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For me, the basement is a toss-up. I recently just completed a space down there that I thought would be good, about a 10 x 15 area, workbench, a shelving unit plus a table for everything. Monitored the temp/atmospheric conditions and thought I had me a winner.

I've since had to move back upstairs into the kitchen after finding tiny hairline fractures (large enough for me that I could see a safety issue) in my candles and believe it or not, fingernailing, which I've never had to deal with since I've been at this house (moved about four months ago). While some will argue that fingernailing could be caused by trapped gas inside the wax, I'm convinced it's humidity that causes it and I know there's another thread around here somewhere on fingernailing, I'm getting off-subject. I also know, for a fact, that it was atmospheric conditions that caused my candle issues, I remelted and repoured every last candle that had the fractures, didn't change how I made them, and they all came out beautiful upstairs.

I tried for two weeks to get the temperature in my space up to at least 60* which I know is a decent temp for where I live (not far from Bruce, I'm in Kansas City, KS, I know there's not THAT big of a diff between me and him as far as atmosphere) but I came up completely empty on that little project and hence moved myself upstairs until the spring/summer and late fall.

It's a matter of personal preference, just like the type of wax, FO, dye, additives, packaging, etc. when it comes to candlemaking. I absolutely loved it downstairs, I could knock out my candles and my laundry in one afternoon, had a CD player down there, the cats were happy, we had fun. But since I rent and I can't afford to even have my personal handiman come up for a weekend to build me an enclosure of somesort so I could at least get a space heater down there, I had to become a kitchen chandler again.

Try it out. See if there's going to be a difference and go beyond just one batch to make your mind up. Things may work out beautifully for that one batch, but you may end up finding yourself back upstairs if the batches after that become a little bit of a pain (hairline fractures, fingernailing, bulging sides because of drafts, etc. etc. yada yada yada). If you don't rent, make hubby get off his butt and build you something ('hey, you want me out of the kitchen, then I need this, this, this and this', put hammer in hand and say 'go fix'), if you DO rent, ask your landlord if it would be okay to temporarily put walls up or something and attempt to adjust the temp accordingly with space heaters.

I'm not saying that it will happen with you, BUT, you also need to hear the other side as well. I'm not complaining about my space, I know it's patiently waiting for spring to haul my butt and my supplies back downstairs so I can spend about 9 glorious months out of the year down there. Until that time, one corner of my counter is devoted to my candles, part of the cabinet directly above that has all my FO's, dyes, additives, molds and an empty cabinet below is now holding my wax. A small price to pay for beautiful and safe candles.

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