sockmonkey

I think overall it looks very nice. The only concerns I had were on your "tips" page and the disclaimer at the bottom of the first page. I thought this sounded awkward, plus it mentioned a potential negative factor about your candles (tunneling). Another thing, it didn't mention anything about keeping wicks trimmed: *Candle Burn Times* Candle longevity matters on how long you burn your candles for. Burning them for longer may actually increase the overall burn time. Proper burning is one hour for every inch the candle is wide. If the candle is 3" wide, burn for at least three hours. If you follow this rule of thumb, every part of the candle is consumed, as opposed to tunneling down the center causing shorter overall burn time. Perhaps it could be rewritten as: To maximize candle longevity establish proper burn times. The suggested rule of thumb is to burn the candle one hour for each inch of candle width. So, if your candle is 3" wide, burn the candle for three hours before extinguishing. Knowing the way people are, this could expose you to lawsuits from someone who didn't let the wax cool properly before placing their hands on the candle. *Hugging Your Pillars* Pillar candles are free standing and therefore can be prone to leaking down the sides if not taken care of properly. After you have extinguished your candle, cup your hands around the top rim of the pillar and smooth around and down while the wax is still warm and pliable, making a slight fold over of the top of the pillar. My suggestion: Pillars are free standing and therefore can be prone to wax flowing down the sides if not properly maintained. To prevent this, once you have extinquished the candle and the wax has cooled, yet is comfortably warm and pliable, you may choose to gently cup your hands around the top rim of the pillar and smooth around and down, making a slight fold over the top of the pillar. This is another dangerous statement, because someone could argue that their house caught on fire even though they followed your rules, which assured them they would avoid a dangerous situation. You might not even want to include it at all. Yankee Candle doesn't mention anything about testing their candles. Why should you have to? Most consumers don't know enough about candles to even have a thought in their head about testing them. *Candle Testing On Behalf of Cormar Company* Each candle recipe, combination and batch of wax offered for sale is thoroughly tested before being shipped. If you follow simple candle safety rules, you can avoid a dangerous situation. I would change to: All of our candle products are thoroughly tested to meet our high quality standards prior to shipping. In order to maintain candle safety, always follow established guidelines to help prevent dangerous situations. For this last paragraph, where did you get the idea that saying they are duplicates and as therefore they are not considered to be violating the law in any manner. According to whom? © Copyright 2007 CorMar Company. All rights reserved. Cormar Company is not affiliated with Victoria's Secret nor Bath & Body Works in any way, shape, or form. All scents are duplicates and therefore not considered to be violating the law in any manner Cormar Company is not affiliated with Victoria's Secret or Bath & Body Works in any capacity. Our scents are duplicate versions of many popular fragrances and are not licensed products of Victoria's Secret or Bath & Body Works. Better yet, you might just give all of your fragrances different names entirely to avoid trademark infringements altogether.

MissMary, you're repeating exactly what I said. The person asked a question about making candles for a hobby and giving them away as a gift. My example was to show hobby vs. manufacturing goods for insurance purposes. If you're making candles (or cakes) by the hundreds in your home on a regular basis, an insurance company isn't likely to look at that as a simple hobby anymore. I'm just curious about what insurance company are you dealing with? The thought of anyone having their policy canceled because they burn a candle is completely ludicrous. At least 75% of homes (if not more) have some type of candle in them. In fact, people are encouraged to keep candles and flashlights in their homes for emergencies, so I don't see an insurer nullifying a policy if the candle catches the house on fire (provided fraud wasn't involved). That is exactly why people buy insurance.

Just to clarify (sorry, I may be hijacking here) if you make candles as a hobby and are giving them away to people and do not have a business whatsoever, you do not need insurance? Is this right? I honestly don't know the answer, but if you're strictly limiting this to a hobby status and are giving them away as gifts, I would think that your homeowners insurance or a personal liability clause contained therein should be sufficient. Everything comes with dangers. A person could sue you over anything. If I baked a cake to give as a gift I wouldn't take out an extra policy on that, yet someone could choke to death on it, be poisoned by it, have an allergic reaction to it, etc., and I could be sued for that. If I started making 100 cakes a day, I would be taking that from a hobby classification to a manufacturing/bakery classification, and that's something that an insurance agent will want to know. Your best bet is to check with an insurance company directly to see what type of limitations they have on "hobbies."

I thought when you said perfume oils you were referring to the undiluted fragrance oil itself, not the finished product you get from using them.

