Soy Candles & Moisturizing

If you didn't know about soy and vitamin E, you will now.  What started out as an alternative to paraffin candles,  became a great moisturizer for your hands. When burning the soy candle, the wax burns warm.  Blow out the lite wick and touch the wax.  The soy wax should be warm to the touch, that is a course if it is 100% soy wax.  There are a lot of soy candles out on the market, so be careful.  Soy candles that have color or additives can burn hotter. If it is a soy blend it will burn hotter, deepening on what it is blended with.  So again be careful.  The natural vitamin E in the soy wax is helping to repair your dry and damage skin hands.  Don't you just love when things have more the one use.  A cleaner burning candle and a lotion too.

Soy Wax - Soy Bean

I'm sure you have guessed by now, that I am all about soy wax or what a soy bean can do for you.  Kudos to the soy bean farmers.  Just to think, it was a plant grown for feed.  Now used for cooking oils, cosmetics, to bio-fuels.  The book or movie "The Help", they made references to Crisco, the cure all to everything, to fry chicken, to a moisturizer for your skin.  
What is Crisco? Hydrogenated oil from a soy bean.  OK, I got side tracked. I should be writing about the trials and errors of wicking candles.  All the advice I got was to test wick first. What kind of wick? Do I use paper or cotton?  I a course looked up what's the difference between the two and went from there.  I chosen paper, it burns hotter and gives a better wax melt.  Different size jars, calls for different size wicks.  Pick the size wick that best matches the candle jar size and start from there.  I always started with the bigger wick size and worked my way down.  To much wick is not good, as is to little.  One melts fast and the other not enough.  When you find the right wick, test burn more then once.  Sometimes they don't burn the same way twice.  There are a lot of reasons way, but by checking to make sure the wick is centered is usually the first one.  That one is not as simple as it's sounds when you make by hand.

Beginning III Fragrances

When it came to fragrances for my candles I  was cautious.  After my first experience turn out bad, essential oils was the way to go.  The candle aroma was wonderful...actually awesome,   but the scent throw is limited.  I guess the best way to describe is a box of roses.  When you open the box, you smell the roses right away.  Then when you put them in a container or jar and place them on a table in a room, they don't smell as strong.  Most candle lovers want a scent throw, to do the whole room. Essential oils really don't do that they are an aroma, like the roses in the box. They are cold pressed or a heated method is used from the natural plants but not all plants you can extract from.  Scents are a little trickier,  I guess that's why they have trade secrets on them.  Synthetic and oils  from the natural plants  were produced to get as close to the naturally scent, some good and some not so good.  This is where things get a little confusing.  Like I said "trade secrets" you don't know what's in them, some are harmful and some not, if at all.  Saying that, I have to rely on organizations  that watch over or over see.  The RIFM ( research institute for fragrance materials) they have guidelines and I like to say that, the fragrance industry follows but I don't know that for sure.  With that being said,  where do you get fragrances? Ask, do they follow the RIFM guidelines or the place where they get their fragrances oils made.  I feel if they do, then you and I are a little step closer to a safer synthetic fragrance oil. Which will help in making better candles.

The Beginning II

It seems like I spent  a life time on the Internet looking for 100% soy wax.  So many choices, but I never really  found one stating  100% soy wax.  I then looked into soy beans.  You have cooking oil (soy bean), shortening "Crisco" (soybean), so how do you make soy wax.  No,   I'm not going to bore you with all those details.  I read them.....that was enough.   Finally,  I  found  a company that sold soy oil, shortening & wax.  Their products are used in the bakery industry.  I like bakeries,  no problem there.  Now, I could only imagine how long it's going to take for fragrance oils.  There are commercial grade or cosmetic, let the journey begin.

Lavender & Mosquitoes

 I was reading about the West Nile Virus that's happening in Texas, "can't keep OFF mosquito repellent on the shelves ". OFF works, but you look greasy and shiny, not to mention what's in the product.   I haven't read a can for a very long time...but it does work   I live in Florida and I hate those little blood suckers.  I read that " Lavender" works at repelling mosquitoes.  " Really" So, when I created my Body Lotion Bars " Soyba", I used lavender.  Guess what happened?  No more mosquito bites I not saying it works for everyone.  I know it worked for me " they really liked me", but now others are claiming the same.  What I like it's natural, I am moisturizing and no mosquito bites.

The Beginning

My sister and I started working on improving my website Blueflower Soy Candles ( aka Blueflower Soy ).  I had to do a lot of explaining about soy, she did most of the write up.  She can do that much better then me.   She do her research, get a better understanding and always used the right words.  She made it look easy, it's not.  I told her, "I did a lot a research, trial and errors when I first started".  That got me thinking "The Beginning" trying to make a natural soy candle.  I'll start there.  Looking for 100% soy wax took me days and I didn't even know how to make a candle yet.  I found a company with a starter kit.  I followed the directions and got a sinus headache from the fragrance oil, that lasted two days.  OK, The fragrance didn't work for me and not sure about the soy wax being 100% either.  I had to start over.

Soyblend Candles

Did you know that not all soy candles are the same.  There are candles that use 100% soy wax and there are soy blend candles.  There are several different kinds of wax blends, palm and paraffin are just two of them.  One popular blend is soy/paraffin having at least 51% soy wax and 49% paraffin wax can be called a soy candle. Why?, because 51% is soy.  Look on the candle jar label for what kind of wax.  If it doesn't say, ask the candle maker.