TallTayl

The Ikon Art kit arrived super fast! I burned through 4 sheets learning how they work.  I made a LOT of mistakes.  But, I’m learning, so it’s all good.  Even the worst screen print on my muslin packaging is better than the best stamping job I’ve done regardless of ink.

lesson 1) cut the sheets into smaller pieces.  I went through 4 before learning that. My bags vary in size from 4x6 to 12x12.  I focused on the smaller 3 sizes and could have saved a lot of screen material since I use tape to seal the edges to print. 
 

lesson 2) don’t overexpose the sheets.  When they say 25-30 seconds per exposure, they mean it.  The ikon Art kit uses a 25w or 30w UV lamp.  Mine are 50 watts. And I used 2. Once I backed off to 1 lamp and cut the exposure time the images washed out so much cleaner! 
 

these first bags were with a water based ink.  Later ones used plastisol. I prefer the plastisol over the water based.  The impressions are cleaner with no bleed. Woot woot! 

 

I have a screen with old fashioned emulsion drying now.  Once it’s ready I’ll expose an image on it to compare.  There’s a big learning curve with coating the emulsion.  
 

overall, for these small items I recommend the Ikon Art sheets with the speedball frame.  I tape down the small screen stencil  onto the speedball frame and print away. Then peel off the image stencil and can pop another onto the screen in minutes to print something different.  Both ways are pricey to start, but will save me loads of $ sending the jobs out. 
 

Bonus that this whole process of screen printing is so much fun! 

As for hardening, what we usually mean is solubility,  additives like sodium lactate make the fresher bars feel “harder”, but do not change the way the soap wears with use because the fatty acid profile of the oils used are what they are.  
 

Solubility means how fast the soap softens or wears away during use.  We can all agree that a cured olive oil soap is “hard” enough to leave a mark if you threw it at someone.  We also all have experienced that the same olive oil soap turns to mush more quickly than other oils when exposed to water.  Sodium lactate can’t make a weak number in the solubility category magically wear longer.  Sodium lactate can just make that soap easier to package sooner without smearing or denting. 
 

oils with more stearic acid, like cocoa butter, palm oil, etc. will naturally wear more slowly than olive oil, canola, etc. regardless of popular additives.  palm and lard are used in soap formulas worldwide for long wearing soap for a reason 😊.

1 hour ago, fruit.tart said:

 

Ahh wow I did not know of this! I'd never cured soap for this long without using before, such a good learning experience haha.

 

I'm fairly certain the oils I used when I made the soap were fresh. Could it possibly be trace metal exposure from the fact that I used tap water instead of distilled?

 could be a number of things:

short shelf life oils like grape seed, canola, etc will often dos even when freshly opened as the hydrogen bonds in soap just lend the molecules to oxidation.

could be proximity to metal dust, use of metal utensils, etc.  could be the fragrance oxidized. Could be it got hot/humid or exposed to sun too much. Could be impure olive oil.  Olive oil is one of the most adulterated of the oils, often cut with canola or soybean.  I had soap turn completely orange from adulterated “pure” olive oil from a grocery store. Hard lesson for sure!
 

trying to remember the soap golden rule to minimize the potential for dos.  Pretty sure the combined Linolenic Acid total in the formula needs to be less than 15. 

That's oxidation, like rust, on soap. It may have been exposed to some metal. Or some of the oils in the formula were shorter shelf life than what that soap required. Oils like canola, almond, soybean, etc "rust" quicker than Palm, coconut ,etc.

Orange dots/spots on soap are often called DOS - Dreaded Orange Spots.

Welcome back to the craft 🥰

Your instincts are spot on. Palm or lard will provide the texture you’re after. You can try adding  stearic acid, which can become tricky to keep from developing stearic spots and accelerating. 

3 inch wide really does seem like a magical measurement. Especially if it’s at least 3 inches tall. Better to be 4 inches tall. It’s kind of the golden ratio for pretty much every candle I’ve ever made.

5 hours ago, niamul21 said:

Welcome. Hope we can make this forum even more interactive!

We’re a friendly bunch of makers who were all at the same point when we started.  If there was a mistake to be made, we have most certainly made it, and probably more than once! 😂 

Members here are bound by a love of scented crafts. We want to see you do well 🥰 Ask away and let’s see how far we can go. 

