cedar_lea

Thank you Stella! That is exactly the information I was looking for. I now have a good staring point to test the wicks and go up or down from. I ended up with the wick I was using because it was the one suggested for the container & I knew I wanted something fairly close to it, but a little stonger burning, but I couldn't tell where a good starting place was for other wick types & figured they would work better than the coated cotton so I didn't want to just wick up there. Thanks a million

Faerywren -- I am interested in trying them but my burn is close enough to perfect that I'm hesitant. How would I find the most similar to my 44-18-20 wicks in those? I've looked at charts but all I can tell is that there are about 5 sizes of each type suggested for my container size, not how they compair to one another ect.

I have a follow up question -- How do you use your testing? Do you test every time you want to change scents or sizes? How do you adjust when you have a slightly imperfect burn? For example: I know that I should adjust the wick for the candles I've been working with. I know that the wicks I have work perfectly in my tea light containers, but have a little bit of tunnelling and flickering in my larger ones. What I'm not sure of is does that mean I increase my wick size or switch to an equivalent wick in a different style. Do I buy all of the possible answers and test them all? Will I need to do this again when I use a different scent and color in the same container? This looks like it gets expensive fast.

http://www.generalwax.com/glass-container-jars--lids---gift-boxes/glass-containers---jars/c___104.html Those containers are more difficult to find than I expected. I knew that they had to be out there somewhere because they're the standard religious candle size. They have a few other sizes too, which is nice because they do hold quite a bit of wax. Another reason I was really happy to figure out the rocks.

Sorry, the picture was a little bigger than I expected & I don't see a resize tool Finally I have something to show! These are Glass Glow Palm wax with a 44-18-20 cotton core wick. My test burn is going really well. There was some tunneling when I tried burning without fragrance, but it was a strong steady flame. With fragrance it burns to the sides, & it did drown itself out once, but was pretty easy to re-light & keep going. So I'm thinking that there might be a better wick choice out there, but this one's acceptable. As far as the rocks go, that was a crazy creative moment after I realised I'd ordered my wicks too short. I poured a little wax when it heated to 170, just about 3/4 inch & let that settle in the oven while I heated the wax the rest of the way. It stays wet & blends with the completed wax when it is poured, but settled well enough to make me tops nice and level. The wax hid the rocks more than I wanted until I added the layer of sand and tamped it down so it was solid as possible. Some wax still seeped down, but not so much that it spoiled the affect. I'm actually quite happy with them! Not what I would have suggested I tried for my first go round, but definately something that captured exactly what I had wanted to create

There's a few brown sugar fragerance oils out there. You may be able to mix up something similar with that and a good vanilla

Thank you. I had actually glanced at that thread but didn't read far enough to get to the part about flash points. As I'm waiting for boxes to arrive I start running through the process in my head and getting worried that I'm not sure what I'm doing. I don't even really cook so there's alot of room for uncertainty. It's hard to know what you don't know until it's too late. I think I just realised that the pour pot is not the same thing as the top of the double boiler where you melt the wax. So I guess I'm looking at getting a double boiler, or at least a pot that fits in a pot I can already have & then a place to remove the wax from the heat and mix the color and oil & then pour that into the mold?

I'm using these candle holders http://www.generalwax.com/glass-container-jars--lids---gift-boxes/glass-containers---jars/cate_104/p___Z909670.html they're like the ones that are used for the catholic religious candles. It suggested a 44-20-18 cotton wick so that's what I'm using. I hope that it isn't a problem with the palm, but I figured it was the best place to start. It's wax coated so that should help. I'm a little nervous about pouring over 180. It seems like the hotter you go the more chance you have of burning off the scent. I'm not sure wich way to err, cool as possible to save as much scent as possible or go hotter for prettier wax. Fortunately, going over the flash point of the cammomile oil shouldn't cause everything to burst into flames so I have the option of pondering. Another question -- is a pour pot something I should be able to pick up at a craft store? I'm hoping not to have to wait for another box.

I would probobly suggest vanilla, almond, honey, coconut ect. My thought is that because it is a lotion bar if you use a scent that has a creamyness to it it should give the impression that you have a rich creamy lotion, and people will be more likely to notice that element of it.

I searched around a bit and wasn't able to find celery in a fragerance oil. However celery seed essential oil is easy to find and I found this site wich listed it as an essential oil that has done well in candles http://forums.allcrafts.net/showthread.php?t=5127 so I'd guess it's something that can hold up to most fragerance application.

Thank you Becca! You just took a huge worry away from me with that info on flash points. That means I should be able to pour the wax at the recomended temperature of 175, even though one of my oils has a flash point of 172 . . . I haven't gotten a pour pot yet. I was trying to picture how big or small of one I would need before I went out and aquired it. I was somehow under the impression that 1oz to 1lb was a 10% scent load, not a 6%. However if 6 is correct than my math just got pretty easy. I just didn't want to be waisting fragerance since it's the main thing I'm wanting to show off with candlemaking.

I am an amature perfumer and am trying my hand at candle making as a way to do something with my blends. I will be making religous type containter candles with glass glow palm wax. I should have enough materials to make at five or six candles that take about a 1lb of wax each. Question #1: How much should I do at once. Doing a few lbs at a time seems way time consuming. Making a double boiler for six lbs of wax seems like it could be way bulky. I admit I might be overthinking this, but I'd like to have a plan before I'm in the kitchen and fighting with hot things. I was able to find the scents I'd used to make my blends on Save on Scents. (most candle oils are in elaborately already mixed scents and I needed something more basic to mix together). I got the SOS strength because some of the stronger ones had really low flash points and that sounded scary. As far as porportions go I'm a little lost. The SOS site recomends over 1oz to 1lb of parafin. I'm using glass glow wich won't hold that high of a scent load so I'm sure that's too much for my purposes. The scent loads I've seen suggested for the glass glow are 3-6% wich would be significantly less. Question #2: How do I interpret the varying scent reccomendations for oils and wax? I just noticed one of the scents I'm planning to use has a flash point of 172. The reccommended pour temperature is 175. Will the fact that the oil is mixed decrease the risk? What are the problems with pouring at 170 instead?