TallTayl

This all depends on your business model. One soaper collegue offers well over 100 scents last count. Her model keeps her extremely profitable because her clientele want loads of choices. She never has to carry finished stock, making all to order. I envy her model. Places like Yankee Candle do quite well having scores of scents to choose from also. Their product line is fairly limited, so it works for them. It is harder for people who offer an entire line of scented products to keep every single scent in every product. i offer 50+ soap scents during the high season, and about 20-25 in other products (candles, hair care, lotions, etc). It works for my venues where people expect a huge variety and want what is new, different and familiar at the same time. Lack of cash flow has more causes than just 'too many scents'. What is her overhead every month? Is she repaying a business loan? Is her pricing model faulty? Does she pull a paycheck? I would not be too hasty to judge another business as a bad business unless i saw the books. The first year is the hardest....

Do you rotate them during the burn? I get oval/rectangular burns on palm when the drafts train them into that pattern.

This is a neat little site : http://www.stillpointaromatics.com/index.php?route=product/search/aromas I find frankincense a little sour. Elemi too, with a citrussy note. Some citruses can be sour or bitter, like a bitter orange. Litsea cubeba is a little sour. Tunisian Rosemary is a less camphorous rosemary that may add a little of the toning down. How about black pepper? Labdanum?

I secretly wanted a cricut for a long while. Knowing myself all too well it would never be used to its potential. I would love to see what you do with it!

Usually i get the other way around. Vanilla is very difficult for me to smell. I would give it time to marry and sniff again. Sometimes those aromachemicals just need to settle back down.

I would ask the vendor if buying a pre-blend. I'm the type that prefers to blend my own. EO's change from year to year, crop to crop. Sometimes you need to tone down one over the other. Sometimes i prefer a different species of the oil than the vendor uses.

Like anything else, it would kind of depend on the packaging, branding and promotion. While Christmas shopping at BB&B i saw some new Yankee molded tarts in their iconic jar shape. The price point was over $2 per little molded jar shape (1 oz maybe) in a plastic baggie with a hang tag. At a Tractor Supply i saw cut up wax that looked like little rustic brownies in a cello bag tied with a gingham ribbon for $8 (maybe 6 oz). In both cases the products seemed to sell well. If you have a cute package, a great concept and the right audience brittle could sell well for you.

I use candelila in combination with beeswax in lip balm. E-wax is nice for a stable, simple lotion. I don't love the feel of it and have moved on to other emulsifiers and conditioners, but still use it in one particular heavy lotion. Never bothered with the other waxes you listed.

Welcome! Can't wait to see pictures of your progress. I don't have the patience for those

I'm not your target market, and never made the connection with DD (had to google actually). As long as you are not violating any trademarks, real or implied, and the name and branding appeal to your target market, then who are we as strangers on a candle forum to say? If YOU love it, then that's all that matters. One thing I learned the hard way is to not share potential names and ideas i was seriously considering on a forum. Good ones get snatched up quickly, leaving my ideas to benefit other people. Brand it, trademark it, buy the domains and then share...

Brambleberry has the best champagne IMo.

The only one i have used is Matricaria Chamomilla. Not because i have a preference, it is just readily available on herbalcom.com and MountainRose where i buy quite a few bulks.

Yuzu would be great. The best one i found (fresh clean scent, no A, no D, sticks, affordable, works in all b& is from TSW. Scented.

Bergamot will fade faster than grapefruit in CP. both eo's fade fast. But a nice grapefruit FO has a chance of going some distance. I thi i used NG ruby red grapefruit way back when. An anchor of a touch of litsea if eo helps, but too much will smell like pledge.

Happy to help... You can get chamomile flowers locally at most ethnic stores. I have seen them at Wallyworld in the Latin foods aisle. (They make a great tea by the way). You can also use chamomile tea in the bags. No sense buying a ton until you decide if you like it. I make infusions one of two ways. If i have nothing but time, i add abut 1/4 cup or more of the chamomile into a quart mason jar and add enough oil to nearly fill the jar. I tend to be heavy handed with dried herbs in the infusion jars. shake it up, Then just let the jar sit in a window or on the counter or in a cupboard and shake when i remember for a few weeks. I like looking at infusing oils and always have a few dozen things infusing at any given time. Use a long shelf life oil, like Olive as you would use in your soap. For a quicker infusion, add the chamomile and oil to a crock pot. Let it get warm for a couple of hours and you will smell some heavenly aroma. Strain the chamomile well through nylon/cheesecloth/tea bag material, etc. when you are ready to use it. Use it in place of all or part of the olive oil in your soap recipe. That's it. I do this for just about every herb and spice you can think of. To add more aroma to tour soap make a chamomile tea in your lye water. Remove the staple from a tea bag (unless you are using loose flowers). Add the tea bag/flowers to your water. Add the lye. Let it steep. Strain well and use in your soap as you would normal water. This will add more natural color to your soap. Let me know if this makes sense.

Chamo and grapefruit sounds wonderful.

Grapefruit and Champagne was a huge sensation out this way over Christmas. Several custom orders for it in soap, lotion, scrubs, perfumes, etc.

The price of chamomile is far too high to (waste) use in soap. To get a nice chamomile scent in soap and not break the bank, infuse some oil with chamomile flowers and use chamomile flower in the lye water (making a tea). Loads of chamomile scent comes through with more depth than any synthesized fragrance I have ever smelled. Camomile infusion with no additional scent is one of my best sellers.

It does look more tan in the photo. Still not that ebony of most vnaillas though. And three cheers for no brown lather!

Sorry.... But the jar will burn different at the top, middle and bottom. The only way to really know how long or well it will burn is to burn it from start to finish.

the EO test I have done in my waxes were not impressive. Many EO's stink when ignited. Others just plain didn't burn right in my waxes. Not to mention EO's change from year to year based on growing conditions (like grapes for wine). For a repeatable candle product that performs the way it is supposed to, I prefer to stick with FO's that were designed for burning in candles.

The hardest thing for me to remember when troubleshooting candles is to change one variable at a time. And sometimes the variables change without my realizing (different batch of FO, wick, wax, temperatures, alignment of the stars , etc.) Good luck!

I have never had the retained scent possibly left on a mold overtake the scent of the newly poured product (candles, melts, soap, etc). Both of the scents you used have a strong vanilla component. Could that be what you're smelling? To remove residual scent from silicone, I have had some success with soaking the mold baking soda and water (or baking soda and vinegar) removing residual scent.

I'm with ChrisR on this. Did all the early experiments and found CO did little to nothing in my candle systems. It "may", depending on the % used, slightly lower the melt point of some waxes. Maybe that is where some people are finding coconut oil improves throw. But I can't say it would be a blanket statement since we have so many variables with waxes, FO, color, wicks, etc.

I have found that the chalkiness appears with only some sources of TiO2. So far I really am liking Brambleberry's the most right now. For whitening, has anyone used TKB's pearl white mica? I really like the shimmery effect in some soaps, preferring it to the matte look of traditional TiO2