It this a good list of scents to start out with...

[Kaybee23]

Well, you certainly have your work cut out for you. You are going to be very busy! I agree with some clean fresh, or a couple of additional floral FO's. Would love to see some pictures of your shop.

[Guest highflier]

Kerry I will take some pictures when I get the store loaded with all the candles. Going to be alot of work over the next 6 weeks. My candle making machine will be here tomorrow. Cool thing with it is I can pour a different fragrance and color in a little over a minute. So I can line up 40 jars and pour all my fragrances in a little over an hour. I will pour them without wicks and then start wicking them for the correct burn. Once I figure the wicks out for each sent then I will start pouring. I can pour 150 lbs of wax with any scent or color in less then 2 hours. So if I can get the wicks right it should go pretty quickly.

Thanks for your help,

Mike

[BruceCarvesWax]

Like Trish said, some of the scents might not have a good scent throw. I keep 1 out of every 12 scents that I test, if you were that picky, you would have to test hundreds of scents to get the close to 40 you want to carry. Just because your calling your company wholesale, don't cheapen the art by cranking out "ok" candles like so many of the other companies do. By putting the word wholesale on your name, to me that implies cheap. Anyone else? If I saw a huge place that said wholesale candles, I would not expect to walk out of the store with a room or house filling scented candle. Maybe a good looking candle but not one that would be great. I think you really have your hands full dude. Take it from someone that started making them for a living almost 30 years ago.

Bruce

[Trish]

Much better! I'm curious to see your store when you're done with the candles as well!! Good luck to ya!

[Elizabeth]

Like Trish said, some of the scents might not have a good scent throw. I keep 1 out of every 12 scents that I test, if you were that picky, you would have to test hundreds of scents to get the close to 40 you want to carry. Just because your calling your company wholesale, don't cheapen the art by cranking out "ok" candles like so many of the other companies do. By putting the word wholesale on your name, to me that implies cheap. Anyone else? If I saw a huge place that said wholesale candles, I would not expect to walk out of the store with a room or house filling scented candle. Maybe a good looking candle but not one that would be great. I think you really have your hands full dude. Take it from someone that started making them for a living almost 30 years ago.

Bruce

I wholeheartedly agree. Bruce be the candle man. You'd be wise to heed his warnings.

[David]

I hate to see folks get themselves stung. I tend to agree with Bruce and elizabeth. Proceed with caution candles are not a get rich quick business, not making any bad statements to you, please don't take it that way.

I have about 15 fragrances but most of my sales are the top 5, I've also noticed that fragrance choices by Customers varies with the region you are selling in.

I am small but I know as you've already seen there are many including me that are willing to help each other on this board. Good Luck!

[BruceCarvesWax]

Yes, I dont want to sound like I think you are going to make bad candles.... I just dont know how you are going to make GOOD candles in that many scents that quick. I say it cant be done.

Those machines ARE NICE, and i have looked at them but have not gone past that stage, We pour 150# in 3 hours and I have 130 varieties of scents so I just cant see using one of those machines. I sure would love to find out how accurate it measures the scents out and how it adjusts for the scent amounts (%) and what kind of candle dye it uses :smiley2: .

Bruce

[Guest highflier]

Bruce thanks so much for your opinion and everyone else. This is a great community for helping people out. I may leave the name wholesale off and just say Candle Factory Outlet. Would that be better? Opinion please. Then get the word out that we manufacture some of the best burning and strongest scented candles out there. All candles will be 9%. I will test every scent to make sure it will have a kick butt fragrance smell and throw or I will not make the scent. I will try something close like it unitl I find a good throwing scent. I only will make quality candles. That is just the way I am. Got to have the best or don't want it. Look at the race car, look at the money I'm spending for equipment(not saying its any better but sure is convenient) and have the largest pool and spa store in town that is pretty nice http://www.aquabluepools-spas.com/. Alot of people in town know we only sale quality stuff.

They way I understand the candle machine is that it is deadly accurate on putting the scents/dye into the wax. It does use liquid dyes. I believe the way it works is you mix your dye and scents together and it pulls it out of the bottle they are mixed in. So if you want to make 50 light green honeydews that are going to be 16oz. candles then you count the drops of dye it take to make one then multiply by 50, then put in the f/o same way, 1.44 oz.(9%) times 50. It will then pull the same amount into every candles because the "soup" has been premixed. At least I believe that is the way it works. Hopefully will find out today. Machine suppose to be in this moring. I will try to snap some pics. We going to make a few hundred test try candles so they can show me how it works. Cant' wait!

Thank you so much for your help,

Mike

[Melly]

Wow, I gotta add one of those machines to my someday wish list

Even the name "Factory Outlet" still implies cheap to me, I tend to think of it as a place that sells "seconds", Discontinued or damaged merchandise, as thats what most of the factory outlets here sell.

You might also be wasting alot of FO by doing all your scents at 9%, alot of great quality FO's Kick Butt at 6%, and using to much can ruin the scent.

[BruceCarvesWax]

9% oil is OK, as long as when your candle gets down to a half inch and it don't catch fire and looks like a can of streno. LOL

As long as your wax will hold 9% FO without being a fire hazard your OK. I don't have ANY candles that have 9% oil, thats on the heavy side to me. More doesn't make a candle better, (same as chemicals in a pool) if you cant get a good throw from your scent at 8% max you better shop for another supplier for that scent.

