TallTayl

Totally understandable. Just resist the temptation to melt wax in the jar and add scent and let cool again. It will not mix well. I tried. It was not pretty 😂. (Or all that safe in the end).

Bubbles are enhanced by sticky ingredients, like proteins, sugars and helped along with small amounts of oils like castor. Your oils will determine if the bubbles are large and billowy or small and dense. I hosted a lather lovers swap when the old Dish Forum was still around. A simple formula of 50: olive, 25% palm and 25% coconut made giant bubbles with many simple additives. Beer, sodium citrate, honey, milks, sugars all made predictably super bubbles with nothing special in terms of oils. I’ll dig up the you tube link with the 27 or so videos of me washing my hands with each sample. babassu is chemically very close to coconut with a higher price tag. I think you will love swapping it out for more affordable oils! stearic is not needed if you sub in oils and butters that are naturally high in stearic and help support bubbles, like small % of Shea or cocoa butter for instance.

When topics like this come up I always wonder what the problem is that people are trying to solve. myristic acid is found naturally in coconut oil and others. one thing to think about is how people will react to your ingredient label. If adding to “fix or heal” something, the soap becomes classed as a drug and falls under the FDA classifications. If just a soap, what will people think of An ingredient that sounds “strange”? I learned the soapers bell curve many moons ago and don’t think about additives in soap any more.

That’s an engineering feat. soy wax is grainy be nature making for a “short” blend. Short, like a short bread cookie, that will always have a brittleness to it. I would lean on a paraffin preblend like Igi 4786 that is more rubbery from the start. The only way to figure out the balance is with a line blend. Check out the Humblebee and Me site for examples of line blends for beauty products. Basically you do 6-10 or so small batches that change increments in different amounts and see how the characteristics change with each bump. example: https://www.humblebeeandme.com/a-quick-guide-to-beeswax-liquid-oil-ratios/

I would probably lean to an inexpensive wax, like palm. It is rigid and can help stabilize the wick tab if poured deeply enough. Sand could work but would soak a good bit of your wax as it is poured. clay I’ve not heard of. I use stoneware ceramic clay in my pottery studio. This type contains a good bit of moisture. It molds even when Sealed in plastic bags so I wonder how well it would suit for a candle.

Hermes always seems to have amazing fragrances. Still in love with Merveilles I bought on a business trip a lifetime ago. Swoon ❤️❤️

You sure can! Getting the wax out of the jars to melt to temp, add FO and report is time consuming but possible. you may notice the Re melted wax will perform better since the latent moisture will be heated out when you melt the second time.

I tend to like the woodsy blends and resinous over cologne types. Oakmoss Sandalwood is smooth and warm. It’s loved by women and men about equally.

How detailed do you want to get? you’re going to get a LOT of opinions on pricing. most do not leave enough profit at the end.

That scent dates me too. I remember it well.

Hello and welcome 😊

Your instincts are right on. A harder to burn wax at the bottom often solves a lot of the last burn blues. It acts as an emergency brake at the most critical part of the burn. It might not take much, just to the top of the wick tab neck should help noticeably. Bonus that depending wax choice, it can add stability to the wick tab. and if poured a wee bit over the neck of the wick tab, it can steady the pinch point where the wick yarn is bent to help reduce the lean on those flat, cordless wicks that like to weigh themselves down and out of center.

Could it be too much fragrance evaporating and burning? what exactly are you using in the final product?

Yeah, an investment firm (2 sigma) started buying up FO companies back when the pandemic began. WSP, Aromahaven, saveonCitric/Make Your Own.buzz, elements were the first. Then NG and another I’ve likely forgotten. They continue to scoop up retailers throughout each year. Then I heard CandleScience was bought by a fragrance house, which explains why their reviews show the noticeable changes in FO are not in our heads as we’ve been told to believe. makes me so happy to have gone through the pain and expense of getting my main FO made when I did.

For 2.5” 9oz jars in that wax I use premier 740, 745 or 850 depending on the fragrance. CDN 5, cdn6 have worked well in some instances too.

Those are not too bad. The slight neck/shoulder area will heat the contents well, so don’t be tempted to overwick at the top. 😊 good luck!

I generally don’t wick with the intention of a FMP. The full melt pool is a limit, not a goal. I love when those waxes gently weep Fresh wax down into a smaller melt pool like the candles I grew up with. They lasted for much longer than modern candles, and smelled 100% stronger and more true for the life of the candle. let’s all work together to dispel the myth that you need a fast FMP for a wonderful candle.

In cases like that I play with wick positioning. Sometimes you just need a little extra width of flame in wider jars. Placing the wicks closer sometimes does the trick. I’ve gone as close as overlapping wick tabs on occasion with a lot of luck. when wicks are positioned wide the glass can often heat too quickly for many waxes. You know what happens next: the soft wax forms a deeper than needed melt pool and the balance goes off like an overloaded washing machine load of heavy towels. I’m not familiar with your wax. But that’s how I would approach it. Every wax has its own container dimension sweet spot. Trying to make it work in other sizes can be tricky. 4”-4.5” wide containers are a very cumbersome size to conquer for some reason. can’t wait to hear how your candle turns out!

I would test burn a couple not installed in the jar and see if the dimple on the neck of the tab from the crimp machine gives some indication. in my jars the Premier 700 series curl isn’t as pronounced as cd or CDN so I don’t sweat them so much in my jars/waxes. a twist can work well in some waxes and in some cases. Soft waxes, though, will not hold the tension of the twist well at all and can untwist. Two things I learned from twisting tests: 1) you have to be careful to twist up the whole length of the wick. The weakest point of a wick assembly is at the point where the wick is crimped in the tab neck. Holding the wick yarn above the metal tab helps evenly twist the length of the wick. Twisting while the wick is secured in the jar puts most of the torsion of the twist at the weak spot, not evenly up the length of the wick. the twist wants to form there at the easiest spot to give, and stay there. That weak point at the crimp is where any leaning will begin in soft waxes. Cd and CDN wicks are annoying with the leaning from the sheer weight of the wick in soft waxes. 2) Twisting cracks the prime wax, so as wax forms a melt pool during a burn the wick material can soften and flop more without the rigidity of the more solid prime wax. I’ve seen some wicks without a good prime buckle under their own weight. I DO twist unprimed bleached square in palm and beeswax. Both of those waxes are super rigid even during a burn, so the twist remains firm from top to bottom in the finished candle.

The large presto pot is perfect for this batch size. I don’t use anything fancy (like those after market spouts). A ladle, pour pot and spatula do the job just fine. presto pots are responsive and far superior to double boiler types of heaters for many reasons.

Nice that you are close enough for pick up! Lucky! as for fragrances, there are several big compounding labs (agilex, symrise, etc) and numerous small across the country. After a while you will be able to smell the diluent in th fragrance and figure out where it came from. Brambleberry, for instance, has fragrances a lab that smell very sweet. AromaHaven usually has a syrupy smell.

What batch size are you considering? That may help guide the recommendations.

If you saved at least an ounce a fragrance lab can try to duplicate it. Sometimes you get close enough, sometimes not. A while back I asked Brambleberry if they would special order a keg of a scent for me. They declined, but maybe their policies have changed?

Once upon a time, HTP and CD were compared and found nearly identical. There’s a sizing comparison chart on this forum somewhere I could search for. During the supply shortages of 2020-2021-2022 HTP had a change of yarn supply that altered the burn of some sizes. Not sure where that ended up with wicks being made now 🤷🏻‍♀️ given the choice between all of them, premier 700 series have been the most versatile in my veg waxes.

if it's just a little oxidation they should be just fine.