Paraffin wax - rustic and hurricanel candles

[Kaczor]

Hello everyone,

I am new on this forum. I'm from Poland and I'm starting making candles. I'm sorry for my English .

We are producing cementary candles and we are also a wholesaler of candles.

First, I would like making rustic candles by my own. I have few questions about that, because I can't achieve rustic outside.

We have two kinds of paraffin wax - 127F (Oil content not more than 0,75%)and 147F (Oil content not more than 0,5%). We melt them together 2:1, I freeze my aluminum molds before pour paraffin. We pour our molds with different temperature. When we make our candles, sometime we have horizontal lines and sometime candles look very smooth. It never looks like real rustic candle. Do I have to have a special paraffin to make them. I purchased new kind of paraffin wax with melt point 135F, vybar 103, Micro 180, and metal molds. Should I use vybar 103 to have better look of rustic or only for add more fragrances? Now, I'm waiting for this delivery.

Second, I want to do is a Hurricane Candles. How much micro do I have to add? Diameter of it inside - 3in.

[emilyspoppy]

Hello and welcome!

I'm new to this board too, but I have made candles for many years. I now make predominately fragrant container candles, but I have worked with most types of candles and waxes over the years.

Americans have many choices available to them when it comes to candle-type waxes. There are waxes formulated to "MOTTLE" naturally. These are often the choice for those desiring to make primitive candles with a desireable frosted finish.

There are oils however, known as Mottling Oils, which can be added to most waxes to acheive that result. Your best option would be to do an internet search to find a convenient supplier for you.

Although not mentioned, if you plan to add fragrance to your mottled candles, there is also an oil on the market known as "Mottle Max". It will only work in wax that is mottled, but it can increase the amount of fragrance oil that your mottled wax will hold. I do know that this product can be obtained from an American supplier, "Bitter Creek North".

I would use the highest temperature wax you can find for your hurricane candles. I suggest you do not add Vybar, since it will make the wax quite opaque, unless that is your desire.

Vybar will allow your wax in your primative-type tapers to hold more fragrance, but use it sparingly. Too much will lock-up the fragrance and prevent you from acheiving a good "throw". Vybar will also assist with mold release and making the candles more opaque.

Since I am unfamiliar with your wax, I would only be guessing about how much micro-crystaline to add. Don't blend your two waxes though. You want the highest melt point you can acheive.

Perhaps someone with more experience or willing to take a shot in the dark will offer some advice on amounts to add.

It may serve you well if you had a way to contact the supplier or manufacturer of your waxes. We find here that most sellers want to be helpful to end-users.

In closing, please let me say that your English is very good!

I speak a little French and a bit more Spanish, but Polish is not known to me.

Have a great week!

Dave @ Charlotte Hall Country Candles

Edited January 19, 2013 by emilyspoppy

[Kaczor]

Thanks a lot for your help emilyspoppy

We buy our paraffin wax in the biggest paraffin producer in Poland. Maybe someone could help me, which paraffin wax I should choose http://www.polwax.pl/en/offer,paraffin-ltp-with-low-oil-content,11/

They have product technical specifications for each product.

Moreover, we ordered new delivery from Israel http://www.hbo-wax.co.il/HTMLs/page_258.aspx?c0=13111&bsp=12316 , I chose PW573 . I read, that they have good paraffin wax special for rustic. So, we will see when it comes.

Of course our rustic should feel very very strong, when it stay and when it will be burning. When my rustic will be done, I will looking for delivery of fragrances. Polish company buy fragrances in France, UK, Germany. Maybe, I will buy some fragrances in USA, because I would have some different fragrances.

Later, I will write more. I'm going on snowboard now :)

[emilyspoppy]

Actually the waxes I use are imported too; From Canada. They are stocked by American sellers, though.

Your wax technical issues are way over my head, but if you are buying American fragrance oils you will want to note whether they can be shipped by air. A good supplier will mention this in their data information. If you order some fragrances with a lower flashpoint they will have to be shipped by surface shipping. That might mean it will be some time for you to receive them. Some sellers may not ship to Europe either. I wish you the best of luck!

