Seeping after heat gunning

[jmspgh]

Short story...my most recent tester candles started seeping after I heat gunned the tops.

 

Long story....I had a few kid free hours this week so took advantage of the time by pouring some candles to test new FO/wick combos. I am using C&S coconut brew wax (I'm not sold on it but have 20ish lbs left to go thru 🤑), 8% FO. Wednesday I poured 4 different scents (2 candles each).  3 new FO and 1 I had tested previously with different wicks.  Melted/poured following C&S recommended temps (heat to ~180 pour at ~140).  Let the candles sit approx 6 hours on my counter, trimmed wicks, covered, put back into the box and moved the box to the (unheated but not freezing) basement.  Thursday I did the same routine with 4 other scents (2 candles each) except after I put them back into the box I left the box sitting on my counter.  Saturday I brought them all to the kitchen and lightly heat gunned the tops; just barely enough to make the top of the candle shiny and smooth them out.  The tops actually looked pretty good before I used the heat gun but I wanted to smooth out the sides from some splattering while I poured.  Immediately after the tops cooled there was moderate seeping on all but 1 of the candles I had poured on Wednesday (see attached pic).  No seeping on any of the candles from Thursday.  I sopped up what I could from the tops, put on the lids and back into the boxes they went while I decided what to do.  Today (Sunday) I looked again and most of the ones from Wednesday had mild re-seeping and 1 of the candles from Thursday had a few tiny wet beads on top.

 

After some research on here I think it might have partially been the temperature changes prior to the wax fully setting.  I have done all testing at 8% FO so far and only with 1 other scent (vanilla/amber) have had minor seeping.  I don't necessarily think 8% is extremely high as my HT with previous testers has been decent but not amazing.

 

My first thought is to not move the candles to the basement until they are fully set.  My next thought is to probably try a lesser amount of FO.  These FO were from a new supplier for me and they did seem more potent to my nose than previous ones I have used.

 

Any other thoughts that I SHOULD be having??!?  Also, am I safe to burn these candles (while keeping careful watch) or should I remelt them and start over?  I have only ever remelted unscented candles to reuse the wax...do I need to do anything different if the wax already has FO in it?  THANKS!!!

[jmspgh]

So I went to the c&s website to see if there were any new reviews on the coconut brew wax and I noticed that they changed the recommended pouring temp from 140 to 140-180. They also have this included now..."NOTE - WE HAVE BEEN EXPERIENCING SOME OIL SEEPAGE DURING THE COOLER WINTER MONTHS ON SOME SCENTS. YOU CAN FIX THIS ONE OF THE FOLLOWING WAYS - YOU WILL NOT NEED TO DO ALL OF THEM - CHOOSE THE EASIEST FOR YOU:
1 - USE LESS FRAGRANCE OIL - 5-6% IS SUFFICIENT
2 - ADD 2 TBSP OF 92 DEGREE COCONUT OIL PER LB OF WAX
3 - ADD 1 tsp OF VYBAR PER LB. OF WAX"

 

I guess I'm not the only one having these issues. As far as their suggestions, I am already planning to try less FO. I don't like the idea of adding coconut oil as the melt point of the wax is already 115 (which is concerning to me). I have never used vybar...is it worth having some around?

[TallTayl]

Oh no! The technical term for this is syneresis. The crystal.gel matrix of the wax is squeezing out the FO. 

 

Less FO may be the only  "real" solution to this problem.  though I suspect it may continue to seep even with very low % because of other issues with the batch.

 

The suggestion to add coco92 is not one I would try. Coconut 92 is hydrogenated coconut oil that melts at about 92*F. It is essentially adding MORE oil to a problem wax combo in your case.  The 92*F melt point is if the CO92 is all by itself in a container.  Once mixed into another blend it is much less stable with the more liquid components of the coconut oil tending to cause more seepage.

 

Vybar is like a glue for fragrance.  Adding it may keep it in suspension in your wax, but then hold it too tightly and decrease your HT noticeably. A commercial wax like this should NOT need any vybar. Based on the advice they provided above I would be pretty angry as a customer.  They have a bad batch of wax and are advising customers to just try and fix it themselves.

 

With a melt point of 115 I would already be looking elsewhere for a wax. There's no way it will survive mailing in warmer seasons. If selling at a venue like a fair or craft show you're going to have more issues than the wax is worth.

 

If you have a lot of this wax I would use it as an additive to another wax at a low % to use it up. I would also try adding soy wax to stiffen it. You may need 20% or more depending on how unstable the wax is. I would use C3, which is super stable and can fix a lot of other seepy wax sins. C1 would be my second choice.

 

My second choice would be beeswax to hold it together in a gel matix more successfully. 3-5% should help quite a bit.

