EricofAZ

I think you have to put yourself in the shoes of the consumer. What do they think 100 percent Soy signifies? What are their reasonable expectations? They know you have colorant and FO and glass and cotton. If the consumer has a reasonable expectation that a 100 percent soy candle is pure soy and not a parasoy blend, then that should be your guide (unless there are federal standards that you must abide by). I would think that any consumer that gets a candle that is a parasoy blend with 100 percent soy on the label would feel that this was wrong. I do like the idea of writing what waxes were used so that the consumer can go look the up if they want. I also think there is a hermeneutic to phrases and words. Meaning always stays with the author so if "sex" means one thing to one person and something else to another, that's fine. Significance is something the listener decides and that's what counts in labeling or mislabeling situations. That's why a certain former national figure was able to believe one thing in his mind and get suspended by the Alabama State Bar for the same thing. He can believe what he wants about the meaning of the word sex, but the rest of the world puts their own significance to it and when the two don't match, something's wrong. Usually the majority wins in those situations so I'd just approach it from what the consumer expectation is.

It is kinda fun to take ordinary day stuff and see something in them that nobody else sees, and then make it. You are quite the artist.

I started with a pot on a stove. Then read about how I was so luck I didn't blow myself up so I put the pot inside a larger pot with boiling water. It was better. I didn't burn the wax and it heated up reasonably fast. Then I bought a thinner / taller pot with a pour lip and boiled that in water. That worked fine for a long time. Then a presto. Oh, I like the presto. I rarely use the pour spout though. I ladel the wax out and into my containers or molds. Sometimes I use the pour spout when I have a lot of wax in it (like more than a pound). Ultimately, I have to tip it up to get the last bit out of the spout and its so clumsy that I just find it easier to unplug it and tip it to pour out of the top into the containers for that last second (or third) pour. So if you don't get the pour spout, just a ladel is fine. Plastic so you can let it dry and break up the dried wax for your fire starters. Next purchase will be an industrial melter, but I can make a lot of candles with a presto so that won't be any time soon. I heat my wax on the middle of the word WARM and go to the low side of the word just before it all melts. When I finish adding the dye and additives and scent, I turn it down very low and let it cool while I stir (a good minute or more to stir). I pour at about 160 for just about all waxes, sometimes higher. I never found a problem pouring higher. I bought an infrared thermometer gun on ebay for $14 bucks and that works just fine. It just occurred to me, there are three ways to spell pour. So be careful. Even if you are poor, and can't afford the fancy stuff, don't get sloppy pour the wax into any skin pore.

Soshiegirl, feel free to paraphrase. Don't give credit, please. You might want to change the last sentence to "Please put your oddly off-white trailer rental insurance carrier on notice and if you ain't got enough welfare to pay the premiums then your cheap no-tell motel stolen Bic pen is writing checks your five ex husbands can't afford to pay."

Nice sea stuff on your website.

Well, if the customer is willing to articulate what the problem is then you can take it from there. As for general disgruntled customers, however, know that you have some protection. if the customer cannot articulate anything important (didn't like the FO, FO died or was weak, hate the color, it melted in the car, etc.), and its just a general rant, you have a few things you can remind the person of - gently of course. 1) Most States have laws that protect businesses and commerce. It is tortious conduct to interfere with business relations. That means that a general disgruntled rant with no basis in fact might be something that interferes with your normal business and you can get an injunction to shut her up or sue her if there are measurable damages. 2) Most States have laws that protect businesses from tortious interference with contracts. If you lose any contract business, that's just wrong. 3) Some States have defamation per se statutes. Defamation of a business is one of the big 4 and you don't have to prove damages. http://www.dancingwithlawyers.com/freeinfo/libel-slander-per-se.shtml Truth is always a defense so if your candles really do suck then too bad (but we know they don't or you wouldn't be on this board). A nice thing to say might be, "Thanks for your feedback. While we do protect our good name from defamation, we are also very open to learning as a company and we here at BS Candles would like to understand better what your specific concerns are. Please fill out our feedback form and send it to our address below. Thank you for choosing BS Candles and we apologize for any inconvenience." Then there's the other thing to say: "Thanks for your comment ... NOT! We here at BS Candles like to make money off of you gullible idiots any way we can. We prefer to bamboozle you and B(#&@ Slap you with diluted scent dabbed all over the outside of the wax, but if we can't, we are glad to prosecute for defamation. What do you mean we suck? You suck! Have you looked in a mirror lately that hasn't cracked in the first 10 nanoseconds? Please put your homeowner insurance carrier on notice."

So I lit a tealight tonight with C3 and Grandma's Kitchen from LS. Light orange smell, very similar to the OOB and CT. Surprisingly, the tealight is putting out enough throw to be enjoyable.

