After working hours on the website, we found ourselves in need of a break. Good time to make wax melts! In no time we had 60 clamshells filled with wonderfully scented melts.
Wax melts are basically wickless candles, no flame. If having a lit candle in the house worries you (young kids around, someone on oxygen) then wax melts are the solution. Same great scents! And there are lots of wax melters out there to add to your home decor.
Many folks, us included, thought burning a candle wasn’t rocket science. Just light it and be done. Wow, were we wrong! Candles are meant to be enjoyed down to the last drop of wax. We want our customers to enjoy the entire life of our candles. Here’s how:
The first time you burn a candle is the most important burn. This will determine whether you use every last drop of wax or waste most of the candle in unburned wax. You need to allow time for a “wax pool” to form. To do this allow one hour of burn time for every inch in candle diameter. When it is total liquid on top from edge to edge you have a good wax pool. Now your candle will burn evenly all the way down the jar every time no matter how long you burn it. Failure to do this will result in “tunneling”. The rule is, whatever the first burn diameter is, that is what you will get for the life of your candle.
If we blew out this candle now it would tunnel, not burning all the wax on the sides.
This candle has a good wax pool.
With overnight temps starting to warm up, we are coming to the point where we can start to replenish our candle supply. Soy wax is very persnickety when it's curing and doesn't like cool temperatures at all.
It takes about 7 days for a canning jar or status jar candle to cure and if the temperature drops to low then the candle wax has a tendency to separate from the glass jar and create "wet spots". In reality these "wet spots" are simply the soy wax separating from the candle jar glass giving the visual appearance of a "wet spot". This does not affect the performance of the candle in any way but we are very conscious of the appearance of our candles and this is not acceptable to us.
Making Tea Lights and Wax Melts doesn't really present us with the "wet spot" problem because we are not using glass jars. We'll knock out some of those while we're waiting for warmer weather.
Pure soy candles come from pure soy bean wax. Okay, no surprise there. But did you know that while the global reserves of oil shrink and paraffin prices increase, the only limit to the soy supply is how much we choose to grow. In addition to soy wax being sustainable, a well-made soy candle will burn cleanly and slowly. In fact, a well made pure soy candle will burn about 20-50 percent slower than a comparably sized paraffin candle. Pure soy candles are eco-friendly, renewable, American grown, sustainable, carbon neutral, and the list goes on and on.
So when is a “soy candle” not a “pure soy candle”?
Answer: Candles that say they are “soy candles” on the label are almost always made with a combination of waxes that usually includes paraffin-wax. Some even contain animal by-products. The simple truth is that there are no regulations at all with respect to the labeling of the ingredients in candle wax. There is nothing to stop a candle manufacturer from adding a small amount of soy wax to a paraffin candle and calling it a “soy candle”. Unless the candle specifically states that it is made from “pure soy wax” and you know and trust the manufacturer, a “soy candle” is most likely not a “pure soy candle”.
So why care if my candle is made of paraffin wax?
The most common fuel used in the candle industry is paraffin, the final refining product extracted after asphalt. This "bottom of the barrel" grayish-black sludge is then decolorized with 100 percent strength bleach, creating toxic dioxins. It's further processed using more carcinogenic chemicals, tinted with synthetic colorants, and artificially scented with chemicals producing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) -- the gases eroding the ozone layer and contributing to the greenhouse effect.The American Chemical Society states that when burned, paraffin emits toluene, benzene, and other toxins that are linked to health issues such as asthma, eczema, migraine headaches and even cancer.
The American Lung Association has issued warnings that burning paraffin candles can emit toxins, in measurable amounts, into your home's air. "Paraffin candles are as dangerous to the lungs as second-hand tobacco smoke and even more so if you are in the habit of burning many at the same time."
But Tahoe Candle Works Pure Soy Candles are more expensive than the ones sold at the discount store around the corner from me.
The next time you’re in your favorite big box store browsing the grocery aisles and the hardware section take a walk down the candle aisle. The low prices will probably catch your eye. But, take careful notice of the labels. Do you see any that claim to be “pure soy” candles? Do you really want to save a few bucks and have these candles emitting mystery fumes in your family’s home?
Today I set out in order to see if I could accomplish the task of adding more "bells and whistles" to our site. These "bells and whistles" are actually a collection of neat things that we have seen deployed on other sites we've visited through the years. Once I started browsing through the Shopify App Store I could hardly believe what I was seeing. There are literally hundreds of apps. We now have an app that uploads our product to Facebook. Basically, in the click of the mouse, our store is now on Facebook. We now have customer reviews and a wish list on our website too!
I've really gotta moderate or I could spend the next week going through the whole App Store.
Over the past two months we have been building a new and improved (we hope) website. We've gone from researching the different providers and deciding on Shopify, to adding our products and all of their descriptions etc, to deciding on which add-on features we wanted for the site. We also decided on which shopping cart payment providers were the best for our needs. It seems that Shopify has its own checkout system called...wait for it...Shopify Payments. Who could've figured that. We also added PayPal for customers that feel more comfortable with them.
Since most of the construction is now done, today we decided to add an app called 'Plug In SEO', that inspects our site's HTML (yeah, there's an app for that) in order to verify that it is optimized for the search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo etc. It had me change a couple of lines of code, add some picture descriptions and a meta tag or two and then it said we were good to go. Oh yeah, we also added a 'Wish List' and a 'Reviews' widget.
So I guess that by next month at this time we'll be rich beyond our wildest dreams! Yeah, this website stuff is a piece of cake.
Hi everyone
Thanks for joining us on the new website. This is the first of many installments on our blog.
For those that are not familiar with Tahoe Bath and Candle Works, Kathy and I have been in business for a little over three years now. Kathy started by selling Bath Bombs at the local farmers market in Minden, Nevada, which for those unfamiliar with the region, is in the beautiful Carson Valley just East of the South Lake Tahoe area. Well, as the weeks went by, one farmers market turned into five and then ten. The product selection has gone from bath bombs to bubble bath to pedicure bombs. From bath products we expanded to body lotions and massage oils. Soap and lip balm have also become significant contributors to the overall mix.
Then last year we made a significant commitment to producing soy candles. It has been a huge expenditure of our time and limited resources but the results have been nothing short of amazing and inspiring. 
In a way, this website is a testament to our supportive family that is always there to help with product testing or setting up and tearing down displays. It’s a testament to the many loyal customers that have come out to see us on a weekly basis. It’s a testament to the wonderful vendors that we work along side of, three or four times a week from May through mid-December. It’s also a testament to the hard working people that take on the sometimes thankless job of organizing these farmers markets and craft shows. Through the heat, wind, smoke, rain and snow, the organizers are the unsung heroes that take on a job that sometimes seem akin to herding cats. Your patience has been much appreciated. All of you have made our success possible. We consider ourselves to be very lucky indeed.