W warm welcome to you! May all of your business dreams come true. 

I am seeing a resin trend developing.  I’m open to co-ops of special order kegs of winners from places like WSP too.  I’m planning to special order Oakmoss & Myrrh and possibly Black Raspberry Vanilla on the next sale.  25 lbs bulk only offers 5% discounts, but the final cost per lb is usually about half of retail, so it’s worth it to me. 
 

Oakmoss & Myrrh is all myrrh to my senses.  It blends with EVERYTHING I have paired it with.  I need to get with the program and complete candle wax testing before I get too far ahead of myself, though.  it is super in soap, the oil warmer and in the Lampe Berger so far. 
 

BRV is the best I’ve found retail for CP soap.  It’s good in melts too, but I struggle with HT on anything BlackBerry.

I need to force myself to be patient with our labs to see if they have something comparable or better for just candles. 
 

incidentally, we have access to loads of unique flavors too.  I resisted the urge to ask about the min order on them so I didn’t disappoint myself too much. I crave an apple cider lip balm flavor from their list 😍

2 hours ago, DamifinoEac said:

Sounds great to me!

I am still a greenhorn, but I enjoy blending to create uniqueness. With that said, I believe this would be a great opportunity. I'm following. 

Yay! 
I really hope this lab comes through with candle scents that are at least as good as what I have become used to with soap. 

1 hour ago, PhoenixFyre said:

I can only echo your statements, @TallTayl - I've been a hobbyist chandler and soaper for a few years now (some of you longer-time members might even remember when I posted pics of the first melt I ever made...good grief, I remember how excited I was when I could smell the HT throughout the room!), and I remember feeling like it was more often you would find fragrance oil winners rather than duds. The last couple of years or so, though, it feels the opposite is true. Couple that with the cost of everything now, and I've had to have the argument with myself of whether this is a hobby I can continue with and pursue into a possible business or need to just let go and focus on other interests. 

 

Problem is - I LOVE LOVE LOVE these forms of art and each time I've thrown up my hands and screamed, "I'm done!"...I always end up crawling meekly back asking the artistic universe to forgive me. 🤣

 

If this helps give the members with businesses a leg up or even just makes the hobby more enjoyable for those like me who have felt unsuccessful of late, I am down 1000%.

 

My preference is same as yours, @TallTayl - I'm all about unique fragrances. If the preference of the group is more toward the dupes, though, no worries at all and I'm still happy to be part of it.

I’m so happy to read your story. A rising tide raises all boats. We could all use a hand to remain afloat. 
 

it will be exciting to see what we end up with for a mix of fragrances. 🎉🥳. Our only limit is us. 

I looked hard at the Ikon Art kit and just didn’t want to spend the extra $100 for basically fonts and a few stencil ideas on a partner site. I use Canva and Silhouette design studios, so it was redundant. 
 

I did buy 5 sheets of the fabric and 5 sheets of the hard surface films to try out against the old fashioned emulsion.  They shipped within the hour! 
 

I’ll give a side by side with the traditional screen print and the ikonart in case anyone is considering playing along.  The uv lights from Amazon should do the trick to develop the image on the emulsions for both types.

getting excited now!  

The rep is sending some commonly available dupes along with a few original blends for us to sample. I personally am no interested in BBW and similar dupes, but if there is interest we can certainly explore them. My opinion, and it’s only my opinion, is that I like unique fragrances that my customers can’t get elsewhere. 
 

It will take some time for the rep and us to learn one another so we can dial in things just for us. 
 

my personal interest right now is geared toward summer.  I’m in the farmers market type of groove right now.

fruit preserves, herbal blends, floral, and of course resins and incense.  
 

BTW, I brought in a few of my dupes recently and have extras to share. Pink Sugar, Provence, Vetyver, Dragons Blood and Tonic each have several lbs available. 

38 minutes ago, Lizzy said:

Oh I could never stop. Hopelessly addicted for almost 20 years now. I tried quitting. LOL...didn't work out. So I embraced my addiction. 

I tried quitting once.  It was the longest weekend of my life.  😂

4 hours ago, Brotato said:

One last note, if you can survive creating candles given the wax/wick/FO/vessel combination debacle, I am convinced your a genius or saint or both and am BEYOND confident you can and will become a screen printer 🙃 

Your kindness is giving me the strength to go for it!

