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Helpful Advice from Veterans to Newbies


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Add the dye before the fragrance oil, or you might end up with a lovely dark brown shade for your Spiced Cranberry candles! Nothing like ruining a whole batch of wax and scent by grabbing the wrong bottle of dye!!

I can't believe yall don't understand what I said. I said I added the Spiced Cranberry FO first then accidentally grabbed the brown dye instead of red! It's not that hard to figure out!

I can understand the confusion, this is rather contradictory...lol

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I can't believe yall don't understand what I said. I said I added the Spiced Cranberry FO first then accidentally grabbed the brown dye instead of red! It's not that hard to figure out!

Goodness, wasn't trying to offend you for heaven's sake! Call me stupid, or whatever. Just didn't read it the way you were trying to convey it.

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OKay, I'm the biggest idiot around, I must've already posted 4 stupid things not to do and I just did one today. Don't think you will remember you have wax melting. I bought one of those little timers that they have in beauty salons..when I first melt my wax I do it in the presto pot but after I've done the first pour, I transfer the wax to a 2lb melt pot. I bought a single burner and when it's time to re-pour I fill an enamel pan with water, turn up the burner and re-melt the wax..usually I would walk out of the work room thinking I will remember that there is scented wax on a burner in my work room..not so..3 fires later----I now put the little timer in my robe pocket and set it b4 I leave the work room..I swear to you, when it goes off, I realize that I would never have remembered the wax without it.

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Always, always, always check your hands for dye before going out in public... just incase you've gotten dye in other places.

I spilt some blue dye, thought I missed getting any on me in the clean up and I can assure you, I thought wrong.

I went out to talk to the contractors that were doing the new addition and while he's a lovely man.... he could have said SOMETHING! I had blue dye from the tip of my nose all the way into my hair.... in a great big wide swath.

Kim

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Goodness, wasn't trying to offend you for heaven's sake! Call me stupid, or whatever. Just didn't read it the way you were trying to convey it.

No offense was taken, other than the fact that you were trying to make me look stupid. No worries! Seriously! :P It's all good!

No one ever said it was easy to communicate through typed words, huh? :lipsrseal

Have a great day!

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No offense was taken, other than the fact that you were trying to make me look stupid. No worries! Seriously! :P It's all good!

No one ever said it was easy to communicate through typed words, huh? :lipsrseal

Have a great day!

Well really I was not trying to make you look stupid. I just said I was perplexed. You have a great day, too!

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  • 1 year later...

I use masking tape on every container to write the scent and supplier & date if it's a test. No way to get confused. I used to do the write on a piece of paper in front of the container until DH came in and pushed them over to make room on the counter. Totally screwed me up. I make votives in the 8 strip molds and I put tape on the last one with the FO. I even put it on the pot for when I need to do repours.

I wrap my scale with Glad wrap. Very see thru and protective. I tried the freezer bag but found it was a little cloudy cause it wasn't right up against the screen.

I save my newspaper and use it on the floor under the drip spout or if possible I turn the presto pot so the spigot is over the sink....fill the sink 1/2 way up with hot soapy water. Any drips form a big clump you can just pick out. Get in the habit of when you plug in your melting pot the next thing you do is check to make sure the spigot is closed. I didn't when I turned on my big 70# melter....luckily I was only gone a short while but even 1/2 a pound of wax is a mess to clean up.

Buy stock in Goo gone or De Solve it cause it's the only thing that will remove red dye from around your cuticles.

Oh the black cherry thing.....yeah been there done that.....had no nose hairs for about 3 months and headache for about 3 days.

To answer the question about putting the dye first....if you pour the dye first and picked the wrong one you can always pick a scent that matches the dye you poured by accident. If not you could have brown pink sugar!!!!

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  • 5 months later...
If you're going to put wax filled jars into the oven be sure you put them on a cookie sheet. Will save many hours of clean up time if one should tip over! (Not me. Really, not me!)

lol, I was going to add this if no one else had mentioned it.

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Double boilers should never be ignored, or forgotten.... unless you think its cute to ruin your $50 stainless steel pan, pour pot, and melt, yes MELT a plastic spoon.

Always wear old clothes.. I am 100% agreeing with that one. sucks to ruin your favorite jeans or shirt because you are in too much of a hurry to change.

Always Always Always make sure your caps are on tight. color...fo...oils... tighten the cap.

Take SERIOUS notes... it sucks to make a great FO blend and then go "wait.. what was it?" or find the perfect color and not remember what it was.

This may seem excessive.. but I keep an info sheet for every batch of soap. Recipe, Fo's, Color, cure time, a PH test strip, so on and so forth. OH! and... do NOT rely on your computer to save your recipes, print or write them all out too. Because, let me tell you.... it SUCKS when your 5 year old deletes program files, your computer will no longer boot up, and you have lost... everything. Yeah. it blows.

Edited by LuminousBoutique
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This is too funny! I really enjoy reading everyone's elses "experience"!

I purchased a restaurant size sheet tray and do all of my pouring on it. The low sides keep everything contained and it is easy to clean up. No towels or foil needed.

BTW - they come in a few sizes, visit you local restaurant supply store, you will get a lot of ideas.

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Well reading that, and since I do use my computer, let me add as a tip -- make sure data is backed up early and often. For documents I use sugarsync and dropbox, both free and automatic. I haven't lost candle data but lost enough back in the early 1990s to flaky floppies. Drives are very good now but still, 5 yr old or glitch in the system (or god forbid, fire) and it can all be gone in an instant.

I need a decent and EASY database tho, the text file is getting cubersome.

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