Jump to content

Smoking tarts?? Please help!


Recommended Posts

I gave some tarts to someone to test. One batch was white tea & ginger, and the other was sage & citrus. It was ky natural votive pillar wax, and I used 1 ounce of oil to 8 ounces of the wax.

She said tonight that the tarts were smoking. She said theres no black smoke, just that it smoked and she wondered if the warmer would break from being too hot. So it sounds like it was getting too hot. Is this because of the warmer, or something I did? The only thing I could think of is maybe too much fragrance oil. But that wouldnt make it smoke would it? I would think if the wax is getting too hot that it could smoke. Am I correct?

If someone could please let me know why this could be happening I would greatly appreciate it! :wink2:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

ok.......so is that a slightly sarcastic remark for saying that its smoking cause the wax is too hot? lol I am trying to understand if the warmer is getting the wax too hot, or if i added too much oil, or what the case is here. Some people dont know everything, like me of course, which is the reason most people ask questions. lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please don't think I am being sarcastic here but why would you want to use that much FO? I would think that it would get rather costly. I would cut back to 10% at the most. Oh, and I had some big name tarts do that. The flame was too high on the tea-lite and over heating the tart. The scent did not last very long at that high temp either. HTH

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think by loading up it still would not be over 1.5, could be wrong. I'd say she has a t-lite warmer that is too short. there are alot of them out there where the pot is too close to the flame and the cheap t-lites are too hot. This happened to me when I started making tarts. Would test in a warmer that was cute but small, saw some smoking, put my finger in wax for some stupid reason. And the wax was so hot it burned my finger. I use Waxcessories Warmers now and they are about 6" tall. I have also made t-lites with soy container wax with a LX8 wick and they burn nice, no huge flame and last about 7 hrs. Cut back and make sure she has a decent warmer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry I was just being goofy, but re-reading your post just now did make my eyes widen. The first time I thought it said 1 oz to a pound rather than 1 oz to 8 oz. That's over 11% FO. I don't know about a tart but in a candle you'd be approaching risky territory. So I'd back that off just a little and also make sure your friend is not letting that flame in the tart burner get too big (or that she didn't put in a larger bulb than recommended). Smoking wax is worrisome. That really sounds like it's getting too hot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll put my 2 cents in too. I think like others have said its the oil releasing. Most (soy, that's all I know) wax suppliers tell you 1oz fo to 1 lb/16oz of wax. Anything over this will not bind with wax/FO overload for the wax, as wax can only hold so much FO. It will be interesting to see if there's any seepage/liquid at the top once the wax hardens. With candles its FO that didn't bind with wax (either wasn't mix well or more so too much FO) and this when lit can cause a fire ball. Sometimes seepage goes to the bottom of a container and the flame at the end hits it-and again a fireball. I would ask her for the whole thing, tart & warmer, then test it and see what you think. Or post on here your results. You could always tell her you'll make another batch for her once you've figured out the "problem".

Also FYI, I've seen on other boards when I first started that chandliers were cutting back on the % by .5 to 1% and getting better results than using the whole 9% (hope that makes sense). Something I aways keep in the back of my mind when all else fails when figuring out why something doesn't throw strong when hot. HTH :smiley2:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The wax has been holding the scent well, there hasnt been any seepage at all. No greasy oilyness or anything, they look normal and smell super strong. But, here are some pics of what she sent me. I gave her some tarts when I was home in iowa, im in illinois, but she just sent me these pics to show me what kind of warmer shes using. The first pic is the spice bowl she said she is using on top of the warmer because the original little dish that was supposed to be on top broke, the second pic i guess is the dish that came with the warmer, but is now broken. She said the spice dish is lower than the original bowl that came with it, and the smoke was white that was coming from the bowl. I think maybe its just too close to the flame. I always thought if you added too much oil that it would seep, and it doesnt at all. So I am thinking maybe its just cause the bowl is too close to the tealight? I dont know. Next time I will just stick to 10% FO lol

post-1004-139458381431_thumb.jpg

post-1004-139458381441_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My mom gets smoking tarts too. I've seen it when I've been down there, and it's with the Levine regular one piece tartburners I used to sell. Most interesting, she sees it in the glazed ones, not the matte finish ones. It definately looks and feels like it's getting too hot in her case. That's actually why I stopped selling them, I didn't like what I was seeing when she was burning, and wanted to figure out what was wrong.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe I'm confused about this and need to reevaluate, because I almost always have smoke of sorts (and not just with my own tarts, either); not yucky black smoke, but more like the oil is vaporizing. Several years ago, before I started doing any of this stuff, I bought a burner and some oils from the Body Shop and they always "smoked" and when I use lamp rings, they do the same thing. I thought that was how the scent got dispersed into the air. And I would also have figured that anything safe to burn oils in would be fine for tarts, since you have the added safety margin of the oil being "diluted" in wax. :confused: That's supposed to be a "confused" smiley, but I don't know what that thing is that's flopping up and down:cheesy2:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So are oil warmers meant to get the oil hotter? Are they usually always closer to the tealight? Well, I told her to try a different warmer. So I will see what happens once she does that. :cheesy2: I hope she doesnt think soy tarts are a PITA because she says she has always used other tarts in it and they never smoked. But soy is a little softer so maybe its just getting the soy tarts too hot. lol. Well i hope she gets a new warmer soon. :rolleyes2

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes oil burner are suppose to get hotter but here is the thing you are not suppose to use straight FO in them either they should be cut with a cutter oil like DPG or something similar. With straight FO the is to much of a chance of a flash fire as a lot of our FO have a flash point of 200 or less.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i use tealight burners & if the flame is to close and/or to high they smoke. just out of curiousity i put a thermoter in there to check the temp and it was close to 300. :eek:

now i trim my tealight wick if i am using soy tarts and also use different warmers now.. my paraffin never does this, just my soy tarts. I don't sell them and wouldn't because of this. but whats funny is you are using the pillar blend which must have a higher melt point than the container ones i have made w/leftover wax. interesting...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...