You probably figured out I am pretty stubborn when on a quest. I’ll send you something from the first attempts - good bad or otherwise. If you’re brave, send your ship to info in a pm and hope I’m a quick study. 😜

5 hours ago, Lizzy said:

Count me in! I'm done with my personal "issues" so I can focus on candlemaking 100% once again. Hahahaha. Plus I just lost two of my main suppliers so I'm definitely looking for new ones. 

Glad you have the time and desire to continue. We are all in this together. I think we can circle our wagons and make great things in this group. 

Hi there! 
I’ve not smelled any “official” Disney scents to offer suggestions.  Who is the named manufacturer of the candles you like? Seems like there would be more than one. 
 

while I generally will not want to tangle with the Disney machine,  I’m a sleuth that likes to track down things for the sake of knowledge. 

I see it as we have nothing to lose by testing their sample sets. At least this lab i understands our candle goals and isn’t trying to shoehorn a soap fragrance into a candle.  We will be able to order in “our” preferred concentrations and will have fixed codes owned by the forum. 
 

our rep understands the chemistry differences between soy, paraffin, beeswax, coconut, etc.. she also understands how we need CT to sell, and our candles need to SMELL and burn cleanly. How refreshing!

We should expect two separate sample sets some time this week.  She plans to send a collection of some unique blends they made for Earth Day, and some I asked for in the citrus, fruit and resin category.  I’ve been yearning for some awesome Myrrh and a strawberry that throws and does not smell like smoothie, milk shake or wet cardboard.  For the soapers (myself included) we will also get a couple intended for soap, that may work ok in candles too.  We shall see.  Once they’re here I can send sniffies out if they smell ok.  
 

min order is the usual 25 lbs, so we’ll start with something that appeals to our group and move onward and upward from there. 
 

Wouldn’t it be grand if we on the forum were our own private candle fragrance  club? We need a new forum name that lives up to our awesomeness. 
 

On 4/22/2023 at 5:06 AM, Brotato said:

you could also try something like this depending on the intricacy of your design. Downside would be the screen won’t last that long I wouldn’t think and seems tedious. I could also see ink possibly getting under the stencil with repeated use. 

Ahahahah I tried this exact process with my vinyl cutter.  It was a DISASTER from the word go.  Weeding the vinyl with small letters is painful. And it doesn’t stick to the screen nearly as well as it did for this kind Crafter. A few passes of the ink and iI had the little dots of letters lifting off the screen and ink bleeding round the stencil on the second print.  
 

I tried heat pressing HTV too. The ink bleed was the same, which makes sense as it’s a sharp edge which catches ink. 

On 4/22/2023 at 4:44 AM, Brotato said:

this guy also has some great tips on coating a screen. If you get your emulsion too thick you can use that sharper edge as well to scrape it off and then give it another go. I personally like the technique of angling the screen to coat rather than against the wall. I feel like I have more control, just my personal preference though and how I learned. 

I watched this guys channel for weeks last summer.  Makes it look easy. 
 

my daughter is in a graphics class with a teacher who prints.  I’ve been hoping she needs a conference so I have a reason to visit him at the school 😂. 

@Brotato

so many things to reply to…. Starting with: thank you for those videos. I spend more than my share on time on YouTube and the algorithm  had not found those for me yet.  Each vid I watch carves new idea pathways 🥳

I just need to get over my fear of messing up something new paralysis and just stinking start. You gotta break eggs to make omelettes.   I got most of my real printing supplies from Screen Print Direct. Just looked and see they have exponentially more emulsions since my last purchase.  
 

Right now, I have several size bags for bayberry candles, the same number for beeswax.  This project is about mastering something new.  It’s been on my bucket list for so long it’s about time to cross it off. If all goes well, I have many other ideas for the process, not just other product. We cut down loads of mature, but storm damaged trees that want to be something pretty, like live edge cutting boards, etc.  then screen printing with Torch Paste to make thoughtful housewarming gifts and photo props. 
 

glass etching has always looked super fun, too.  Stencils to keep projects from looking like a kindergartener made something is always good! 
 