Hello, my name is Eric and I'm a candleholic.

Ok, I made some tealights and a mason jar with C3 and this FO. Not a strong citrus, but definitely a citrus. I still can't put my finger on the other notes.

I bought 16 oz. Haven't used it yet. OOB I'm having a hard time identifying the smell. Orange peal definitely comes to mind. Citrus smell. I might make one candle with it but I don't think I'm going to like it. There is some other note that I have not identified but its not bread smelling.

I haven't used that in a container, but I have used crystalizing palm and feather palm and glass glow palm in containers. They are hard and burn hot. They pull away from the glass in most places but not all leaving wet spots. They need larger wicks than soy or soft parasoy so the flame tends to be hotter. Make sure your glass is thick and can withstand the temperature. Give adequate warnings about max burn time and not handling when hot, etc. Otherwise, they look really nice and unique and um, well, unique. And they hold the FO well and I found they have a great throw on EO's. I don't hesitate adding expensive EO's to this wax. My "blood pressure" EO candle that uses blood pressure reducing EO's (or those believed to work in this regard such as clary sage, ylang ylang, lavender, etc) really throws a scent that makes me take a deep breath and relax. Which reminds me, I'm out of Bulgarian Lavender and need to make more BP candles.

I just stumbled on it by accident. I was making some wild watermelon scented containers with IGI paraffin and thought I'd use mostly red and a couple drops of yellow. Soooo, for one pound of wax, I added in 6 drops of red and 2 drops of yellow thinking it would be a reddish color like watermelon and it came out about the hottest pink I think I've ever seen.

blwoods, I have 2 ounces but was going to use it. I have some already mixed in soy wax for my soy experiment that was on the forum a while back. I can scoop some of the already mixed soy and Hot Buttered Rum and put it in a snack bag (and put a drop or two on a small paper napkin) if you like. I can also send you a Jamaican Bay Rum tealight, but I think that is probably more on the spicy side. Just PM me with a mailing addy and I'll send it off. Sounds, though, like it was discontinued?

You can always put your spin on articles like these and distinguish your product. "Why, yes, that's true, an improperly wicked candle or over fragranced candle can fill your room with soot and chemicals which is why we here at BS Candles make sure we properly wick our candles, test them with the finest of professional waxes and only include fragrance on the outside for that B**&) Slap effect that disappears quickly." Or some such line.

I have some Bert's Heaven Scent "Hot Buttered Rum" and it reminds me of butterscotch candies. I don't recall the lifesaver, but if it was anything like the hard golden butterscotch candies, this is likely a good place to start. Very strong by the way.

I don't know, I think that article has a point about stinky feet.

Rachel, you'll enjoy this board. Yaley is a good way to get started. They set everything up for you and make it neat and clean and easy to do. Doesn't take long for folks to learn what you learned, though, that Yaley is just introductory level. There is a wide variety of waxes, wicks, scents, and materials out there and just as many opinions on this board about them. Enjoy, and welcome.

Hey, check this out, a wax/water conversion calculator! They're using 18.6:16 ratio. http://www.candletech.com/calculator/container.php?fst_num=0&snd_num=18.6&ans_num=15.91 Maybe you can write to them and ask that they add one more variable to the calculator - wax type. (soy, palm, paraffin, or, better yet, the wax blend number i.e., IGI numbers, etc).

Yeah, good point about boiling temp and calibrating. Not just sea level, but standard pressure of 29.92 inches of mercury. As pressure goes up, so does the boiling temp of water. As pressure goes down, so does the boiling point of water. Increase in altitude results in decrease in pressure and temperature. Without getting all einsteiny about dry and wet adiabatic lapse rates or atmospheric layers, or pressure areas (pilots know this stuff), let me suggest that our modern vacuum mercury or digital candles are not effected by these things. However, if you want to check your thermometer for accuracy by boiling water, then you do need to make all of these changes. Barometer readings of 29.92 (one standard atmosphere) inches will be reported for all altitudes below 18,000 feet. That doesn't mean in Albuquerque NM that at 5,000 feet when the report is 29.92 that you really have sea level pressure. It means you have the standard lapse rate (dry usually) for what the normal pressure would be at 5,000 feet if it was a standard day. This is what got the McDonald's manager in trouble with Stella Liebeck. At 5000 feet with standard pressure, boiling is probably closer to 205, not 212. With a low pressure area, it could dip below 199 degrees. So the actual measured temperature and calculated temperature of her hot coffee was way more than any of us could possibly endure. So if you want to calibrate your thermometer, you need to make some calculations that go beyond altitude and pressure. You need to know the hygrometer readings and what the dry/wet lapse rates are for your exact location... and some more. These are all things that relate to air density and density altitude. Best way to calibrate your thermometer is to send it to a lab for certification. It might not cost you more than a few bucks. Technicians do it all the time. I can get a multimeter or an altimeter or a barometer or a hygrometer or a torque wrench calibrated pretty inexpensively. I have no doubt whatsoever that thermometers can read 12 degrees apart or more. Where the printed lines on the card are located in relation to the mercury tube can vary radically. The digitals seems to be less variable, but there is really no way you can calibrate any of these at home. If you try and it looks close, go for it! (Helicopter pilots really do pay attention in class from time to time.)