Dave

[Kaczor]

I have very important question - How long I have to wait when I pour the mold ????

Till now, I want accelerating our production. After pured molds, I put them into the very cold water or into the snow. It never looked like rustic. Ones, I left my mold with hot paraffin on the table. On the next day, my candle looked similar to rustic...

[Chefmom]

Okay, with the waxes you listed, depending on whether you want a mottled look or a cold pour look you will use no additives. The vybar will stop mottling in paraffin, and the micro 180 is just to increase opacity and create a smooth finish. You don't want either if you want a rustic cold pour look.

I would use the 135 melt point paraffin straight, no additives. Place your metal mold in the snow and cool your paraffin to 155-degrees to 160-degrees Fahrenheit. Then, slowly pour into the mold, but instead of pouring in the center, pour around the edges and either shake the mold slightly with your hand or a stick so that it wiggles while you pour it. Allow to set to the thickness and then cut the top and pour out the center. This should help give you a bumpy rustic look.

If you want the snowflake "mottled" look. I would pour at 190-degrees and set a box over the mold to insulate until it set up enough to pour out the center, then chill the remaining shell and see if that would help get a good snowflake effect.

There are two tutorials on this site that can give you some photos to look at. They give the tilted rustic look for a pillar, but you could use this for a hurricane as well.

http://www.craftserver.com/forums/showthread.php?59867-Wave-Candles

http://www.craftserver.com/forums/showthread.php?60824-Tilted-Layered-Rustics

[emilyspoppy]

Chefmom;

I stopped making pillars when scented jar candles became the fashion in our market and pillar sales fell through the floor.

I am going to save your post to my files, though. I was impressed with your instructions.

I have a ton of great molds. I may have to put some of them back into service. I personally prefer pillars, votives and tapers over jars for my own use. I'm old and thus, old-fashioned. I love candle light and my nose is so shot, I don't personally get much from the jars anymore.

Kudos to you!

Dave

[Chefmom]

@Dave

Why Thank you.......

I'm only about 2-ish years in. I started off with pillars and some old book sale books and a box of clearance stuff from when our local Jo-Anns stopped carrying candle supplies.

I made mottled and cold pour in the beginning just because I didn't know any better. I couldn't figure out why something so easy just never came out right. I read the books and did exactly as they "said".

I'm only really guessing for the second mottled hurricane, I have done the first cold pour technique and it comes out different with every recipe of pillar paraffin I have come up with. I call it my "wiggle-jiggle" technique, where I basically do everything you are NOT supposed to do when making a pillar. The second is something I have done with a raw paraffin pillar, just not as a hurricane.

Eventually I settled down and really started being proper with my experiments, and then I found a scented candle online that I loved and I'm still trying to find something like it. I have the stub of wax so maybe I can get it duped someday. Early on I realized a heavy scented candle would be from a jar and I keep the pillars to unscented or lightly scented. My life in textile arts and my 25 years as a cake decorator makes color my world, so playing with color is the best in pillars!

It's the Mad Chef Scientist in me, I love to play around and see what happens when I do this and that. Paraffin is great because if you hate it, just melt it back down and go again!

I do want to say thank you for your writings on hand dipped tapers over on the BCN boards. I did a lot of reading here and there through this whole process, but I do remember your name with the tapers and mine are coming out very nicely. It's a zen thing and I love to dip, very much like I love to sit at the potter's wheel. I'm hoping this summer to set up with a chair on my patio so that I can do more at one time. I have feet issues and standing in one place for a long time isn't a good thing.

[emilyspoppy]

We seem like kindred spirits with similar tastes.

Our Jo-Ann's went out of business a few months ago. We bought some of their store fixtures for our shop ay a very nice price. My wife was a good friend of the store manager.

I'm always mentioning that I'm an old married dude (63), but I have had legs issue for some years and find myself now stuck (temporaily) in a wheelchair.

I have basically grown to hate making candles for resale. Making jar candles bores me to near death, but I still like to make traditional candles for my own enjoyment. I just cannot sell them in our shop at a price where there is any profit in them.

