adding Coconut oil?

[Tricia76]

Ok thanks!

[nanny]

I have something happening that I haven't seen before. Made candles yesterday and it looks like the coconut oil is seeping out all over the candles. I used 1/2 t with 2 pounds wax and 1.5 fo. I put the coconut oil in the unmelted wax, heated to 180, added color and fo at 175. I have done this exactly the same several times before and never had this happen. Anyone have any ideas? I use GB415 wax, stirred 4 minutes after adding fo.

[Stella1952]

Nanny, it sounds like your candles are "sweating" (syneresis) which is common during these warm, humid summer temps. When you are pouring during the summer, try to do it during the cooler times of the day. When the candles get warm, the oil is forced out of the wax.

Many times, if you simply set the candles in a cool location, the sweating will disappear. Some frosting may result. If it's severe, you may want to remelt the candles and repour. HTH

[Guest LightofDawn]

I have something happening that I haven't seen before. Made candles yesterday and it looks like the coconut oil is seeping out all over the candles. I used 1/2 t with 2 pounds wax and 1.5 fo. I put the coconut oil in the unmelted wax, heated to 180, added color and fo at 175. I have done this exactly the same several times before and never had this happen. Anyone have any ideas? I use GB415 wax, stirred 4 minutes after adding fo.

The other day I looked in my presto pot to see droplets all over the top of my wax. It was a fairly humid and warm day). Later on after it cooled down the droplets disappeared. This must be the sweating that Stella is talking about.

[nanny]

Stella, The sweating must be exactly what happened. They are changing real fast today. The tops are now completely smooth and dry, a little whitish but even. All around the sides are looking more even. The bottoms look completely wet. All adhered well to the jars. If they keep the wet look on the bottom or if they don't completely look dry will that affect the way they burn? The other thing I did was I heated the jars, the wax was below 90 degrees but still not slushy so I poured them and the jars were warmer than I usually pour. Thank you for your help.

[Stella1952]

Hot weather and humidity are a common problem in my area and can frustrate the heck out of one's attempts to get consistent results. I have taken to cooling candles in the oven - both palm and soy. I don't have to worry about drafts from the AC, the air temp and humidity (which change during the day even in the house). I take extra care to temper and stir the wax during the time before pouring. I think 90° is a little cool to pour, even C3.

I don't know what the wet-look in the bottom is unless it is a "wet spot" where the candle is not fully adhered to the container. You said that you warmed your jars first - to what temp? Did you wash & thoroughly dry your containers before pouring?

It's always gratifying to see the oil disappear back into the wax, but there is often some frosting left as a result...:rolleyes2 You may be able to simply rub this out with your thumb. Heat gunning will smooth the tops, but frequently contributes to frosting (if not immediately, in the near future), so that's a bit of a toss-up as to whether it will help in the long run...

It sounds a lit like the ol' summertime blues that many of us are singin' these days... Hope things smooth out for you next time.

[nanny]

Hi Stella, This batch has really been interesting, changing so fast. Now the bottoms just look speckled. Yes I do wash and dry jars, this batch all happened to be new tho. Now on the sides they are getting what looks like little tiny bubbles. I heat the oven to 150, turn off it cools down and just shortly before I pour I put the jars in a few minutes, so don't really know the temp of the jars. Do you think it would be worth melting them down or is it just going to be a bad batch? I will let them sit a few days tho just to see what happens. Thanks again for all your help.

[Stella1952]

Nanny, before I would consider them as scrap, I think I would remelt them in the oven and see how they fare... Some batches just seem to flop on me and sometimes, simply by remelting them, they heal themselves! Very mystical experience!

The tiny bubbles on the sides of the container doesn't sound promising... Are they air bubbles or do they look like bubbles of oil seeping? Are you sure it's bubbles and not flecks of frosting? Anyway, will be interested to hear how things turn out.

[Stella1952]

Bumping this up so people can locate it more easily...

[Misser]

wow interesting! I just chalked my chalky candles up to the humidity in my house.

[mizbizzyb]

anyone still testing this?

[Gdawg]

I use it now with my candles, can really tell the difference when I forget to add it

[Stella1952]

HOT DANG, Dawg! That's exactly what I was wondering the other night when I was reviewing this thread! So glad to know that it does help!

[Gdawg]

lol stella you crack me up, glad I could be of some assitance to this thread

[kandlekrazy]

I use it now with my candles, can really tell the difference when I forget to add it

What differences do you notice? Frosting...adhesion...throw? I tried it for a while and still do throw it in periodically, but can't really say I noticed any differences other than the candle tops felt a little harder to me. I thought at first it helped with throw, but I think it was wishful thinking.

