discovered far fewer appearances in my monthly statements than past years. On those surveys they send out I complain that past customers who use google to get to Etsy to order were unfairly costing us that fee in the spirit of things. Seriously, some of my regulars have been with me for a decade. Is that extra fee worthy? on the happy side, I raised my pricing to compensate when those fees were introduced. I calculated it in as a product cost. Every order that does not contain that fee is more profit for me. even happier, I’m seeing more traffic to my home site because they find me through Etsy then buy directly-like do with amazon. Woot!
  16. I’m grateful for you, and others like you, for your curiosity, perseverance and pure joy of lear ing these new crafts. I can’t wait to see what 2024 will bring to you 😊 I’m kind of excited to tackle a persistent camera shyness to share some new ideas with you through YouTube, TikTok and others with this board’s planned updates.
  17. Thanks for the photo. It looks like the glass was cold and caused the wax to cool like that as it was poured. If your wax is user-friendly, you might be able to heat on the top and smooth that out.
  18. Do you have a picture? it sounds like when pouring a bit hits the edges and later solidifies into the wave.
  19. Wow! Thanks for sharing. I’ve been looking for a reason to jump over there.
  20. The coupon code is extended through the end of the year! Enjoy!
  21. Sorry for the long response time. I was searching for the original soap trial from the first of the year. I think I liked it so much I used it up already. it did stick well in the CP trial. I’ll see if I can make a small 10 bar batch later today to evaluate further. It’s a myrrh kind of day here with the wind blowing leaves everywhere.
  22. No kidding! It’s super frustrating to not be able to trust “professional” suppliers.
×
×
  • Create New...