My family has a warped sense of humor. The best gift last Christmas was a set of tea towels someone else printed with sayings from TV series we all loved.  “Fold in the cheese” and “What does burning smell like” brought people to tears laughing.  I CAN MAKE THOSE at will once I get over myself. 
 

I think I might pull the trigger on IKON Art just to dip a toe into what is possible while i slather emulsion on the screen and see how it goes. If I mess up, then that what emulsion remover is for. 
 

your suggestions about printing multiple images for the bag sizes makes so much sense! One screen, many uses.  A multitasker.  Love it. 
 

I have the butterfly clips to set the screen.  This lady from IkonArt used command strips to hold her clips to print a stack of paper napkins.  If she can do that, I think I can figure out how to print a few bags.  

I’ll pick up a proper tool to hold the frames (or build several failures first 😂).

Braying: I tried all of my different inks, fabric inks, screen print inks, paints, fabric mediums, you name it, and was not happy with any results. The stamp got bogged up up quickly while still not managing to print a full enough impression.  The images were not saturated with color and were not something I felt proud to give. 
 

5 hours ago, NightLight said:

It may be cheaper for you to get bag and printing done by company. There are tons of companies doing that now. You can check Etsy also for services.

I thought about that. This is more of a skill mastery project. I have 4-5 standard size bags that I use, so 4-5 different screens.  If I figure it out, my dream is to expand that to soap bags-possibly custom printed for events, etc. but I’m getting ahead of myself. 
 

there are so many other things I’d like to screen.  Have you seen the fire paste for wood? You can burn/etch wood slabs. An glass etching? Possibilities are endless! 

3 hours ago, Amber Begay said:

I am new here and thankful to the Craft Server to give me an opportunity to explore the website and discussions.

Hello and a big warm welcome to you, Amber. We’re a friendly bunch of people with a wide range of skills and experience to help light the way. 

I’ll get a pic or list of all the different inks and tools I’ve collected so far shortly. I bought the emulsion spreading tool sized to fit inside the speedball frame separately. 

the speedball frame has channel like  a screen door with the splining to secure the screen.  Made me think I could swap in/out screens “easily”.  The Ikon Art system uses them in several instructionals. Now I get why pros use aluminum screens per image. 

 

question about exposing the screen:  how strong of a UV lamp do you recommend? I’ve seen vids of exposing in strong sunlight and on stand UV lamps of different sizes and intensities.  Some lamps are as low as 20w, while many seasoned artists won’t go less than 50 or 100. 
 

I almost bought an Ikon Art starter set but the nearly $200 price tag at the time clicked the “DIY like the pros” button in my head. Their system looks neat and simple, but limited to their screen mesh choice. 
 

you’re giving me some confidence to give it a go! Thank you so much!!!!

You knit? I bow to you.  
 

do you spin too? 

I would think bar soap would be rather hard on the wool fibers.  Maybe it is so diluted that isn’t an issue for that bottle? You can make a small batch of your bar soap using those oils and see if you come close.  Bar soap diluted for laundry can get a weird slimy/snotty consistency.  You might be able to dilute enough that it will have a better feel.

the ingredient list, if all ingredients are listed in correct order, show it has quite a bit of lanolin in it. The lanolin is higher in the list than lye, so that gives you a starting point for your formula. Coconut oil is very cleansing, as i palm kernel. From a fatty acid profile, both coconut and palm kernel are interchangeable. You could use one, the other or both and achieve a similar end product.

if that is a liquid, then the water in the list is for the bar soap, not a liquid.  The other oils are minimal likely 3-5% or less. Probably label appeal moreso than functional.  You can easily make small batches of single oils, then grate them into water at different proportions to test them in different combinations. I can picture you as a mad scientist 👩‍🔬
 

We use different cleansers for prepping our raw fleeces for spinning.  bar soap can sometimes clean too well, leaving  the fibers in rough shape or sticky.  Plain old coconut oil bar soap cleans up some filthy tips!

Orvus paste is often used on natural fibers.  It’s a shampoo for live stock that is primarily sodium laurel sulfate. Not sure why people think it is “gentle”, but quilters seem to love it too. it’s not too much different than Dawn blue original in cleansing abilities. Used very sparingly I bet either can gently cleanse a garment.  We all use oo much detergent, don’t we?