[Gdawg]

I use cb135 and I see a difference in the throw and frost, the tops are very nice looking. Adhesion I still dont always 100% now but I think with the changing weather and me working in a new area I just have to get that part down, I have moved and my old area was regulated heat/air now with the new house I see there are no air ducts in the room cause they never finished it, so like I said with time I am hopeful I can get back my glass adhesion

[JacquiO]

Can you believe it? Went to Wally-mart and they were sold out of LouAnn Coconut Oil. I wonder if this thread had anything to do with it? LOL

[macaroni&cheese]

Some words to the wise:

I have no idea how this happened, but I began to have a large amount of candles with an unusual "frost" on top, and the wicks were burning out within 1.5 hours. I need to give you some background information:

I had bought one of those vats 3 months ago so I can melt 55 Pounds of wax at a time. Currently before that I was placing all my additives etc. in the pitchers before adding the wax. I began to think, why not just save some time? So I began to add the coconut oil directly to the vat, each time I filled up the vat with fresh wax, although I never would completely drain out the vat, nor wipe it out, etc.

Over time I noticed that there was what looked like bits of cardboard or some type of darker matter on the bottom, every time I would stir the wax. It would all settle to the bottom, collecting in the center. no problem, I thought. The drain is 3/4" above bottom, right. Just pour slower.

Back to my problem. As I said before, I would never completely drain out the wax. This wax would temper, I guess, because again I wouldn't pour the vat empty every time I used it. And as it did so, it began to drop out the coconut oil. THIS was what I thought was bits of wax box. It was burned CO!! Well, I was down to my last batch of Cinnamon, and I had just enough wax in the bottom of the vat. I tipped the vat over, and got out most of the wax, and brought maybe 1/3 of the burned CO with it. This ruined my last batch of cinnamon!!

So wosdom says to go back to adding it to each individual pitcher.

You could learn a lot from a dummy...

[Gdawg]

ouch...well glad you learned about it now and thanks for the info

[George]

So between the coconut oil and olive oil you can all now charge double

like those who use them as skin conditioners...:rolleyes2

[George]

C-3 does not get cauliflower tops, so not sure why i read this.

Also some potato vodka make the hot throw great.

[kandlekrazy]

M & C,

The coconut oil breaks down with high heat and continuous heating...I found out the hard way as well, although I didn't have 55#'s of wax in a melter. I'm even finding that I don't like to add USA to my melting pot because if I don't use all the wax the first time around it has a hard time mixing in the second melt, even though it was completely mixed it floats on top and will eventually get stirred in, but takes way longer than the 1st time you melt it. So now I find myself only melting what I plan to pour that day...it's a real PITA.

[kandlekrazy]

C-3 does not get cauliflower tops, so not sure why i read this.

Also some potato vodka make the hot throw great.

I meant to ask you in my other post...does the potato vodka go in your martini??? I think I might like that idea, except I can drink way too many with that stuff before I start spilling wax!

Oh and C3 does get cauliflower tops...but I'm actually finding that it is in the candles that the fo weeps out...even if it's just a tiny bit...and the heat gun factors in, before I used a heat gun, I never had cauliflowers grow.

[George]

there was junky soy wax that had settled tops like that without doing anything to them.

[Stella1952]

George, the crystal formation that causes cauliflower tops can happen in C3 just as it can in any other soy wax. It is simply one of the crystal patterns that vegetable waxes can grow. It seems to happen more frequently when the containers become a little too warm in storage.

KK, I think heat guns cause a lot of problems because the heat is intense and localized to one small area of the wax in the container. Strange things happen when applying heat unevenly to soy wax. When the tops on my candles come out well, and the heat gun is not used, I never see the surface frosting or cauliflowering. I strive never to have to use the heat gun.

Mac & Cheese, I have a simmering idea about heating elements. Although most of the devices we all use to melt wax have thermostats to control the temp, they are on/off devices. Meaning, the element is on when the temp drops below the set point and off when the set point is reached. BUT this does not mean that the element is heating at the set temperature. How hot the ELEMENT gets when heating is the question... If the wax remains in contact with the element (or area right over the element) and is not kept in motion, it can and will burn the wax in that area. Think about making pudding on an electric stove. If it is not stirred, the pudding over the elements will burn even if the burner is set at its lowest setting. Coconut oil burns easily as it has a very low melting point (76°F). So if it is put in a melter first and then the wax, it is sitting down there cooking, and cooking, and cooking at a MUCH higher temperature than one might want.

I think the best melters are water jacketed where the temperature of the water can be controlled and there is no possibility of the wax being overheated.

For those of us who need to melt large quantities of wax but cannot afford a water jacketed melter, the solution is to keep the wax moving in our melter, especially at the bottom where the heating element lives.