Chefmom

I too have this going on. Both pillars and containers do this when they burn down. I have a special "lid" thing that was given to me years ago that makes the flame rock solid. It looks like the smell jelly lid with a hole in the center and a flower pattern punched in the metal, but mine have no threads to screw the lid on a jar. If I use this lid the flame is perfect and solid, take it off and the little dance happens. My husband gave me a long, engineer answer about air flow and heat. He's an air flow/HVAC technician. I no longer consider that little flicker dance a problem unless the scent throw is lost. In my square pillars, I now wick them to burn a tunnel down because I like the hurricane effect and the flickering is nice, especially in a dim lit room. I'm doing round pillar testing now, but I don't want them to tunnel.

I'm not thrilled with the center label, but I LOVE the orange-y one. I would try the print in a dark chocolate brown over black to pop it out. The scrub label looks homemade to me, but the orange one looks more professional, like on a higher-end candle.

I don't abandon a test burn unless it comes out that the wick is hopelessly small and just won't keep going. Even if it is too big I burn it as long as the jar isn't dangerous hot, just to see what it will do in the bottom half of burning. I actually have one now that I'm burning that looks a lot like your photo. I keep burning it, even though the wick is too small, just because it is REALLY hot throwing well. My room scents within 30 minutes, but by the 2 hour mark the flame is quite pathetic, however the scent is still really nice so I keep at it. If I want to scary test my candles, I just give them to my daughter. I tell her over and over to trim the wick, don't burn over 2 or 3 hours etc, etc. She does what she wants and soots them up etc. I figure it's a good test of what a "customer who knows it all and doesn't care what I say" would do.

I love the 6006 wax, I just ordered a full case of it. It takes color well and all the scents I have used are throwing well (except one), I'm just kicking myself for not marking some test jars with what size wick I used. Dumb-A$$ me wrote down in my book that I poured two or three of X scent with three different wicks. DUH, I didn't mark each JAR for what wick. I've done so much testing that I can tell the Htp, LX and CD wicks just from how they burn, but I need to be sure I mark the bottom of the jar as to WHAT SIZE wick. Other than that I'm loving the 6006!! I've started with jelly jars, just because that is what was in the basement en-mass, but I'm now testing two other jars for hot throw before I decide on my final packaging etc.

Okay, I just got the picture of Medieval Spanish Inquisition torture devises in the spare room.........

I have rendered my own, and used it for soap. In my soap I didn't notice any difference between using the grocery stores hydrogenated lard and my lard. My lard was much softer, and wasn't firm like shortening, but creamy. I even made a 100% lard soap, just to see what "Great-Grandma" would have used, it's okay, and useable, but the smell of the soap, well.....let's just say that I would call it "essence of last night's Pork dinner" scent. It lathered, but not as nice as a mixture of oils etc. The mice enjoyed it!! I couldn't believe when I opened the box and found a LOT of mice droppings inside the box. The other soaps (we moved and I forgot they were in that cabinet) were untouched, but the lard soap was enjoyed by all !!!

You may be adding too MUCH vybar. I haven't used any yet for my pillars (still playing with unscented pillars right now) and I have a note in my candle notebook about using 1/2 teaspoon of vybar per pound of wax. I'm not sure how much vybar weighs, but 1% would be around 5 grams. Anyway, I also have a note that if you use too much vybar you will actually tie the fragrance oil too MUCH into the wax and it won't release the scent, even when burned. I'm thinking of going to a blend for scented pillars. Right now my plain pillars are burning well, but I haven't added scent yet, just paraffin (148-degree melt point from Michaels) stearine and beeswax. I've been playing with amounts of each to see what happens. As for price, Michaels is now charging $35 for a 10-pound slab. With my 50% off coupon (they come every so often) I can get it for the price everyone is selling for, about $18-$19. So I buy a slab and I make my husband buy a slab when we get those coupons, but everything else is shipped in right now. I did find a local supplier in driving distance for the 6006 wax I'm using for containers. You really have to figure out ALL the costs when you are shipping heavy items. Tami

Very well said!!!

Yes, I tried a slab of joywax. I could not believe the smell of it!! Last year I was a midnight doughnut fryer and Joywax smells EXACTLY like the solid fat that we put in the doughnut fryer!!! I kid you not. When I did some tests with that wax in containers with ZERO fragrance it gave off a faint fried doughnut smell. My kids came home from school and actually thought that I had either made or bought doughnuts!! Handling it was like handling crisco shortening, or the buttercream base that I worked with in the bakery. I often wondered if I could make soap with it!! Tami

You aren't alone, if that makes any difference. I am seeing my jelly jars burn quite well for about half to two thirds of the jar, and then out of the blue the flame seems to dance. Not sputtering, just a little jiggy dance. I too thought that it was where I was burning the candle, but it is happening everywhere. The candles are still burning even, throwing fragrance as well as they did in the beginning, just the flame is dancing. However, it all stops when I put my little vented lid on the top (like the smelly jelly lids). The flame stops dancing and burns straight, but......the fragrance throw is almost gone when I do this. It's happening with several different wicks, different fragrances, the same wax, 6006. The same jar, and always at about halfway down. At this point I'm not overly concerned because the jar is NOT heating up, and even when they reach the bottom the jar isn't overheating. I'll keep burning and reading.............. Tami