How can i relate this to your spa and race business, you have to be in it long enough to know where to buy from to get the best parts so your end product is top notch. Do you buy all your important racing parts from auto zone or Summit or do you use K&N filters or another brand? You really have to do some leg work just like I see you have in your other projects. I buy scents from 23 suppliers because I'm also picky. Trust me if I opened a spa and pool store do you think that I would know as much about it as you do? Would I know where to get all the best products at the best prices? Would it be OK to add double the chemicals to your pool water just to be "safe" or should I test it to see what I really need so no money is wasted on chemicals that are not needed which could maybe cause customer health problems. Every candle that every person sells has a potential to cause fire and death to a consumer. Testing for the right combination of materials to make a safe candle is the first thing anyone should think about. 9% oil is very very close to being a unsafe product and something you should have know already.

Not that you are, but no one cant just throw their money around and "buy" their way into candle making, we all wish it were that easy. Half year testing min, year recommended before selling is what I have always said. It will come back to bite you in the rear if you don't. You seem to have dived in head first, i just hope your not diving into the 3 foot end of the pool. :undecided

But hey, I do really like your pouring system you are gona get today :smiley2:

[debscent]

Well said Bruce. If this was just a matter of $$ more people would do it. Candle making/bath & body products are forms of art (whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not). :smiley2:

As for the "outlet" theme, I think it cheapens your idea. Just my opinion. Why not just do something like Aqua Blue Candles, sold exclusively at Aqua Blue Pools and Spa (or whatever your name is).

As for testing, do you know you need to test from first burn to the end? Not just burn them for an hour and say, gee, that's nice, NEXT? Sorry, I don't mean to sound trite, but there is a reason why it takes people a long time to get out of the testing phase and into marketing.

[Guest highflier]

Thanks for both of your opinons. Believe me I'm not just burning them for 1 hour. I first started testing them for 4 hour burn times on each test. I was getting a 3/8"-1/2" deep melt pools on 6 of the candles I was testing(all different scents). I was trimming the wicks to a 1/4" before each burn session. Those candles burn very clean no soot jar from the beginning to the end of the candle. Then I made the same candles again and did the same burn test this time burning them 8 hours at a session. Burned very clean and naturally the melt pool got deeper about 3/4"-1". I know that is a little deep but no one should be burning a candle for 8 hours anyways. Then I burned some candles and never trimmed the wicks(unless they got over a 1/2"). My wife said most people will not trim the wicks, no matter what you tell them. Melt pools were getting about 3/4" deep in 3-4 hours when I did not trim the wicks at all. I mean wicks were 1/2" long when I was lighting the candles and the soot was pretty bad. Those are worse cases. Now I'm working like crazy trying to get a wick that will self trim itself so I don't get the soot and such deep melt pool. I think the perfect candle would be never trimming the wick and burn the candle for 8 hours with a 1/2"-5/8" deep melt pool. Can that happen? I working 16 hours a day and working directly with a wick company to try and make it happen. The burn is a science. It's just like my race car. I developed a nitrous system that I sold to Edelbrock. You are talking about introducing nitrous oxide to a motor and if you dont have the right amount of fuel going along with it you will get a bunch of melted pistons or worse case and intake manifold blown apart. There is NO room for error when you compete at the level we do when you spray 800hp of nitrous into a motor(that makes a total of 1950hp). Racers that make there own power find ways to make things work. I've set 2 world records and that came from hard work.

Same with the candles. They have to be right. The wick is the most important part. The guy I was talking to at the wick company on Thursday said he was happy to talk to someone that was approaching this as a science and not a art. I dont know art, but I do know something about controlling burn and burn rates. That is one of the things that has made me so successful in the racing circuit.

Once again I greatly appreciate your comments and it will only make me work harder to develope the perfect safe candle. I'm only doing containers and votives. Thats all I have time for this year. Containers are tricky, votives are not near as hard. We dont have to control heat in a votive like a container. i'm now looking at different jars thicknesses for heat transfer in the candle wax. Its all in the heat. Just like in racing.

Okay seems like calling the store a wholesale candle factory outlet or candle factory outlet means cheap. Please help me with a good name that will let people know we have the best prices on candles in town. Our 14oz. net weight container candles will be 14.99 for one and 9.99 each if you buy 2. Make a great candle and give them a great price would mean a lot of candles sold. I will explain to my customers we can do these prices because we manufacture them right here in the building. Really could use some good names for the store. It will be a store inside my store. Maybe "The Candle Shop" Wholesale Manufacture. Thoughts and opinions from eveyone is surely appreciated.

Thanks so much,

Mike

P.S. Bruce I fogot to mention I'm only using 8% max on f/o. The 9% was a type o.

[Grumpy Girl]

This is kinda off topic, but I'm not sure what you're paying for shipping with your wax with the quantities you are ordering, but there is a candle supply store here in Shreveport off of Youree Drive called Wax 'N' Scents that I found yesterday while looking through the yellow pages. They might be able to save you $$ on shipping costs.

Let us know when you get everything up and running. I'd love to have a look at that monster mixer you've got and drool over it a bit while I'm there.