Feathered Palm Wax Suggestions?

[Hopie]

I ordered some feathered palm wax to play with, so I thought I'd ask the experts about it before it arrives. I'm going to do my first few with smaller, more common molds for my experiments. The first one is a round 3"x 6 .5, the second one is a square 3" by 4.5". I ordered Lone Star's zinc wick assortment, so I'd like to know what size wick to start with. (wick sizes forthcoming). 

 

What I'd like to know is, what special tips do you have with working with this lovely wax? Heating temps, pouring temps, fragrance load, what kind of burn to expect, etc. Any help is appreciated. I just love the texture of this wax! I only bought 5 lbs of it to see if I like it. I'm so excited! 

[Jcandleattic]

I don't use zincs in my palm waxes. I find they don't give the best burn in palm. A lot of people like the CSN;s from candlewic (which were specifically made for palm wax) or RRD and Eco. 

My personal favorite with my palm is CD's. I've not done a square pillar in it yet, but in my tests on the 3xXX I like a CD10

 

Best tips, pour hot, cool slowly and that will help ensure you get the lovely patterns the feathered wax is famous for.  Palm I think has a high fragrance load but I have found it throws scent amazingly and I've never had to go above 4-5% in scent for palm. 

 

I'm no expert however by any means, but I know @Candybee works almost exclusively with palm waxes. 

[Candybee]

Not sure zinc's are gonna work that well with palm. They are better in container candles and have a low heat when burning. For palm you want a hotter wick.

 

For palm I tend to use CSN's as 1st choice and RRD's as a backup. I have even used LX wicks on palm pillars before with limited success. I like LX because they are a more stable shorter flame and less flicker while CSN's & RRD's are typically tall and long flamed.

 

Palm, especially feather palm, makes circular air pockets in the wax around the wick. Feather in particular will make holes going in a downward spiral fashion kind of like an upside down cone. You can fix this by poking holes as it cools and doing a repour. Kind of a pain in the patootie but the end result is a beautiful crystal patterned candle that  will burn better sans air pockets.

 

You may have heard of "flipping" the jar when making palm candles. This works great with container palm like glass glow, but pillar palm creates a different sort of air pocket that won't work with flipping as far as I know.

 

You also need to decide if you want to wick for a shell, or wick for full consumption. Many go for the shell. By that I mean you wick so that there remains a thin outer shell as the candle burns down inside.  For full consumption you wick for the sides to burn down with the candle. Shells burn much prettier than full consumption, which tends to leave uneven sides, sides that can blow out, lean, collapse, burn unevenly, etc.

[Hopie]

OH, I am so grateful! Now I know that I need to go ahead and order the proper wicks before I tackle this. I had bought the zinc wicks because I used them in soy container candles years back. I also did use the ones I have for the mottled wax pillars. I haven't burned these yet, so we shall see how they act.

 

Now I need to test the right wicks for this wax. No worries on this, I have all summer to play with candles. What is "flipping"? I don't know this terminology. What are CSN's, what size do you recommend for my chosen molds? I like the idea of wicking for the shell effect, the glow must be really pretty...

Edited April 12, 2018 by Hopie

[Candybee]

CSN's come from CS. RRD's you can get at CW.  Not 100% on the size for CSN's but I might start with a CSN12. LX about a 22. RRD's and CSN's have limited sizes so its best to try a sample pack and test out a few different sizes.

 

Flipping the jar is done for palm container candles. You wait til the top layer is just hard enough to flip the jar over. Thus allowing the air pocket to go to the bottom of the jar underneath the wick neck tab. Then when you burn the candle no air pocket! Takes a little practice to know when to flip but it works like a charm once you get the hang of it.

 

The glow from any palm wax is very pretty. Its like a luminous candle or luminary. The glow can travel through the wax allowing the whole candle to glow. So a palm pillar with the shell will give you a fully glowing candle.

 

The trick is to get the shell just thick enough but not too thick. Too thin and you get a blowout. Too thick and you get less glow and waste wax. You want approximately 1/4" shell or slightly less but not more.

[Candybee]

Wanted to add I think Talltayl did some wick testing on palm pillars a few years back. She and a couple other posters were doing the testing together. They all used totally different wicks than what I use. Sorry I don't remember which ones they used.

[Sarah S]

There was a long thread on feathered Palm wax pillars from about 5 years ago. Top Of Murray Hill did a bunch of wick testing with tons of photos and details on his process. Really fascinating reading.

I'm pretty sure I found it by searching "feathered Palm testing" on the main page, but it's old so you might have to sift through a couple pages of posts. Try a couple different search terms with feathered Palm, and some really cool stuff will pop up.

Next time I drive up to CW, I want to pick up a few pounds of container Palm to play with. @Candybee had me drooling over her fall candles the last time she posted pics! 😃

[kandlekrazy]

I don't think I've used feather palm (but maybe) but in Glass Glow I used CSN wicks and they burn quite well.  I've also had same results as @Jcandleattic with fo, I rarely went above 5% and sometimes as low as 3% with a great HT.  In the Glass Glow I found at 6% the fo would seep and then I'd be wiping it off for days/weeks before I could burn the candles, probably getting it down to 4-5% by the time it quit seeping.  This is what made me try a lower %.

[Candybee]

4 hours ago, Sarah S said:

There was a long thread on feathered Palm wax pillars from about 5 years ago. Top Of Murray Hill did a bunch of wick testing with tons of photos and details on his process. Really fascinating reading.

I'm pretty sure I found it by searching "feathered Palm testing" on the main page, but it's old so you might have to sift through a couple pages of posts. Try a couple different search terms with feathered Palm, and some really cool stuff will pop up.

Next time I drive up to CW, I want to pick up a few pounds of container Palm to play with. @Candybee had me drooling over her fall candles the last time she posted pics! 😃

 

That's the one! Top and a couple others were doing wick testing for palm. Posted pics and talked about the wicks, how they burned, etc. Was very informative.