JanetsCandles

I ended up putting the ucky soap into my crock pot to rebatch, probably tomorrow. I remade the batch tonight (darnit, I wanted that swirl!) and put it in the fridge. It looks like it gelled at least part way, but still looks pretty good. So it's going to sit until tomorrow and hopefully I get a good batch out of it.

Hmm. I assume you did get it out then. Only a couple thoughts left. One is that you had a vacuum when trying to pull it, the other is wondering if any of your tape twisted or folded over. Was the liner damaged when you pulled it out? Or the wood itself?

Don't know. I'm still not sure what exactly happened. You had soap in the mold when it stuck to the surrounding mold? Did you have the edges of the liner taped?

I like them!

Probably not. If it sticks with that kind of liner (unless you got the temps up high enough to melt the plastic), chances are good that the soap leaked down inbetween the cracks of the liner (where the parts come together). Did you tape it? (That said, I've had the soap attack the adhesive of the tape, too.)

Glycerine/glycerin/glycerol is not a fat itself. It is a polyalchohol. It can be part of an animal or vegetable fat. It forms the backbone for the triacylglycerols and is a product of the saponification reaction.

That's what I thought. Glad to have confirmation of it.

And what does glycerine oozing out of the top of my soap as a biproduct of soap making have to do with being a vegetarian anyway?

The soap itself stuck? Or the sides did?

I've been getting plastic sheeting (the kind painters use for a drop cloth) .7 mil thick to line the inside of my wooden mold, then put the actual liners in. Makes sure no moisture seeps into the wood, and gives me a very nice "lifter" type thing to work with.

I have argued about that page so long and so often to a few members of my friends list that I swear I feel like I'm going to go blue in the face. They were showing a container candle a few months ago using olive oil and the rind and pith of an orange. No way to stop the flame from spreading around the entire rind, and it would certainly smoke badly. My comments then got deleted as well. People like that just pith me off ;P

The seriously scary part is that there are some people who believe those postings and extoll the dangers of any other type of candle because it's not made from "natural" ingredients. Yeah, OK.

I must be on a bad run. Last batch, colors turned funny. This batch, overheating. Time for a rebatch, I think.

I never can NOT look at a batch of soap. So I wrapped it up last night (not thinking about the effect pumpkin and yogurt would have on the heating), and an hour or so later, it had started to gel. Yay! Or so I thought. This morning I get up and look. It has a nice oil slick on the top. Uh oh. It's cooled down, and felt mostly normal, except for the oil slick, but had sunk in the middle. So out of the mold it is. Nice layer of soap is bisected by a nice layer of oil. So I guess I get to work it in the crock pot instead of goofing off. Le sigh. Can someone tell the frigging fairies to go the frig home?

Check into a company called Smooth-On. They have a lot of info on mold making, and the materials you'd need to start with. They will usually give advice too on how to actually make the molds.

Ok Janet, my Mom would LOVE those owls. Do you have a website? Would like to order one or two for her. Thanks!

I messaged you! Just don't want to put the email or website up with all the recent spammers lurking the board. (That might be overly paranoid, but hey lol)

We've been seeing a lot of TallTayl's really nifty candles, and she and I had been talking about it. I do make my own molds as well, and most of my candles are sculpted out of clay before I make a mold from them. I'm sharing 2 of my favorite animal candles tonight. I do have others, but just not with photos handy to me tonight.

This is my elephant candle. Not long before my dad passed away, I made this out of clay. The elephant was his favorite animal, and I learned a lot about the elephants as a spirit animal and as a good luck symbol. Her trunk is raised because it gives good luck and prosperity.

And these are my owls. Probably had these as my best selling candle ever since I started making them. I originally made it when a friend was saying she couldn't find an owl candle anywhere, and owls are her absolute favorite. So they were born. And then I ended up making a "Mini Hoot-Hoot" baby owl to go along with them.

By far, these two are probably my best sellers.

I like him! You've got a serious talent there, m'dear. Guess I should post some of my things that I have made, too like that. <3

That's what I'm doing right now. Got the dividers taken out, but starting to think my pretty colors aren't going to even be visible.

We actually made a "needle" that works to thread the molds. Some of our molds are super long, so we can't reach by normal means. But yes, you can, and yes it works fine. They will get bigger over time (talking a few hundred uses) but you can either do the RTV route, or use duct tape over the top of it.

Very true! And it still smells really good, so maybe not DOS, and maybe just browning up. Which wouldn't be bad, if that's what it is.

Depends on what I'm making it for. Christmas candles are red, green, white, silver, or gold. If it's more of the traditional Yule (Winter Solstice), it's White, Pale Blue, Silver... wintery colors.

Hey, Cinder. I couldn't find a mold for it either, so ended up making my own of a hippo. Most of my animal candles are molds I've made myself, usually sculpting the animal out first.

I had used a piece of wood for a lid this time, so no plastic wrap to trap the moisture. I took the sides off my mold last night, and I'm not sure yet if I'm seeing DOS or if the soap is browning up in a weird way because of the FO. The white is now a yellowish orange color. *facepalm* My pretty soap is turning not so pretty.

That looks very nice. I make holiday cocoa cups that are similar, but didn't think to use the glass mugs. Where are you getting the mugs, if I may ask? And how heat tolerant are they?

I use a stock pot for a double boiler for the vat, we have 2 presto pots that I'm using to keep it all full. Hope you get a system working for you, and post pictures when you get a set that you like!

I don't have the one I burnt anymore, it got tossed in the move last year. But it did the awesome melty, drip down the sides thing. Didn't actually make it melt to the bottom, of course, but once it got through the roof and into the house, it sorta backlights and is just cool looking.

That was the plan, Miss Barbara. I only want to use the pumpkin in the single color, and just separate some of the mix for swirling the colors in.

So far, no reappearance of the drops, and the soap is drying out nicely. Still haven't gotten it out of the mold, but that's because I'm working on other stuff right now too. No funny smells or DOS either, thankfully.

I use the dipping vat that Peak has, and it takes about 10 pounds of wax to fill it up completely before dipping. Keep in mind that the wax level will drop as you dip, so it's very important to have an extra amount on hand. I tend to go through about 20 lbs dipping a single color of my hand dipped candles.

As for filling your vat, no, do NOT use water in the vat. All that serves to do is melt off the bottom of your tapers as you dip them, especially with a 10" length.

What I end up doing is dipping a rack, setting it on a holder I made myself, grab the next vat, same thing, until it cycles all the way through the tapers to get them the size I need. It's very time consuming, and I haven't been able to do them lately because of a shoulder injury that won't let me lift that much weight on a repetitive motion. Takes me something like 3 hours (with a few breaks) to do 1 color, 64 tapers at a time.