I just purchased a really nice taper dipping vat from Peak. It was easier to do that than to try and find my old one that is in a very large storage building in my back yard. I plan on heading outside and dipping to my heart's content as soon as the weather permits. I need the fresh air and the tranquility of watching a beatiful double taper grow as you get a pleasant rhythmn established.

We'll have to "keep in touch"

Where in Pa are you. I grew up in Delaware, County / Chadds Ford

Dave

[Chefmom]

Where in Pa are you. I grew up in Delaware, County / Chadds Ford

I'm in Western Pa, North of Johnstown. 10 years ago we moved back to this side of the state from Lancaster County. Both my husband and I grew up here, but he worked so much out east that we moved out that way. 9-11 made us Back to the Landers and we have settled well back in the countryside. I love Pa, and I love living in the country.

I recently bought the same dipping vat from Peak's! It took me about 35 seconds to slice my finger open on the top lip though.......I've been practicing with 6-inch tapers in the kitchen with lots of newspaper. I just bought a turkey fryer for the patio to go with the dipping vat when the weather turned really cold. Looking forward to Spring and I'm buying all the beeswax I can afford, those have been my favorite tapers so far.

[emilyspoppy]

COOL!

My Seven year elder brother has a horsefarm in Wellsboro. You also live in the general vicinity of a very talented chandler and B&B maker who I have coaxed into joining the board. She'll be here shortly.

I hate stealing threads like this, but I'm not allowed in the Off Topic forum yet.

If your choice is beeswax, buy all you can as cheap as you can and as quickly as you can. (Phew!)

My dad was a beekeeper and he would never allow me any beeswax. He gave me plenty of honey, but no wax. He always told me it was too stressfull for the colony to have to go into wax making mode, in order to get into honey mode, royal jelly mode and all of the things they do to serve their queen. I spent many hours working with him, totally covered with bees and often unprotected while he extracted honey and worked his hives. I was NEVER stung! He would put a great big glob of the waxy residue after an extraction on a table and the bees virtually cleaned the table completely clear while we drank a cold drink. It was amazing.

He warned me about two decades ago, that our country's bees were in trouble. Allthough he was only a hobbiest, he was pretty "up" on his "pets".

I recently corresponded with the owner of Bitter Creek who admitted that they are not stocking beeswax because wholesale prices have gotton so high that BC could not make a reasonable profit on it. Much of the BW I beleive now is imported from China. I found several large distributors from China, but they will only sell several pounds at a time. My two main sources of domestic BW have vanished from the internet.

I'm afraid the same thing will happen to beeswax as did bayberry, another wonderful natural wax. I managed to buy 40 pounds at $10 a pound several years ago, and that was a steal IMO. It was found in a warehouse of an old candle making company that had gone out of business and an auction was held at the site. I know what it's worth and I only use a little bit each year. I'll never be able to afford to replace it when it's gone.

Most of the 100% Natural Bayberry Tapers you find advertised at high prices on eBay or the internet are suspicious to me. I have some of "the real deal", and the illustrations I've seen of these tapers look to be a little too "Good to be true." I believe they are at best a blend and dyed at that. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they are scented with FO too. I don't know for certain, but I know I could produce a fairly convincing "knock-off" of a natural bayberry taper and make some serious bucks. Of course, I wouldn't.

I spent five years in the 70's working for the Maryland Department Of Environmental Health. (Health Inspector).

I received quite a bit of formal training and although it was many years ago, I feel most of my training on many issues still applies.

I should be, but I'm not a hard core environmentalist. I feel many who are may be ill-informed on some of the hot topics wich remain controversial to many.

I do, however, have a serious concern for the undeniable and evolving plight of the common honey bee. It would be hard to overstate the role they play in our own survival. I have no answers, myself; just concerns.

JMO/HTH

Have a great week!

Dave

[Kaczor]

Thanks for your advice. My first rustic candles are on the picture. I pure them in 165F. I think, in this kind of paraffin is the optimal temperature. Also, I add some % of vybar. Please, tell me which candle in your opinion is the best looking?

[ChandlerWicks]

They all look great! But #2 is my 1st choice.

[jeanie353]

Agree. They all turned out great. I like #2 also but #3 is a close second.

[Chefmom]

Another vote for #2 with second for #3.