It's not like most of the people buying your product would have a clue what any of the ingredients are, or even where to find them. By the way, I just took a look at B&BW body splash, and it has a complete listing of ingredients.

What are you trying to find specifically? I googled "Potato Starch" and found a ton of stuff.

Those prices sound very steep to me. I have some things in a couple of different booths. One place charges a flat $100 per month--no commission, or anything on top of the rent. Another place charges $175 per month. They charge 7% commission. This place is on the interstate and will typically have over 30,000 visitors per month. They are open 7 days a week, advertise on billboards, the internet, specialty publications, and sometimes on tv. Before you commit, take a look around. Are there a lot of empty booths? What is the quality of the other merchandise for sale? If the plaza is busy, is her shop busy too? How many customers do you see in her shop? Try to talk to some other booth renters to see what kind of sales they're generating. You might ask her if her commission is negotiable, because it sounds unreasonable to me, in consideration of the rent.

Another thing that is seldom mentioned (and I don't know if this applies to you or not), but if you rent a home and run a business out of it, it could be grounds for getting you evicted--especially if they discover you're using flammable materials.

The best thing you can do is sample ALL of the bases you can for yourself--don't just take somebody's word for it. If you've been reading posts for two years now, then you know everyone has a different opinion on who has the best. For you to be profitable in the business you will need to examine all of your costs, including shipping, but don't let that be the guiding force in making your final selection for products. I avoided a certain supplier that was across the country from me for a very long time. Once in desperation for an item I could get nowhere else, I placed an order with them and was amazed that the shipping was in line with what suppliers in neighboring states were charging me! So, that taught me never to assume someone would be too high, or someone would be cheaper simply based on their location. Maybe if you're interested in trying all of the bases possible someone might be willing to work out some type of swap.

I challenge you to find a legitimate supplier who lists the ingredients of their fragrance oils on their labels. They consider it proprietary.

If it's a "healing" balm it sure sounds like a drug.

That's very encouraging for only 8 people to ring up that much in sales. That's an average ticket price of $43.75 per person--not too shabby! Another way of looking at it is, you earned $140 per hour in sales. Doesn't that sound great!

Brenda, do you mind saying where you got your reeds? There has been discussion in the past about some suppliers not selling the "good" stuff, and the reeds didn't absorb the oils.

I have no idea how much income you generate from doing fundraisers and craftshows, (and I'm not asking), but the thing about doing craft shows is that people go to them for the variety of exhibitors there, so because you see a lot of business at a craft show doesn't mean those same people will be stampeding in your door and buying your product. As for fundraisers, those can hurt you if you have a retail store. Many people will buy from a kid to help a school instead of buying directly from a retailer; and parents will load up on fundraiser items, meaning they won't need to buy from you. I know you will be earning money by doing the fundraisers, but you'll be earning less than if you sold them retail, plus you still have to pay your rent and all of the other expenses associated with brick & mortar shop. Another thing, once you open your doors you will be collecting, reporting, and paying taxes on a regular basis (something many crafters never do on the craft show circuit). Advertising is another area that inexperienced shop owners fall short on. Advertising is a must and it is expensive to do on a regular basis. Few independent candle/b&b shops can keep the doors open by selling only their handmade goods. It's important to find some other brand name items to market along with your stuff. Sometimes that's the only thing that will lure a person to your shop to even try your handmade products. Networking among other businesses and professional groups in your area can also be beneficial. Some of them have fees associated with them, so that's another cost to include in your plans. I don't know if these have been mentioned before, but here are a few other things to look into: Any type of licenses or permits you need from your town to conduct business or place signage on your building. The cost of signage (get several estimates, this can be quite expensive). The cost for any props or displays you will need for your store. The cost for an accountant (very important for someone starting up a business who doesn't know the ins and outs for deductions, etc.). Setting up business banking accounts. Some wholesalers require company credit cards or company checks to purchase products, and may require them as ID's to get into industry trade shows. If you will process credit cards, you will need a terminal as well as a processing company, which may or may not be your bank. Check around fees vary from place to place. Utility deposits. You mentioned something about "transferring" utilities. I guess you're aware that most utilities will require a deposit. Those can really add up. Utility Costs. Have you checked to see what the average bills were for the previous tennant? That may help you gauge how much to allow for your payments.

