rjdaines

...but I find that jars with straight sides are easier to wick.

What are the problems?

With 4630 I single wick with HTP and double with ECO.

Ladies??? There are people with Y chromosomes here too Questions for you. 1. where is the best place to buy soy wax for tarts/melts? (where shipping costs are the least or if you can pick up), you are in MD so try Candle Science 2. where is the best place to buy scents? Same place 3. Any idea who sells the cheapest resealable plastic 6pk plastic melt containers?? Same place

Soy wax melting doesn't happen instantly when the melting point is reached, so it does go through a cloudy phase but should turn into a clear melt pool at some point. It all depends on how much heat is developing in your system and this will change as the candle burns down into the container.

I finally found a use for CB Advanced, I am trying to get a caterer's business, he uses small paraffin candles (votives) on the tables which he buys from WalMart. I'm trying to sell him the idea of using "naked" soy; no color, no FO. CB-A would be perfect for this. So, I am making some test container candles for him. So far they look good.

...and they pop from the mold easily? I've got a "ton" of PB and don't know what to do with it. This may be the answer.

Yep, you need a larger wick.

One if the few I have not tried, sorry.

I would treat a hex jar as a cylinder and measure the inside diameter. Make a paper cylinder that fits snug and measure that. Variables that you can't really get a good handle on are the square sides of the hex and the effect of glass thickness. The diameter will get you in the ballpark and you can tweak from there.

Ever since the night I was given a table at a craft event that was outside, I've stopped worrying about wet spots. That was a chilly night and all my candles had wet spots by the end of the night. Proved to me that it was all about the environment and I have no real control over that. We want our candles to look perfect when we sells them but what the customer does with them is equally important. Another thing we have no control over. I no longer worry about wet spots.

Same results here with PB and customers have a strange idea as to what "tight fitting" means. I no longer make soy votives.

Yeah, it's all about marketing not the product. Take Apple for example, not the best devices out there but they have created a demand out of all proportion to the functionality of the device. I make very good candles, those who use them love them but I can't generate enough sales to make it worthwhile. I don't have time for craft shows and shipping cost have killed any online sales but I'll keep plugging along. What I need a is marketing device to differentiate me from everyone else. Just haven't found it yet. So, my candles remain parasoy rather than "Dino-soy" or some other ploy.

Combustibles in the wax would be a bad idea, using hops in a shell and a candle within might be a better idea. I've seen this done with flowers using the high melting point wax. I don't know if there is a hops FO, not sure if that would be all that appealing anyway. Good luck.

I have some scents that burn better in my 4630 blend then to do in straight 4630. Soy-based to me would mean >51% soy.

I don't get hung up on defining my wax. If a customer requests to know the percentages then I will tell them. In general, I say that it is a custom blend of paraffin and soy waxes. Refrain from using the term "natural" because none of t is except for bee's wax. Parasoy describes a wax with a greater percentage of paraffin than soy which "soy blend" is less defined. I would use "soy blend" if I was using two of more soy waxes and maybe a blend with a greater amount of soy. A wax may also be a vegetable blend and not entirely soy.

Feel free to use any of it. Yes, the topic is complex and there seems to be no easy answers. Being "green" is more complex than people realize.

I can add some info to this since I am a molecular biologist and have done extensive research into GMOs (making them). The above PCR analysis is valid to a limited extent and is frequently used in schools to teach PCR but you need soy flour. PCR is a technique that amplifies small quantities of DNA into larger amounts which can then be studied. The first problem here is that the 35S promoter is not the only one in use; second is that the DNA is required to do the test and the fact that soy oil is purified and then chemically processed to become soy wax, the likelihood of DNA being present is slim. Third, what people are concerned about is not the DNA but the proteins that are made from the DNA, this is what people are potentially allergic too. None of those will be present in soy wax because the what I stated above, soy wax is a refined and processed material. In other words, none of the markers that we can use to tell us if the soy wax is GMO or not are not present in soy wax. A negative result does not eliminate the possibility that the wax came from GMO soy. If a wax producer uses 100% USDA certified Organic Soy, then they may be able to claim non-GMO, that is provided the crop is not contaminated with GMO soy from a neighboring farm or other slip ups in the supply chain such as in grain storage.

In my mix (which favors the 4630) I switched to HTP wicks. For some of the more difficult FOs (the dark ones) I am experimenting with RRD.

Sometimes things are out of your control but always use the best glass possible. I was at Yankee Candle this weekend a saw a customer bring in a 16 oz apothecary jar which had half of the top glass broken off. I assume that YC is using good glass but looking at the remaining part I could see that it was almost totally black with soot. Not sure that customer was trimming wicks and to get than much soot the flame must have been fairly large. Just saying that some things are out of your control.

Moving flame is a function of the air coming into the container, not much you can do about that. Notice that pillar candles don't have that problem. As far as the mushrooms, they are a sign if incomplete burn of the wax or FO. Some possible suggestions would be test CD wicks of smaller and larger size. A CD-10 has a little less rate of consumption (ROC) than the 12 and a smaller flame height but the melt pool is the same size as the 12 (of course, the test wax is not your wax so the results may vary). A CD-14, on the other hand, also has a slightly less ROC but a higher flames and larger melt pool. Another suggestion would be the try to increase the 4630 percentage or another wick (HTP).

I'm a cell biologist/molecular biologist btw

All true but what we really mean is paraffin wax, around here the "wax" is implied when we type paraffin. It is also true that both paraffin wax and soy wax are fully hydrogenated oils, the exact chemical structure of the two waxes is most likely different.

Here's another fun fact for you, the oil (petroleum) that comes from the ground is a natural product. We didn't make it, we just harvest and refine it. It also 100% GMO free. Soy beans can cause deforestation, the use of pesticides, the use of synthetic fertilizers, soil salinization due to irrigation, soil destruction due to modern mechanized farming techniques and probably other items but you get my point. I'm not sure soy is grown "Organic" in enough abundance to supply all the the food and non-food demand. While it may be true that soy wax is sourced from US farmers, we still import and lot of soy that is not from organic farmers or produced in a sustainable manner. And, what happens to the soy meal after the oil is removed? Animal feed or is it treated with hexane for the extraction of soy protein? It is not as simple as some people would lead you to believe. In the end, buy a quality soy wax and make candles that make you happy. You are not destroying the world but you are not saving it either.

What the heck does "locally grown" mean? How many local folks have the equipment to press soybeans and extract the oil and then hydrogenate it to turn it into wax? People will say anything to sell something. No wonder paraffin isn't sold the same way, "made from domestic petroleum from oil wells in the Great State of Texas". Buyer beware.