I just want to educate people a little on a few things. The first being the scam of natural candles. I see so many candle makers selling soy candles as natural candles even going so far as to leave out color since color is synthetic. Well, fragrance is synthetic too so if they have any kind of fragrance they are NOT all natural! There are two types of scented oils, essential oils (EO) and fragrance oils (FO). EOs are natural and derived from plants. FOs are man made oils. EOs are used in natural soaps, lotions, and other natural bath and body products but CANNOT be used in candles as it will not bind with the wax. The only truly 100% natural candle would be a pillar (free standing with no glass jar) made with a natural wax such as beeswax or palm wax (soy is too soft to make into a pillar) with no color and no fragrance and a hemp core wick with no metal wick tab at the bottom. Beeswax does have a natural honey scent and is a light golden color. Soy might qualify if its in a recycled glass jar. Dont be fooled by the natural candle scam! That being said, I have nothing against soy and have some 100% soy wax candles with fragrance and color (if youre going to have fragrance, you might as well have color too). Some people like the way soy burns but most soy waxes cant hold as much fragrance oil as paraffin and doesnt have as good of a scent throw. I have found a soy was that does hold as much fragrance as my paraffin (15% where as most cheaper brands use a wax that only holds 3-5%). Soy wax does burn away faster than paraffin so a soy candle is not going to last as long as a paraffin candle. With the exception of a very poor paraffin wax compared to a good soy wax. Good quality fragrance oils are not cheap and neither is good quality wax. If a candle is priced cheap, then more than likely the fragrance and wax used to make it is cheap as well. My prices may seem expensive but I used high quality fragrances and wax to make them. Take into consideration that shipping prices have gone up and wax is very heavy and therefore very expensive to ship and as the price of gas goes up, so does the price of wax. Instead of raising my prices to compensate, I have lowered my profit margin. When I first started making candles I made a 75% profit. Now I only make 25%. So when I have a 25% off sale, Im actually selling them for what it cost me to make them and when i have a 50% sale, Im actually loosing money on them. And that doesnt even take into consideration my time and effort in making them. Im sure this is a similar scenario or all crafters. So please consider shopping at some craft shows for Christmas or any gifts throughout the year and dont scoff at the prices. Know that youre buying something made with care and personal attention to every detail and very likely, one of a kind. Something you can never get in a chain store. Merry Christmas and Happy Shopping! :)
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 03:39:23 +0000
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