I guess it is good to point out that the lasers measure surface temperature (wherever the dot lands) and the mercury ones or the digitals with a probe can measure below the surface. Since I don't mix a lot of wax at a time the surface temp seems to be ok. I suppose if I had a deep pot I might be interested in temperatures below the surface. Then again, a few good stirrings can help minimize that concern.

My cat, Einstein, smells nice. Seriously, though, I live in a small studio condo and just make candles when I get home from the office. A dozen pillars here have enough CT to be noticeable when walking by. There's no doubt that the condo takes on the scent when mixing and pouring. I even notice that sometimes the next evening after a heavy night of pouring, it smells nice just walking towards the front door. Nobody has said anything about my clothes (neither have they said anything about BO). I did notice one thing. The downstairs condo owner is a smoker and despite complaints, I have had resigned myself to wearing clothes that smelled like cigars. That is gone now.

One of my testers brought a candle back to me that was pretty much still full. I had forgotten that she still had it. She said it smelled OK on CT and fine when she first lit it and then it just went dead for scent. She did not want to burn it any more. I think there is probably 1/2 oz wax burned, meaning about 4 hours or so. When I looked at it closer I recognized it as one of the CB135 candles that I poured in a standard mouth mason. I think if you can get the melt pool pretty wide, like 4 or 5 FEET, this wax may throw ok. Thesaurus also has horrendous, heinous, loathsome, appalling, dreadful, ....

I'm still pretty much a newbie, but the thermometer issue is one that I tackled pretty early on. Bought a Yaley thermometer at Michael's Art store. Mercury, clipped into the double boiler pour pot. I think it was accurate in the area it was located in on the side of the pour pot. It broke easily one day when I just set it down. I bought another mercury thermometer from another company. Same story. Then I looked into digitals. They were $109 at the candle supply websites. Bought one on E-Bay from China for $14.95. Took three weeks to arrive on the slow boat. I haven't looked back since. This thing at the pull of a trigger (and sweaping around) reads real time anywhere in the pot. Yeah, its different at different locations. If I am concerned about the clear liquid where the IR beam hits, I just place a stir stick in the wax, let it heat up, and shoot the wax itself with the stir stick below it. Readings are consistent with surface temperatures. I tried it in many other locations, the walls, the office, the parking lot on a hot day, the AC ducts. Its great. No cleaning up later from the wax on the glass, no breakage. My monitor is 90 degrees. The pool in a container candle about 169 and the flame seems to read around 337, but that's hard to shoot. Release the trigger and the last temp holds on display until it auto shuts off. Can save a few numbers. Backlight for night time. C or F. Pretty basic and pretty inexpensive. It is an "Infrared DT-380" with range from -50C to 380C.

I've looked around at the dollar stores for a good container that the store also is able to re-order (no sense branding anything that you can't get more of). Unfortunately, a lot of that stuff is to thin on the glass to be sturdy and much of it has blems to deal with. But I did find one good jar that seems to be consistently made and infinitely renewable. Local price plus tax is slightly higher (by pennies) than mail order from the suppliers, but yeah, there's no shipping charges.

Well, I wasn't trying to be mean and I'll try not to use any more dry humor (unless I weight it first). I think that Wheels was trying to compare wax weight with water weight to a level line in a container and figured out that soy and paraffin are different and was trying to find out where palm fit in. I don't personally do this, but maybe it helps some people decide how much wax to put in the melter when they plan on using different containers with water ounce sizes. I have some containers labeled as 12 oz. Filled to the brim, they do hold about 12 oz of water. Not filled to the brim (so that the lid works), they hold less water of course. About 10 oz or slightly less. 8.5 oz of paraffin/FO is about all I can get in them to the same level so I label them as half pound candles. So for me, one pound of wax and one ounce of FO makes two containers. So I guess I would say that my blend at 17 total ounces is going to fill a container to the same level that somewhere around 19 ounces of water would fill. One of my palm containers just weighed 8.1 oz to the usual level where I get 9.6 oz of water or so. I have a paraffin that weighed 7.6, but it had a little sink to it and if I topped it off it might take another quarter ounce or so. I think I might try naming my cat Einstein. She's pretty smart and helps me when I'm making candle labels. She figured out when the paper is about to be ejected and uses her paw to help it.