French Color Fragrances

[wakeylad]

Hi:

I have two questions but they are kind of related, in a funny way (in my opinion), so here goes:

Question 1:

I bought quite a few French Color fragrances a couple of years ago (they still smell pretty good). Unfortunately, I didn't get to use them because of various circumstances (traveling for work, moving house, etc). The company I bought them from no longers sells fragrances. Does anyone know which of the Candle Supply companies sell French Color fragrances? I did send French Color an email but never go a reply. Maybe they got too big for us little guys.

Question 2:

I have about 20lbs of bad 4630, 55lbs of J225 and 45lbs of 4627. I figured, since I got no reply from the fragrance company I'd use up the old wax and "that" fragrance I have for tarts. The 4630 went bad because of storage and the other two were exposed to the same conditions so I decided not to waste time testing those (I can't find the J225 anyway - C&S has it listed but it's always out of stock unless I order a pallet). The J225 is supposed to be "soft & creamy" but it's pretty hard (craft knife didn't slice it like butter). The tarts will be going into clamshells. Unless they turn out great, I'm not intending to sell them. Do you think mixing this was together will make decent tarts - at least for personal use or to give away to friends?

Thanks a bunch

Neil

[joym]

Bitter Creek North does have some of French's fragrances. I use several of their fragrances and find that they have a very long shelf life, so what you have on hand is probably still good.

Sorry, don't know about your waxes as I've never used them.

[deb426]

I didn't know paraffin wax could go bad. What happened to it? Just curious. And that's a lot of tarts!

[wakeylad]

@deb:

I bought all my candle supplies in 2008 (maybe 2009). Because of the way things worked out (moving house, etc), I didn't get around to using those supplies until this year. All the wax (4630, J225, 4627) were sitting in the garage for the last two summers (and winters). The one thing I noticed about the 4630 box was the grease stains. You would have thought that someone had previously poured a bottle of cooking oil over the box - you could feel the greasiness. The other two wax boxes were fine, but they're wrapped in wax inside the box whereas the 4630 just has wax-paper seperating the slabs. I didn't worry too much since I intended to use the J225 as my "wax of choice" and use the 4630 for color experiments. The color experimentation worked out great but since I decided to keep the containers I used as point of reference (I had already decided on the fragrances I wanted to use), I only had 1 slab of the 4630 left. No problem. I wanted to use the J225 as "my" wax anyway.

Getting good results with the colors probably gave me a false sense of security. Anticipating similar outcomes with the wick testing, I figured I better stock up on some more J225. The supplier was out of stock and told me that there wasn't much demand for this "Super Wax" so they could only supply it if I ordered a pallet. At this point, it was a toss-up between the 4627 and the 4630. I chose the 4630 because I'd used it for the color experimentation. I ordered 3 more cases. While those were on there way, I started to my wick testing with plain wax.

To cut a long story short (maybe), every wick I used smoked like crazy. I'm talking spiralling plumes of smoke. I ordered every wick I could get my hands on and literally tried every size. The LX wicks gave me the best results but still threw some smoke. They definitely gave the best results with the plain wax. The three boxes that I ordered arrived on my doorstep but I wanted to use up the old wax. Then I thought that maybe this wax isn't supposed to be burnt without FO so I added that into the mix and started testing again. Same results. Smoke. Smoke. Smoke. The worst thing was that this was happening on the first or second burn for virtually every wick. Looking at the grease stained box and then staring at the new batch I wondered if some kind of seepage had affected the wax in some way and, as a last ditch effort, I setup another LX test. The flames were perfect. No dancing. No sooting. Nothing. It was like night and day. I tested further. Night and day. I relit the old batch. Smoke and more smoke. There was literally no comparison.

All I can say is that if I had not ordered those extra boxes of 4630 wax I would have based all my results on the old batch and would not be sitting here right now writing this. I would have thrown in the toweland tipped my hats to all the Chandlers out there. I have to say that I learned a lot from the experience and after moving forward with better results I've found that I still have to tip my hat. Maybe one day someone will tip their hat at me.

Anyway, it could've been a bad batch of wax but I did scour the message boards and there was no mention of bad batches in 2008/2009, so the only thing I can assume is that this wax did go bad. I don't think that all waxes go bad, especially straight paraffin. If anything I've realized why so many chandlers test burn each batch of wax they receive.

Personally, I think if the box had had a plastic liner then the wax would have been okay.

[wakeylad]

@joym:

I messaged "Flicker" and she confirmed that they do carry some of their fragrances. Although I'm still a little upset that French Color never got back to me. I would think that it would be in their best interest to direct everyone to their distributors. I spoke with one of their old sales reps from 2 years ago and he was great. He spent over 30 minutes on the phone with me and gave me some good information. Maybe my message went into their Spam folder so I will have to give them the benefit of the doubt before writing them off.

It's just that I like to know where my candle supplies come from. Personally, I'm not going to buy someone's wax blend. I want to be able to ensure that I have a stable supply chain when it comes to materials.

[SueH]

Bittercreek North has some FCC fragrances. I've only used their Lavender and I really like it.