RobinInOR

The sign actually turned out better than I thought, thanks to DH. I just grabbed my logo from some labels and stretched it out. Luckily s Illustrator prints out in tiles - so that sign is 8 pieces of paper, cut and glued together, then mounted on a cutup cardboard box DH whipped up the frame, luckily he had some wood hanging around. The local chiropractor stopped by, introduced herself, and bought one of my lip balms. And actually stopped back and thanked me for it, she liked it And a local day spa that just opened stopped by for a look - she makes her own soaps (she says), so I told her if she ever tires of it to look me up Crystal, way to go! Sounds like you had a great weekend.

Gee, I'm going to stop answering your questions (j/k) That looks absolutely fan-tabulous - great job!

This was an interesting test a friend and I did on our two waxes. No poking. Votives. The left is 1343. The right was my natural wax, Cleanwax. She didn't poke her 1343, and it really pulled away and shrunk down, deforming the top. I've noticed that in my pillars too, the sides are bowed if I don't poke. Cleanwax just plain got holes. Had to poke..

I've seen that too - manufacturers are adding more canola oil into their regular vegetable oils. Guess when they just call something vegetable oil, they use whatever is the cheapest Gotta always read the labels.. Canola has a SAP of .133, soybean of .136, so soybean will take a bit more lye than canola.

Barely How did everyone else do this weekend? It was pretty much a bust - 45 booths + the frogs. 105F I finally had to leave early, which I never ever do - I almost passed out after lunchtime it was so friggin' hot. 9x booth fee sounds like a lot, but when the fee was $10 it isn't Lowest I've *ever* done - about 1/4 my usual take. Better than I really expected though - even with the heat, it was fun to see neighbors. About 50% of my customer were repeats, 50% new. Right at the end the fire dept opened a hose on the truck and sprayed everyone so it felt like a light rain - it felt wonderful! I was next to the dunk tank and the "treasure hunt" (kids going for toys in a huge pile of hay) so there were lots of people standing around. Did *anyone* have good weather this weekend?

Someone remind me why I wanted to do a fair, first time on *cement*, when it's going to be 95-100F? It's our local Bullfrog & Local Business Fair, sponsored by our new C of C. They have to water down the parking lot so the poor frogs don't cook their little feeties Plus, DH won't be with me, I'll be alone. Dundee and his neighbor girlfriend dog Kiri were playing yesterday afternoon and collapsed from heat exhaustion - they had to be rushed to the vet for a saline drip. This was happening as I was still in the air coming home from a trip. He doesn't want to leave Dundee alone today, tho he looks fine. The neighbor dog is still at the vets, but is doing OK. Think positive thoughts, I think I'm going to need it Pics: Me all hot with my little fan that died during the afternoon My last minute sign - made 1/2 hour before we left. Have to stain it. Hung with HTP1212 Some frogs, but look at all the people who were willing to stand in the sun for their kids

Sara is starting a list for candles - let's create some more links for her that are bath and body. Add on your favorite suppliers and their web links - if you do a rolling post (copy the one above you) that will help us sort it out...

The jars are more prone to soot - there are some FOs in the 9 oz that I just can't wick without soot. Why I don't have many fragrances in balmorals yet.

Up on the top blue bar there's a "search" link - you can try to just enter your words there, or click on the "advanced search" to select on specific forums.

I think I've got about 40 scents in my main pillars and votives. Though I'm cutting down drastically. It's nice if you have a few scents in different categories so you can cover different tastes - some florals, some fruits, some foody, some herbaly, some perfumey or specialty scents..

I wonder if they're seeing more claims now that they've started the flat rate priority boxes. I'm betting they're seeing more small boxes that are weighing a lot more than usual, and they haven't adjusted their procedures to take into account the flat rates that might be heavier than they expect.

