EricofAZ

Around the 15 minute mark, all were at 1 1/4 inch pool dia with 464 as the leader at 1.6 inch pool dia. by 20 minutes C3 had a lot of sweating. CB135 and 464 light sweating. 444 no sweating. At the 45 minute mark, all looked the same for pool diameter.

At about the 7 minute mark, all had achieved a 1 inch pool diameter but the 464 reached 1 1/4 inch. The C-3 had some light sweating. 444 had the lightest color and C3 the darkest. I added no dye but the FO had some yellow to it.

Well, aaaaaallllllrrrrrriiiigghhttyyyyyy then! (Jim Carey says it better.) The 4 hour burn is concluded. I don't have good HT info at this time, will need to figure out a new test for HT. My freakishly small kitchen did smell like Hot Buttered Rum, but not as strong as I would have expected with 4 candles burning (then again, its soy, which is a FO killer). So. You can see from the photos what wax was placed where and the marks for diameter. I lit them all off with the fake Rolex Submariner at 12:00 ish.

Welcome. I hope you enjoy the forum as much as I have. Please disregard my goofy posts. Soy, thanks for suggesting the 12 step program. When I took up candle making as a hobby, I said to myself, "Self, this is a cheap hobby, for a hundred bucks, I can have fun." Well, $2k later, I'm still having fun but it ain't cheap. It is, however, much less expensive than mountainbiking, road biking, golf, flying, and being owned by a cat. And, if I were to divide hours of fun into the dollars, I do think the candle making takes the prize. So yeah, its a cheap hobby.

Interesting idea to use the tare button for the pot. However, I'm using a presto so I have to measure and add. It is true that drops are wasted. When I change scents, I have to clean the glass with a paper towel.

Ok, we had a total of 5 testers for the cold throw that mixed up the candles in different order, sniffed coffee between, and took multiple tries at it. Here are the results: 4 of the 5 agreed that the C3 had the strongest CT by far, like leaps and bounds. One thought CB 135 was the strongest. There was no pattern to the rest and we have no agreement as to the weakest, though everyone thought they had identified a weak candle. Two thought 444 was the weakest, two thought CB135 was the weakest, and one thought 464 was the weakest. I'll start a burn test tonight and time it for 4 hours. Personally, I think the Naturewax C3 is the strongest and I agree that the rest are so close together it is tough to choose.

The interesting thing about this thread are the suggestions. Downy, mist FO's etc. Eisenhower was president when I was born. We were poor. Oh, not in attitude, just in ability. Dad was retired military (with 99 percent disability). So I mention this just because it was funny (in a historically sad sort of way) how we survived as a family. We couldn't afford much with 5 of us on $395/mo since $95 went to pay the house mortgage. Our bathroom scent was au' naturale! Well, all but mom. Mom would grab a book of matches that were give-aways whenever she got the chance and light one after her bathroom usage. Back then, a match had a very strong sulfur smell, much stronger than today. The smell permeated the bathroom and the house. Today, a match strike is very much more subdued and doesn't linger half the day. Today, we have downey and oils for a heater, etc, etc. It is good to live in today's world.

The dye chips are paraffin, eh? Maybe introducing some paraffin to the palm alters the effect?

Well, I don't get headaches with soy candle making, but I do very little of it and pretty much never get headaches (or hangovers). For some reason, I seem to be blessed in this regard. However, several years ago I went on a veggie diet to help lose weight and being a carnivore, I gravitated towards soy stuff. Soy burgers, etc. I ended up 11 days in the hospital with acute pancreatitis. Unknown cause. Known causes are 45% alcoholism, 45% gall stones, 10 percent "other." I then started reading about soy. Everything I read said soy products were safe (and good) for human consumption. However, rats and monkeys could expect pancreatitis. We've been lied to by the soy industry and the FDA. If this product causes pancreatitis in monkeys (very little DNA difference from humans) then we can expect the same for us, eh? I have no idea what that means for your wife or the headaches from smelling soy. Try switching to palm or paraffin and see if the headaches stop (or build a shed or tree house for your candles).

I have one CT test today but will gather more before releasing results. Today my tester sniffed coffee beans between containers and mixed up the order later in the day and she did this several times. She clearly has identified the strongest in her opinion. She thought at first she identified the weakest but further tests caused her to change her opinion on the weakest. She never waivered on the strongest. I have another tester tomorrow. Will follow the same procedure, coffee, sniff, coffee, sniff, coffee.... ... do it again... etc. By PM request, I'll record some info on the burn pool size over time (to decide if the wick is correct, under or over). The challenge will be the HT test. Probably need to do that outside.

Please go to www.snowdriftfarm.com and look up their information on preventing mold. I don't work there, but they are local and I was impressed with what the owner said to me about this subject. http://www.snowdriftfarm.com/chek-it.html The link has a video and while it is oriented towards water based products such as soap, Bill was quite passionate about informing me to check wax products as well.

One more response. I read on this forum that if you turn on the presto with a wax layer in it, the wax melts and superheats under the layer and you get a bit of a blast of a mess out of it. I don't know how volatile this is, but I did notice one time that the wax did superheat from below and when I broke the top, it expelled some hot liquid. Be careful about that.

So tonight I snipped the wicks and here's another picture. My nose is into dinner so I can't say what kind of CT these have, but they all smell about the same. I'll take them to work in the morning and see what the co-workers say. Seems to me that the first one I sniff is the strongest and the last the weakest and it doesn't matter where I start or end. Remember, as you look at the image, left to right, 444, CB135, 464, C3 They all have good adhesion to the glass. All about the same color. The two on the right have flat tops, the two on the left have very slight irregularities and that might be because they were jostled during the cooling phase, not sure. The 444 is the hardest to the touch. None deform when I press down but they all make a good fingerprint. In terms of surface hardness, the 444 is the clear leader of hardness, followed by 464, C3 then CB135 in close contest. Held up to the light, they all look creamy but the 444 has a slight mottling effect in the wax.