I don't know if this would work or not, but it looks cheap enough: http://cgi.ebay.com/Gel-Ice-Pack-for-Chocolate-Lollipop-Shipping_W0QQitemZ300112539449QQihZ020QQcategoryZ88433QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

You might be offering more than you need to in order to get your stuff in a salon (or wherever). I would approach them with the idea of splitting the cost of advertising, and give them a 20% cut of your sales. That sounds like a fair deal to me. I would try to have the salon create a real "event" for their shop--they will need to do something regarding their services to generate increased traffic to their store, simply saying they will be selling candles for the weekend probably isn't going to be the ticket to do that (at least not the first time anyway). You could use the help of the stylists in getting customers to buy your candles by having a contest. Maybe you could have the stylists fill out tickets with their names and the date of the event on them and and have them distribute the tickets to their clients in advance of the event. Clients could then redeem the tickets for a certain dollar amount off of candle purchases, or maybe just deposit it during the event for the chance to win a candle gift set. Then, review all of the tickets deposited and the stylist with the most tickets that were turned in would win a free candle, or maybe you give every stylist a free candle who had clients use their tickets. It's a really good idea to generate as much pre-publicity for the event as you can, and with the ticket idea working 1 month to 2 weeks in advance, you are targeting people you KNOW already go there and are likely to return, vs. 10,000 strangers seeing an ad in the newspaper. You might even be able to work out a deal with the salon and ask them if you could offer salon coupons to anyone who makes a purchase from you. That sort of creates a cycle--give a $5 off haircut coupon that expires in 6 weeks (a normal time in between haircuts), then you have another show there in 6 weeks. In the meantime, the stylists continue giving out the tickets. As far as creating a real event, that would need to be worked out with the shop owner. Would they be willing to hold a 24-hour cut-a-thon and donate some of that money to a needy cause? That type of thing generates a lot of media attention. If they're in there late at night, what better time to be burning your candles in the window? I would be careful about the outlay of cash for advertising, because frankly, the one who stands to make the most money is the salon.

Don't you remember this thread you started the other day? I think people provided some ideas there. http://www.candletech.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50996 Have you ever used any of the butters you are inquiring about? What do you think are the pros and cons of each? You can find plenty of information about their properties at numerous supplier sites, as well as unlimited varieties of "high end" options for additives.

High gas prices and increased minimum payments on credit cards hit a lot of people hard I'm sure. Another thing about craftshows, there are so many craft stores and on-line outlets that are selling do-it-yourself candlemaking kits and b&b kits, that a lot of people no longer have a need to go to shows anymore. I think that some of the shows themselves have declined in quality because of the vendors they accept. I don't know how that happens--if it's because attendance declines and therefore popular vendors pull out and inferior ones move in, or if inferior vendors move in and attendance declines.

What about those cardboard trays for apples or oranges. There along the line of egg crates, but larger. Otherwise you'll probably have to use ornament type of boxes with dividers.

I believe the high cost of gas is having a negative effect on sales everywhere. Many independent retailers are complaining of the same thing--it's not just craft shows with problems. Big box stores have had a decline in sales too.

I found this site, but have never used them. They seem very informative and even hold classes, so you would think they're legit: http://www.meltandpoursupplies.com/newindex.htm You could call the company to get a feel for what their customer service would be like and maybe they could give you a greater explanation about the materials you will be using. Also, there are other forums with more international members who regularly post and may be more familiar European suppliers.

I make a spearmint & honeysuckle that is pleasant.

Just plain Willows as Brenda said sounds very upscale to me. House of Piedmont and Willow Spa Collection sounds appealing too. Now for my contribution: Prairies of Piedmont Dakota Spa Black Hills Luxury Spa Treatment Willow & Dakota Spa Collection Willows of Piedmont Willow Hills Spa Collection Willow Prairie

My favorite is Lubriderm, especially the type with oat extract in it. It leaves my skin feeling truly moisturized, not greasy. Plus it is non-comedogenic. I won't use anything else on my face. It has petrolatum in it, which some people might think is inferior for skin care, but that's why it works so well on my skin. I'm not fond of Camille Beckman lotions at all because of the way they made my skin feel after I rubbed it in. Camille Beckman is also sold at fleamarkets, and it seems to be geared to the older crowd. Maybe on more "mature" skin the stuff does wonders, but I didn't like it at all. I don't know about their market share compared to Camille Beckman, but Dionis, Burt's Bees, and Caswell Massey are other lotion brands that are very popular with small retailers. I think Dionis is also a good brand.

Do you sell things like that at craft fairs? That is too cute.