A few questions

[Lisa]

If the flash point on fragrance is 150, if you add it to your ez soy wax at 175 won't it burn it off being the flash point is lower then what you add it too the wax?

Also what is the benefit of adding beeswax to ez soy? And how much should you add? Thanks

[geekrunner]

The best of my understanding is that the flash point is the temperature at which something will just spontaneously explode. Since the FO is at a cooler temperature when adding to wax, it has not reached its flash point. And after you add the FO and it is incorporated into the wax, the flash point of the FO is no longer a consideration, since now the flash point of the wax is of the utmost concern. The only time there may be a problem is if the FO does not completely mix with the wax, and there is a pocket of FO. If the wax melts down to the pocket of FO and exposes it, then the flame could set it off and then you have an exploding candle! :embarasse Not cool.

For the BW question, I cannot speak for EZ soy, some others have tried it and are happy with the increased hot throw they get when adding BW. I add 3% to my soy, and typically one would use anywhere between 2% and 5% depending on the weather. You'll need to play around to find the right amount for you. I would start out at 2% and work your way up, your candles will crack if you have too much in it. Hopefully the others with EZ soy will chime in here

geek

[Gypsyjen]

Something interesting I noticed in my testing...FO's with a really low flashpoint (>130* or so) have very little throw. Has anyone else noticed this, or am I just jumping to conclusions?

[topofmurrayhill]

Something interesting I noticed in my testing...FO's with a really low flashpoint (>130* or so) have very little throw. Has anyone else noticed this, or am I just jumping to conclusions?

I talk to a candle chemist once in a while and he often generalizes about certain fragrance components on the basis of density, volatility, etc. Personally I never paid attention to flash point versus throw but if there is a correlation it wouldn't surprise me.

Of course you know the issue of FOs throwing in soy is a big one. Certain fragrance components get bound up by the wax in a way that's analogous to using too much additive in paraffin. There are people right now trying to figure out how to formulate FOs to avoid that. Maybe it will turn out that those volatile components that contribute to a low flash point will prove to be among those that don't work well.