Cold temperatures overnight curing :(

[Patrick.Candles]

I have tried leaving my soy candles in every room in my house over night to cure, and even have put them in the cabinets but I think it just gets too cold at night here (drops to about 70f in my house at night). The candles have giant wet spots when I wake up taking up about half of the candle. They look perfect when they're drying the day before, it is just at night this is happening. I have read about drying on wire racks, will this cause the large adhesion problems? This is happening with C-3 Wax, pour at 135-140F, pre-heating jars at Warm setting while I do my FO stir.

[Old Crab]

I will say that I have zero knowledge of how to use soy wax.

If it is anything like paraffin, it's easier, healthier, and less stressful to just ignore the wet spots.

They will be there, small or large. Just ignore them.

[Tom30601]

On one level, I agree with Old Crab on this one. I used to fight the battles with wet spots, but gave up once I realized that if it is cold enough in my workspace to cause wet spots, it will be cold enough in shops and in customers homes to have them show up after they leave my place. In fact, I have seen plenty of examples where "perfect" candles left my shop, only to be left in the trunk of a car overnight and then put on shop shelves the next day. I try to discourage this, but to no avail. Nowadays, I just focus on the appearance of the top because I do have some control over it, AND I work on scent throw.

As for pre-heating the glass, I found that didn't really help a lot, and almost seemed to make the issue worse. It seems like pouring when the glass is at room temperature when the wax is cooler (120-125F) have me the best results. That was when I used GB464, CB-Advanced or CB-Xcel. I never tried with C3. I think the adhesion issue comes from the fact that as the wax cools and condenses, it shrinks just a touch (more obvious with pillar blends) and pulls the solidified wax from the sides (the sides are cool longer before the center). If you can keep the sides and center cooling at a more steady pace, then there is less shrinkage.

I think pouring at cooler temperatures helps. I realized this when pouring tealights -- with 800g of wax I could fill to the top 58 tealights at 130F or 54 tealights at 120F. The starting quantities of wax and oil were identifical, but the temperature at which I started pouring was 10F different. And, of course, the finished tealights were about 1g lighter on average. So clearly, there was about a 7% shrinkage in the volume of the wax as it cooled from 130F to 120F. That could account for why the wax is pulled from the side of a larger candle.

[lmc]

I use C3 and agree with both above posters. That being said, I never have wetspots with C3 but I live in a very warm, dry climate. I do not prewarm the jars and I pour when a slight skin begins to form, around 125*. I also temper C3 and use USA which gives me a much smoother, creamier wax, no frosting, no 'bubbles', and great adhesion. hth

[rjdaines]

Ever since the night I was given a table at a craft event that was outside, I've stopped worrying about wet spots. That was a chilly night and all my candles had wet spots by the end of the night. Proved to me that it was all about the environment and I have no real control over that. We want our candles to look perfect when we sells them but what the customer does with them is equally important. Another thing we have no control over. I no longer worry about wet spots.