Ok, I have both of these waxes here including C3 and CB135. I'm going to try an experiment with a scent that I think is pretty strong. 4 oz in a tumbler of each wax with the exact same amount of FO - 10 ml (hot buttered rum from Berts - Whoa!). The same wick (CD10 for the 2.5 inch diameter tumbler). No dye. All poured at about 165 degrees or so. FO added at about 180 or so. I'll let you know.

I'm pretty sure its the way the wax burns. Larger wick seems to work well for me. Most wax blends tend to get soft on the outskirts of the flame outside the pool and when the heat builds up, they slide down the container or curl in. This palm seems to be more like a light switch. The wall stays hard until it hits its temp then it just crumbles. Someone said it burns down then outward, compared to other waxes that burn outward then down. I have to agree. My first pillar with this had a void pocket in the middle. I could tell because when I shook the pillar 3 hours after taking out of the mold I could hear the liquid sloshing. So during the test burn, when the wick hit the pocket, it burned very tall and took some of the sided above and then blew a hole in the sides of the pillar where the pocket was. Have fun wicking this wax. Without any void pockets, it seems to burn well with a tough wall and then crumble when the wick works down about half way or more.

I just got my shipment from Lone Star Candle Supply. The liquid dyes are thick and strong and not too bad on the chemical smell. I like them. I bought a dozen scents. All very strong. The pumpkin pie spice is maybe more spicy smelling than pumpkin, but its good. I don't know if I like grandma's kitchen. Seems pretty citrus like to me. The pomegranate cider is more cidery to me than pomegranate, but nice. The one that I like the most is Butter Pecan Pie. Very strong and true to its name.

i started out with some generic (no name) paraffin and CB 135 and moved to palm. GG and Feathering and Crystalizing. All the wicks seemed to be about the same and were way larger than the charts said. Now I ran out of that no name paraffin and turned to Lonestarcandlesupply for brand name IGI wax and I'm having to wick down to keep from overpooling the containers. So I guess what i took away from that lesson is that palm and whatever no name stuff I got seems to need larger wicks than the IGI stuff. I went from a #4 square braid wick in feathering palm (3x3) to a #2 in IGI pillar paraffin (and probably need to downsize to a #1). So maybe if you are used to IGI, you might need to upsize your wicks for palm.

I just bought some 6006. its sticky to the touch like it has too much oil in it. I can bend a slab easily just by holding one end and letting gravity do the work on the other end. I'm afraid its just too soft to be of interest to me. Here in Arizona, we need stuff that doesn't melt at room temperature.

I'm sure that's Neroli the FO. The EO is about $250/oz. I like Berts Aspen Forrest and mix it with Redwood and Ceder from Berts. Dunno about your special application, just that I like these mixed.

Well, keep in mind that EO's are expensive, even wholesale. My BP candle with one ounce of the swill above costs about $10 just for the EO and if I use anything like chamomile or some other more exotic EO's, the price shoots up into the high double digits.

I believe there are some tutorials on this website in categories above.

The difference between cut or "oiled down" FO's from the hobby place your friend went to and a real FO supplier is night and day. I use two FO's from a local dollar store that works well in Palm, but that's it. Very rare that this happens. I'm very happy with the FO's from quality suppliers like Berts Heaven Scent, etc. The difference between FO and EO is not one of strength in a candle, it is what is used to make the oil. If you take a batch of synthetic chemicals and mix them to blend a particular smell, that's an FO. If you take a zillion botanical plant flowers and distill them to draw out the oil in the plant, that's an EO. So Lavender can be made by distilling a ton of lavender plants (EO) or it can be synthesized by mixing synthetic chemicals to make it smell like Lavender (FO). Both smell the same, one is real, the other is fake. If your friend is just looking for something that smells like lavender, the FO is affordable and does the job. If your friend wants the healing properties of lavender, then the EO is the only way to get this. (And, there is some debate that the heat of the candle, while the lavender does scent the room well, destroys the healing property of EO's.) Expect to pay a lot of money for EO's (Chamomile is $100/oz wholesale and some EO's are more). Real aromatherapy uses EO's and fake aromatherapy uses FO's that mimic the smell of EO's. Unfortunately, some folks pay for the FO's thinking they are getting EO's. Your friend's concern about the candle being weak is not related to EO vs. FO, but rather, whether your friend bought a good scent or just jojoba oil mixed with a bit of something that smelled like a scent. Wait until your friend opens the lid of a good quality FO. Keep some coffee beans handy to sniff and clear out the nose. Hope that helps.

There's one for sale on ebay. Put this number in the search box: 180556082038

snowdriftfarm.com has a Fresh Cut Grass. They're local and I recall sniffing it and thinking that I had just emptied out the lawnmower. I don't have a use for it so I have not tried it, but the OOB is pretty accurate IMHO. Here is what they say: Fresh Cut Grass Like a freshly mown meadow in summer, our Fresh Cut Grass is a the pinnacle of green scents. Go easy -- this scent is strong. Flashpoint: > 200F.

I tried some crystalizing palm and GG palm in pillar molds. I think I also tried some feathering palm. Seems like the GG and the crystalizing palm pull away from the side of the container long before the center sets up. I thought I'd play with this effect by pouring just a little then letting it pull away in spots and changing color.