 

Third I would use a paraffin, such as IGI4786. That stuff is like a rubbery glue that works well with many different waxes.

 

Good luck!

[jmspgh]

Thanks so much for the advice @TallTayl!!

 

I do have some white beeswax but my previous (limited) experience has been whenever I add it I need a huge wick and it kills the HT.

 

I think I am at the point where I want to move on from this wax; even if it's just for my own sanity 🤣.  There are too many things that have bothered me about it.  I'm sure I'll find something to do with it down the road.

 

I would like to stay with some sort of coconut wax...I'm thinking either Ceda Serica or EC26 Coconut Soy.  I have read too many horror stories here about Coconut83 to trust myself taking that on haha.  Any advise on the pros/cons of these?  I'll probably end up getting a small amount of each to test out.  Hopefully all my testing of the Coconut Brew will help with this...it took me almost a year but I finally thought I had started to figure out the wicking with the Coconut Brew.

[NightLight]

I saw that information on the website and thought it was a red flag for the wax. If you want to use it I would def go down percentage with fragrance. The wax seems problematic when you have that much seepage and then required to do this and that to fix it. It should be ready to use.

I would use another wax.

Also I got some coconut something beads from same place. Awful wax, the smell of that wax was like bad canola oil.

Threw entire bag out.

[jmspgh]

Thanks @NightLight  I've decided that this wax isn't worth the time and aggravation for me right now.  So looking into others to try.  Do you still use a coconut wax?  If so, is there one that you like?

[TallTayl]

The February batch of easybeads from calcandle was raunchy smelling in the chemical direction.  It forms cavities, never melts clear and hardens incredibly fast, so not a one pour wax at all.  And the wicking is several sizes off. All in all it is not coco83 in bead form in the slightest. 
 

The kick in the teeth is calcandle denies anything is different. They made two candles - we have to trust from the suspicious batch and a prior “normal” batch. Both overwicked. Claim the candles are burning identically and call to question our experience as chandlers.  Crap move on their part.  This smacks of the lye issues from ED several years back and the GB soy wax problems. I have to believe it is all so they get out of apologizing to us, the consumer victims. They would open themselves to refunding.
 

One day this will lead to consumer action cases. With enough new candle makers out there that don’t yet know enough to baseline test naked wax to discover problem wax batches, this will end up causing candle fires that change regulation in our little industry. 

[friendlysoutherner]

I realize you already said you're ready to move on from this wax, but I'm just here to reiterate how terrible the seepage with this wax is to warn off any other persons who might be considering this wax!!

 

My experience of seepage with this wax was HORRENDOUS. And I called C&S customer service for troubleshooting several times and spoke to multiple different folks... interestingly they all gave me different stories and conflicting suggestions and none of them really worked. My best luck was actually heating closer to 200 (even though one time it scorched the wax and turned PINK!!), adding FO immediately and pouring immediately. I tried melting, adding and pouring at every combo of every temp ever... and the seepage was unpredictable. I also went down to well below 7% fo and it still seeped AND didn't have much of a HT.

 

After trying multiple different coco waxes I'm about ready to move to Hawaii to start harvesting coconuts and make it myself🤪

[jmspgh]

@friendlysoutherner this wax is for sure going into my wax graveyard.  i have never tried the coco/apricot ceda serica or coco/soy ec26 so i just ordered some of each to try next.

 

After a snowy day in Pennsylvania, Hawaii sounds wonderful right now...I'll climb some coconut trees with you!!

[StanfordP]

Updates on the coconut brew wax. I purchased it last year when I called C&S looking for the coconut beads. They SWORE brew was superior to the beads and better in every way. So, I bought 20 cases. Fast forward to winter, and all the candles previously poured using brew started seeping. A lot of my customers got pissed off, actually lost a large customer. We had to re-pour cases of product. Come to find out later, C&S posted their warning about cooler temps. I thought my employees were messing up formulas. Now presently, even in the middle of summer, we're STILL dealing with seepage. We've tried everything (except adding coconut oil--terrible idea). Trying to work through the last remaining cases of coconut brew and move on.

 

Total disappointment on every level, though we've now got it tweaked enough to get by. But there are variations in performance depending on FO. Highly frustrating.

 

 

[jmspgh]

6 minutes ago, StanfordP said:

 

 

Total disappointment on every level, though we've now got it tweaked enough to get by. But there are variations in performance depending on FO. Highly frustrating.

 

 

This was only the 2nd wax I had ever used and trying to figure it out nearly turned me completely off of making candles.  I'm not going to call it a complete waste of time (and money) since I did learn quite a bit about what a wax shouldn't do 🤣

 

I have since moved on to cocosoy and cocoapricot and like them quite a bit more....so far.....