That's great Carmen, nothing better than some free publicity from the paper

Make sure it's not something as simple as using too much Butters, without water, tend to be greasy and you really need a very very small amount to be effective. The starches and lighter oils can help a lot, but if you're trying to duplicate the feel of some of the commercial body butters, many of them are emulsified products and it's the water that's making them "lighter". I tend not to put preservative in mine, but I probably would if I were adding a starch.

EOs are very dangerous around cats. Read through the site http://lavendercat.com - hope that's it, I'm on a computer that doesn't have all my bookmarks.

Um, maybe 1 ounce of honey per pound of oils was too much? That's 6% honey, I usually just do a tablespoon (about 3%) and that works fine. I also poured as a slab, and I know slab pour + lavender + lower temps gives me major ash if I'm not careful. So maybe pouring as a log would help.

Cars can easily get to 120F, windows cracked or not. Two years ago my Labor Day fair was over 100 - we were on grass, but the candles did fine. A few green pillars, even though they were under the tent, did turn brown just from the bright light. I took my thermometer with me so I'd know how hot it was in the tent. I'm doing a fair next Sat that I'll probably regret - it's on pavement, no shade except the tent, and it's been high 90s-low 100s for the last 3 weeks. I'm taking a battery operated fan for the tables. But I gotta do it, cuz it's a business fair for the local CofC. It's also a Bullfrog festival - they say it gets so hot that they have to wet down the pavement for the bullfrog race - their first year they didn't and cooked a few frogs' tootsies.

I take about $200. Mostly quarters, $1s and $5s, 1 or 2 $20s. All my stuff is even dollars, we don't have sales tax, and if I don't take votives, I don't really need the quarters either. That's for a 3 day show, though. I've taken $150 and been fine for a 1 day show. The real trick is those first customers straight from the ATM with $20 bills. Figure out what you think a customer would usually buy, figure the change, and bring enough so you can handle 5 customers like that. After that you'll be pulling in enuf small stuff to keep up.

I've found anything from the mid to low 70s and down make a hard bar. The iodine # is a measure of how many double bonds there are in a fatty acide (the higher the number, the more double bonds, the "softer" the oil). My base recipe is 72 or 74, anything I've tried with a higher number takes a lot longer to cure out and harden. What iodine value does everyone else have for their main recipe?

Aw, bummer, it looks so wonderful and creamy on the outside. Hmmm... You've got 39% of coconut/pko/babassu, all coconut like/very hard oils. Maybe that with the milk (even if it's a better behaved one) and a vanilla and the oven just overloaded the sap process so it was uneven? Haven't a clue... but I never trust vanilla FOs.

LOL, those usually end up in the garbage - I'm not quite as energetic as your wonderful rebatches show.. Hmmm, but I've got some dogs around, let me go find them lol.... Here's the latest - my lavender honey I had such great hopes for. I'm not even going to try to trim it, it even smells bad.

I've been told before that some terpenes that you find in mints, citrus, some pines that cause the fuel smell.

Orange Blossom (Scent Works Neroli) chromium green oxide & Verbena (Sweekcakes Verbena) yellow oxide - the FO discolors light yellow. Guess I was in the mood for light colored soaps. I like the way the ash outlined the green on the orange blossom.

I was getting too many soaps that didn't have proper pics on my website, so I finally caught up: Lemon Poppyseed (Peak Lemon Pound Cake) w/ not enough yellow oxide & poppyseeds & LogTown Rose (Peak Rose) that has gold mica veins you can't see. Sunflower (Peak Sunflower) w/ no color and sunflower petals, & Honeysuckle (Peak) my new favorite - no color, no nuttin, just scent.

Sounds like it went well! Congrats on your first batch - it's one you'll always remember

Liquid Polymer isn't a preservative. Many different preservatives will work in anhydrous formulas, you just have to test to see which one works with what you are doing. Here's ISPs guidelines for the preservatives they sell. http://ispcorp.com/products/preservatives/content/selguide/anhyd.html They recommend the Liquipars. Phenonip is mfg'd by another company and works well also.