TallTayl

If you plan to continue making scented products with really small units of measurement, a small gram scale, like those on ebay, may be a good idea. You can probably get away safely with good droppers for a while using the ingredients you have chosen. That preservative in that sample formula has a more forgiving usage rate.

How deep of a tunnel are you noting? 1/4 inch? 1 inch? There will always be a little depth around the wick of a freshly lit candle as it melts the fuel and sucks it up to the flame. That flame and heat widen the melt point eventually to increase the pool. If blowing out too soon you can train that tunnel to continue. My typical container is C3 soy in 8oz volume 3" wide 2" tall tins wicked with a CD12. They develop a wide MP without being very deep with most fragrances IMO/IME. Burning the usual 3 hours or so doesn't tunnel. There may be some hang up for the first half, but it catches up after the mid point, The MP gets much deeper as the container heats toward the bottom 1/3. The same container with a bigger wick but beeswax tunnels directly down every time. "harder" Waxes like BW and palm, IMO/IME tend to form a slight tunnel first when wicked well, and need a taller proportion to catch up than "softer" waxes. The only time i have seen either wax form a wide MP like container soy or paraffin was when really over wicked. As OG noted above, loads of things change the burn. Any additives can change the tin above. Some FO's cause the MP to fall way short of the full container width. Wood wicks sized right in the same C3/tin burns a very wide pool quickly, but then stall and burn more traditionally after the first hour.

A gram scale to measure .5g or a dropper that is marked with ml increments very clearly.

Yes you can use distilled water in place of the hydrosol. That is an awfully tiny set of measurements. 2.3 oz total, roughly 66 grams. Any little variation in measurements will make a noticeable difference in a formula this small.

Lol Vicky, I will absolutely positively post more when i get to make more. Looks like Tuesdays and Saturdays are all i can squeeze in to get to the gallery. So, come Saturday, weather permitting, and with the clay luck on my side, i may get to do more. Teach said something about learning trimming next time. Sounds really boring Looking forward to bowls so i can see about shaving bowls!! I have 4 feet of shelf space and plan to fill the whole thing totally up.

Not to be too technical, but if the specific gravity of the Optiphen ND is at or near 1, then .5 ml should be .5 grams. That formula does not sound overly specific to begin with. Would you mind posting the recipe you plan to try so we can take a quick look? Some Preservatives can be deactivated by certain ingredients and can have very small usage rates.

When making body products, always use weight, grams especially (you can use a google calculator to convert). Volumetric measures introduce a margin for error that is far too wide for many tiny measurements like for preservatives. The craziest recipe/formula i ever read was recently on facebook. It mixed imperial weights, metric weights and volume in ONE list of ingredients. How anyone was able to use that is beyond me.

.5 grams? 5 tenths or half a gram?If you choose a scale with accuracy to what they label tenths or .1 , then yes, that type of pocket gram scale will measure tenths of a gram. (.1, .2, .3, .4, .5, .6.... 1.1, 1.2.....) I chose one that measures to hundredths, or .01 grams. In that room spray product you should not need .01 accuracy, but as you expand your horizons, eventually some chemicals may. For wax melts, room spray and other non-body products .1 gram accuracy should be plenty for now with big enough batches. The smaller the batch, the more tiny differences will cause differences in your product.

I search "pocket gram scale" when i need a new one. Being kind of a messy measurer, i need a couple a year Ebay turned up several for under $10 with free shipping. The weight limits of these teensy scales are anywhere from 100-300 grams. I make sure to get one that is at least accurate to .1 grams. As others have mentioned above, bigger batches give bigger margins for error. Sometimes that is a very good thing when starting out. Good luck!!

I have wanted to try pottery for as long as i can remember. Finally signed up for an 8 week session at a nearby gallery and got my hands dirty. Today was my second time at the wheel, and i think i really like it. The instructor basically sat on the sidelines and let me play with cylinders until i got bored. I had no idea what i was going to make, just grabbed a blob of clay and let it take some sort of shape. The two on the left were from the first class. Wobbles and all I just love them. In a pic i can really see all my mistakes from the group today, and where i learned something useful a little too late (like wheel trimming excess clay at the foot before removing from the wheel) but tomorrow is another day. My family is already afraid of gift holidays, wondering if i will load them up with stuff they will need to display, lol.