So true.....In my "real" life I am a Professional Chef/Baker. I run into people all the time that swear that one ingredient is going to kill us all, not because it is, but because they just read two lines somewhere about the evils of eggs or butter or something else. I had a cake customer DEMAND to see my feed sack label to PROVE that my chickens are NOT fed meat-by-products. I didn't have the heart to tell her that my chickens have free range through the gardens (not in growing season) and fields and they love to find frogs, worms, snakes etc. If I read something that states "X" is evil and should be banned I usually do more reading etc to see why. In my life with food I have learned plenty about commercial agriculture etc, and soy wax usage ties in with that. I just don't know what a good answer would be to someone who thinks paraffin is evil, or palm is evil or "natural" wicks MUST be used. It's really confusing out there. Cotton is natural but it too has it's issues with the environment with high pesticide usage, and GM issues etc. Then the cotton is processed with chemicals before it can be a wick, so that is added. I'm pretty well versed with my food customers, and even with my soap customers, but I'm trying to learn as much as I can when I am confronted with these issues with future candle customers. I can't see ANYTHING as being the perfect answer. Tami

I have the seamless molds with the pretty concave top, and squares with beveled edges, so I use my pillar wick pins from the outside pushed through the hole. I had quite a few leaks no matter what I did to seal the hole and I ended up with putty all through my wicks (they don't burn well when they are filled with putty). Also, I bought the 3-inch by 9 inch pillar wick pins and they work for my two inch molds that are short or tall AND my molds that are three inch wide, and even the three inch square molds. I like multi-taskers. With the wick pin I just use a little putty around the pin and press the mold onto the putty and pin. Make sure it's level with a little level (thanks to hubbie) and when I pour I just pour a few tablespoons to check for a leak, but I haven't' had any leaks (so far-----touch wood) and then pour the mold as usual. I really love the wick pins! Large and small. Tami

I am using straight paraffin right now, a melt point of 145 I believe. Years ago I bought some slabs on clearance ($8 for 10-pounds) and they have just been sitting in my pantry. I picked up wick and some molds and quite a few books, but I never really dived into making them until about 8 months ago. Last year there were some electric power outages locally (not my house, but many around us) and some people were without power for up to three weeks. All from one wind storm. It got me to thinking about having candles on hand in an emergency. I have the oil lamps from when I was a child and a couple gallons of oil. I don't like to carry those around the house, if they spill and break it would be a house fire. So I got out the books, and the molds and slabs of paraffin and started playing with it. I found that straight paraffin was fine for my emergency candles, but if I wanted something pretty to look at or strongly scented I would need to add things to the base. I started reading online, getting confused, and reading some more. I didn't make sense of a lot of it until I started making my own and burning them. Once I saw for myself what a too big wick or a too small wick were doing, too hard wax or too soft wax etc. Then everything I was reading started to "click". Along the way I found the wonderful world of fragrances. I have purchased scented candles in the past, and now I make my own. I am very chemically sensitive, so I'm finding that some scents have very strong reactions, and I'm able to use others. As usual it's trial and error. I've been a soap maker for 10 years or so, and so adding candles to that seemed like a natural step. So, I will continue to play with my paraffin slabs, and I now am using a "paraffin-soy" blend IGI-6006. It's very easy to use, much easier to measure than paraffin, it just cuts with a knife!! So far things are going smoothly and my pillar candles and votives are very nice. I'm still trialing wicks for containers before I start selling them. Tami

And to confuse us even more: http://www.candlescience.com/learning/the-problem-with-palm-wax.php It goes to show you that we will never know which is right or wrong, It's so confusing! I guess the only answer is when we all run out of oil on this planet we will have to keep bees and raise a LOT of bayberry bushes. Tami .......does anyone know how to process lard/tallow to make into candles?

Whoever has the biggest pile of money seems to get heard the most. Don't you just love politics?? Tami

I am sensitive to harsh smells, and I have found that some of the fragrances make me quite ill. Before Christmas I was pouring candles each day for gifts and I kept it to two different fragrances at a time, but I was sure to pour similar fragrances. However one day came and I poured five different scents. That was way too much and I had to open doors and windows and run a fan along with my stoves exhaust fan. That night we ate out and let the house air out. I keep it to one scent a day now and I'm no longer sick. However I can't handle ANY scent that is coconut based. It's an instant reaction, I vomit if I smell coconut. I can handle the little bit of fresh coconut in a cookie recipe or on a cake, but if I smell the coconut flavorings or scents look out! All smoke isn't good for you, and I would do further research on paraffin. There is a lot of very wrong info out there. People seem to forget that oil is a natural product, and so paraffin is a natural (refined) product. If it's a carbon footprint kind of thing look into commercial agriculture. There is a LOT of petroleum AND natural gas in the production of soy products and in the pesticides and herbicides and then the refining process uses energy as well. Neither outweighs the other in my opinion. They both are what they are. It's personal choices that leads you one way or the other. My biggest concern is ruining my floors with the wax, so I have a stack of newspaper that I lay down on the floor and all over the work surface. I go through a lot of paper towels as well!! Tami

Totally love wick pins!! My first pillars (when this madness began 8 months ago) were melted down candles from here and there and some wick from Michaels. Everything was lovely and I was burning my first pillar candle <<patting myself on the back>> and then half way down the candle the wick had been pulled to the side and then whole thing was moot!! I had that wick primed and pulled straight, but when the paraffin formed that cavity as it cooled it must have pulled the wick with it. From that moment on.....wick pins. I have made votives ONCE without them, the very next order for supplies had wick pins in it! Haven't looked back. Tami ....I too have pulled the wick out and changed it during a test in both votives and pillars.

My husband and I will both be cremated, in my pottery class I have made a pot with a lid that our ashes will both be put in, then the pot can be glazed and so sealed when it is glaze fired. The kids can keep us, or bury us, it will be up to them. I guess it would be nice to have a pot with a lid but so a small candle could be fit onto the top and burned in a remembrance way. That way the ashes are there, a candle is there, but the ashes aren't' on display. I think that might be a little morbid. As for cremation, I have told my kids that I don't want perfectly good farm land wasted on my body. I will be done with it by that time. That is how I believe. Tami