Wax consistency

[Elapid]

I was wondering if anybody just gets straight paraffin wax and uses their own additives for whatever they are pouring? I'm starting to think that you would have more control over the burn and such if you just formulated your own wax and it would be consistent every time. ie a constant baseline wax to start with. What I'm looking at is that every time you use a different formula, change your supplier, you have to go through the entire testing protocol again. I would imagine some of the more involved chandlers have looked at this and wanted to get their input. Would it not make your wax the same every time and cut down on testing requirements?

Anybody? Elapid----<

[sugarysweet95]

I'm sorry, i'm not an expert, but i think that even if you added your own additives or not, if you change suppliers you will have to re-test anyway, as there are differences even in the same wax.

In the UK we only really get one or two types of wax, so i've been having to add my own additives and i do like it, as you can play around bit more with it to get the right burn etc.

Sadly i don't know much about all the USA sorts, but i suppose it's easier to add your own aditives and vary that, than maybe buy lots of different types of wax in the first place?

[topofmurrayhill]

That's what I do with all my waxes.

Sometimes the same commercial blend is made in more than one place with different materials, so there are a few different kinds of Comfort Blend out there and and a few different kinds of J-223. In that respect your own formulation can be more consistent, but there's still no guarantee your raw materials won't vary.

As you point out, one major advantage is control. You can vary the formulation to fix problems or for any number of reasons. However it's not cheap or easy. For container blends you generally need to track down specialty ingredients and get stuff from multiple suppliers. It also takes a lot of time to learn how things are made and design your own formulas.

[ForHisGlory]

Elapid,

Thought you'd be interested in this newsletter link. It isn't completely what you are looking for, but rather gives you confidence to go ahead with what you are doing.

http://www.candlewic.com/candle-making-newsletter/0305.asp

Excerpt:

I think for any candle operation a review should be made to determine if a straight paraffin wax is right for that application. It might be an appropriate time to identify what we mean by straight paraffin waxes. For this discussion a straight paraffin is a wax that contains no additives.

One of the advantages of these waxes is that you can make changes to your line to reflect the seasons, such as bright colors for the spring and dark rich colors for the fall. Using straight waxes does require testing and development to create that special look. In the end what you will have is a candle that has a unique look and one that was created by you. Like all the great chefs with their secret recipes, you will have your own special recipe that separates you from the competition.

I'll add any other links I may run across.

[ForHisGlory]

Adding:

http://www.letsmakecandles.com/Info_Blended_NonBlended_301.asp

[Elapid]

Thank you all for responding to my question, I don't have the time at the moment to do all the testing required to set up my own formulas but would consider this in the future.

Elapid

[Donita]

Sometimes I feel like I just am in this business just to test. Donita Louise