Which recipe are you attempting to make first? Optiphen ND is deactivated with some ingredients. http://www.lotioncrafter.com/optiphen-nd.html

The easiest thing, IMO, is to work in grams. 8 oz is about 227 grams. 1% of 227 is 2.27 grams. To work in small measurements i highly recommend getting a small, inexpensive gram scale that measures to the .1 (or better .01g). Ebay has loads for $10 or less.

OG, pinterest is a huge time suck. A colorful, blissful time suck, but still... A part of me still curses my dear friend who introduced me to Pinterest, lol.

For some reason that was a sticking point for me too. A little extra oil in a batch, no biggie. A smidge too much lye, biggie. I started with about half a gallon at a time. Mixed in a pail in the sink. Covered til it cooled to well below that boiling heat. Poured into a soapers choice gallon jug and capped tightly. I always fear lye spill, so that gallon lived in a soapers choice pail with a lid. Worked very well, especially when making smaller batches, or several in a row. Soooooo nice to not have to weigh and measure and cool individual lye amounts. The problems i tripped over were purely carelessness on my part..... Like forgetting the pail in the sink was cooling lye and running the faucet. Doh! Covering with a lid and marking the pail very well as a neon visual sign solved that.

It is where i collect and organize ideas, find inspiration and waste countless hours of a day. Rather than cut out magazine photos or print from web sites, you "pin" the things you like to an electronic bulletin board. If, for instance, i want to look at Fairy Houses i type that in the top and sit amazed over all the neat ideas people have. If a photo moves me, I "pin" it to a board of my own so i can find it easily later. Last weekend i looked up polymer clay. Yup, collected a bunch of tutorials and gorgeous polymer photos in all sorts of applications. Want photography tips, plenty of them on Pinterest. Soap displays? By the dozens. Color inspiration? Palettes and palettes worth. Not sure what kind of bread to make tonight? Ooooohhhhh you'll find loads of breads with links to recipes, blogs, etc. i pin the ones i especially like so i can find them in my collection later.

It depends on the preservative. Each has different usage rates.

Hi! Many use the term "master batching" for what you describe. I do it. Makes soaping days so much easier and less time consuming. The trick will be figuring out how to keep it all mixed, especially if you will need to let the blend totally cool before using it all up. It will need to be very well blended from start of cool to finish to keep heavier oil fragments from sinking to the bottom of the pail. Depending on how much soap needs to be made for a day, i will either mix up a big 6 gallon / 50 lb pail, or measure ingredients into gallon pails for smaller batches to be made later. If nearly everything will be used in a single soaping session the giant pail is fabulous since my 6 oil formula will in total need 6 measurements. If i make 10 individual pails, i have to make 60 individual measurements (10 pails times 6 oils in each). Master batching of lye solution is another huge time saver.

Thesage.com? (Majestic Mountain Sage)

That is the number reported, not necessarily how many have caught fire, or have even been purchased or burned. Could be a combo of over wicked, over scented, improperly burned, or "x" number of other things. Just sharing the news.

http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2015/CoScentrix-Expands-Recall-of-DD-Brand-Candles1/

I read the article. It is full of ambiguity and possibilities, no case study where actual measurements are taken to prove anything at all. Reads like marketing greenwash. It attempts to lead people to believe that simply lighting a "special" candle in a room (for no apparent length of time, size of candle or anything in specific) will cure all bacterial infestations in the home.

Oof, i know that feeling of panic as lava hot palm leaks all over. Plumbers putty sounds like a good plan. I use the high temp metal tape intended for car exhaust pipes. The only time i get a leak is if i have not been good about really rubbing the adhesive on to the mold. A one-two punch of the both should make leaks a total thing of the past.

Have you checked your local library? Chances are they have a decent selection of college texts on file. And likely a few magazines to glean ideas from. The most memorable thing I took away from school are your 4P's: Product, Price, Place, Promotion. It all boils down to that. Want to get more Price for your Product? Place it in a market where that price is acceptable and Promote it. It is how a tube of lip balm that anyone can make sells for $14 at Sephora and yet someone of the exact same tube struggles to make $2 on it at a local craft show. About as important is your brand. The brand of a small business is what people say about you/it when you're not in the room.

They sure are pretty to look at. And when on a warmer they blow away any other form of heated room scent in my house.

I had a near fire with the gallon jug in the mw. The seal smoked under the cap. The contents were still solid. They don't remove cleanly either....