aswan01

Congratualtions, bailey, on receiving good service from a company that has treated so many others in an unfair, unfriendly & shoddy manner. If you are happy with C&S (Candles & Supplies) I say stick with them, but there are many, many others on this board that have NOT had positive experiences with them and will no longer do business with such a company. Plus, there are many potential customers on this board that will never place their first order with them. That is what this board is for - to help each other, and I consider this warning by SO many different people a great help to me. Thank you all for relaying your experiences with this company so the rest of us won't have to go through the same things. Maybe we can't put them out of business, but perhaps we can put enough of a dent in it to make them pay attention.

New Year's resolution?!? Hello....it's APRIL! ROTFLMAO

A word of caution on the Presto Pots with spigots - don't forget to CLOSE the spigot after you use all the wax in it! I learned this important little tidbit yesterday when I forgot to close the spigot after my first batch of wax. I put in the second batch and started doing something else for about 10 minutes. When I walked back into the kitchen I wondered what the sound like water running was. Lo, and behold, it wasn't water at all, but melted wax running out the open spigot all down my new cabinets and floor. What a mess! I'm not usually a dumb person, but I didn't remember not closing the spigot after I emptied the pot. Stuff happens....

You're right - this is wonderfully obsessive! I thought I was bad buring 6 with different wicks at a time, but 15! I just made my first batch of palm votives & was doing a search for wicking them when I came across your test burn pic. I'm so impressed by it that I saved it to my desktop so I can enlarge it & study all the burns carefully. I've picked out the best 5 from the pic to test. Of course I can't tell about flickering or smoking or scent throw from a pic, but it sure helps to see how they are burning after 2 hours. I wish more would post pics of their test burns either during, as you did, or after, so we ALL don't have to stumble around blindly trying to figure out how to wick the same candles. Thumbs up to you, Kimberly.

I use it with some adjustments. Parts of it I don't use and there's some things I add to it, ie. results of multiple burns on one candle, so I usually end up using the back of the page for additional notes. But it's a good starting point, plus you don't have to come up with your own form.

Where's the directions on how to do a crackle? Love the look! Especially with the chunks.

Beautiful! How on earth did you do that?

I have palm wax I've avoided using because I haven't the slightest idea how to wick it. What size is your pillar & what kind of wick? It looks great! How does it burn? Have you tried any votives with it? I may attempt the palm wax this weekend since I have an extra day off from work. I'll let ya know how it comes out - may even post a pic if it comes out as well as yours.

Thanks, J.T., for organizing such an event in Texas. I know it must be a lot of hard work. I am SO looking forward to this Conference. In fact, I think we should have 2 or 3 a year in Texas (it's a big state, ya know). Maybe we can get more suppliers to move or open up in our great state when they see how much business we can generate for them. Dallas seems to have the majority of the suppliers in the state, but what about Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Beaumont, El Paso, Abilene and all the other big cities not close to Dallas?

The same product could possible perform or look differently if they were produced in different plants. I know that Bitter Creek North & Bitter Creek South note on some of their waxes they sell that although they are the same waxes they are from different plants & will not necessarily perform the same. So if you want the exact same wax you may want to check with your supplier on which production facility for the company it came from. HTH

A chandler mag would be great, but if it's a print publication how can you do it for free? I tried the website, nothing there, not even a 'under construction' notice.

I test all the same scents because all FO's don't perform the same. Plus it's easier to see which has the better scent if they're all the same scent (of course you do have to also consider the differing sizes of the rooms they're burning in - unless all your rooms are the same size). :smiley2::smiley2::smiley2:

I always test 6 candles at a time with different wicks in each in different rooms in the house. I do a walk thru about every hour & the first thing I make a note of is the scent throw when I walk into the room. Then I note the melt pool, any smoking or mushrooming, and I touch the jars to make sure none are burning unusually hot. I test that same 6 candles for several days or weeks until all are burned all the way to the bottom (no wonder I don't get many candles made). This is kind of a time-consuming pain in the butt, but I find it easier to compare the wicks all at the same time like this than to try to remember from the notes whether one turned out just a little bit better than the other. I know immediately upon completion of the test burns which did the best job and which I prefer to use for that particular container and scent.

OMG! We sound like a bunch of 'twelve steppers'! In a year of making candles & a little b&b products the only firm decision I've made is which container wax I want to use (kinda). :embarasse I have stacks of partial cases of containers because I can't decide which ones I want to use and that brings about having enough assorted wicks to test each different container. I test at least 6 different types and sizes of wicks in each container, because I have so many that I haven't a clue where to start. Heck I even have 2 different sets of labels because I came up with 2 (not 1, but 2!) company names that I really like, therefore the logos are NOTHING alike. I thought this was suppose to be a RELAXING hobby!?!?!

I can't find a site for Reike's in Dallas with a Google search. Do they have a website? Why does Dallas have so many suppliers and Houston has so few?!? As far as I know BCS is the closest to the Houston area and they're still 1-1/2+ hours from me. There's Houston Candle Supply, but they are VERY limited on their supplies. I'm not big enough in 'the biz' to need pallets of items, but I would buy more than I do if I could find someone fairly close that was making the trip & I would help them pay for their gas. Why don't more people do that? It seems to me that it would be benefial to all involved.

The Avery Design Pro download from the Avery site is indeed, as has already been mentioned one of the easiest programs to use for a multitude of labels and stickers. You don't have to worry so much about being so precise in lining things up because it does it for you as long as you've chosen the correct label number at the beginning of the wizard. And you can't beat the price - FREE!