Soy Wax Reviews Archives -

P-100 Soy Wax Review-How Well Does It Work For Votives, Melts and Pillar Candles?

June 28, 2017 by SoyCandleMakingTime 2 Comments

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When I started making soy votive candles in 2009, I used the soy votive blend from Candlesoylutions.com. It was made by a company called Enchanted Lites. In 2013, Enchanted Lites went out of business and another company took over their waxes, except the votive blend. I had always had good results with the EL votive wax, so I was pretty disappointed when I found out. I was, however, able to test out a couple different soy votive/pillar waxes thanks to Candlesoylutions providing me with some samples, as they were going to have to find something to replace the EL wax. The only one that tested excellent at the time was the Ecosoya PB (pillar blend), but that was the most expensive option. And then, they got their hands on a votive wax blend called P-100 soy wax . I was able to get a sample of that as well and it is excellent! Even better than the Enchanted Lites votive blend in my opinion.

The instructions say to pour hot, like I normally do with a soy votive/pillar blend wax, to get a shiny smooth look. The instructions also say to pour a bit cooler to get sort of a “mottled” look. When I poured at the normal high temp of around 170 degrees, my votives turned out beautiful. I also tried the lower temp to see what they meant by a “mottled” look, and it’s basically just that they look frosted, but not really in a nice way, so I wouldn’t recommend pouring at the lower temp. Of course you can try it for yourself and see what you think 🙂

You can also use this wax for soy pillar candles as well. I’ve made several pillar candles with it and they’ve turned out great. For a 3×3.5 inch pillar I use Eco 14 wick from an unwaxed spool and so far they always burn excellent (provided I don’t let them burn too long lol). The price is also less than the Ecosoya PB, so that’s a plus.

Overall, I definitely recommend the P-100 soy votive/pillar blend

Below are some pictures of the votives, melts and pillars I’ve made with the P-100 soy wax.

P-100 Soy Wax Votive Candles

The soy votive candles below turned out really nice. The instructions say to pour at 175 F for a smooth look, pour at 145 F. for a “mottled” look, and that if you heat the molds before pouring at 175 they’ll be more shiny. The votive on the far left was poured at 175 unheated molds. Middle: poured at 175, heated mold and Right: poured at 145 unheated mold.

I didn’t see any difference with the heated and unheated molds at 175 degrees, but they both turned out nice and smooth looking. The one in the middle is little rough around the top edge, but that’s because I didn’t quite fill it enough.

The one on the right has slight “mottling” but to me it doesn’t look very nice and it’s mainly on the bottom.
I’ll try pouring even cooler next time and maybe it’ll give more of a neater effect.

P-100 Soy Wax Melts

Next we have some soy wax melts/tarts I made with P-100 soy wax. Very smooth and shiny when poured at 175-180 degrees F. I love these! These wax melts are gorgeous and the molds are just candy molds I picked up at Hobby Lobby.

P-100 Soy Wax Pillar Candles

Last, but not least, P-100 soy wax makes beautiful soy pillar candles!

Here’s a short clip of one burning. Sunflowers and Seamist fragrance from Candle Cocoon, and it had a great throw!

Here are a couple more pictures of some other stunning soy pillar candles I made with P-100

There you have it! There really aren’t many soy votive/tart/pillar blends to choose from , but P-100 is an excellent choice!

You can get it from Candlesoylutions.com or American Soy Organics.

Have you tried it? What do you think? Leave a comment below!

Golden Brands 464 Soy Wax Pour Temp Test-1

October 15, 2015 by SoyCandleMakingTime 18 Comments

So I decided to stay up and do some candle experimenting a few nights ago (like….after midnight….). I did a review on the Golden Brands 464 soy wax quite awhile ago.

It didn’t turn out very well, so I decided, since it has so many great reviews, that I would try buying it from a different supplier and try again. I purchased 10lbs of 464 soy wax from Candlescience and I made a couple candles right away which turned out much, much better than when I did my original review.

This time I decided to make 2 candles and try pouring them at different temps, just to show how the pour temp can affect the wax once it’s cooled. Some soy waxes do best poured at a very low temperature, and some do better poured at a higher temp.

Here’s what I found with the Golden Brands 464 wax the other night when I poured at 2 different temps.

I used 1lb of wax to make two 8oz candles and 0.7oz Sweet Potato Pecan Pie (Candlesoylutions.com) fragrance oil (There wasn’t quite 1oz left in the bottle, or I would have done 1oz. ) and 4 drops of brown dye. The wick I used in both candles is Eco 14.

I heated the soy wax…..

to 185°F , added fragrance oil and dye, stirred for a couple minutes and let cool to 165°F, then stirred, and poured the first candle. Then I let the rest of the wax cool to 135°F, stirred, and poured the second candle. As you can see, I didn’t fill the first one up quite enough, so the second candle is filled more than I anticipated.

464-soy-wax-candles-test

And here’s what they looked like the next morning after they had set.

As you can see, the candle I poured at the cooler temperature has a slight sinkhole, but no frost on either candle, and neither one had any wet spots (pulling away from the jar in spots on the sides, instead of adhering to the jar)

You can see by comparing this test to my first time using the Golden Brands 464 soy wax, that this time turned out a lot better so far. I still need to test burn these of course, but I’m going to wait a few more days so it should be about a week or so cure time.

The candle that I poured at 165 definitely turned out the best with no sink holes at all and very smooth. Like I said, no wet spots the next day, or the day after that, but I did notice on the 3rd day that they both had pulled away from the jar a bit. It’s not bad, and it’s a larger area that has pulled away so you don’t really notice it much. I think this is because it is getting colder overnight in my house now, and room temperature can definitely affect soy candles. The one I poured at 135 also had just a few very small spots of frost on the sides, but also not real noticeable.

I plan on doing a couple more temperature tests with this wax. I want to try a higher temp and a very low temp, so I’ll be sure to post about that down the road.

Now I can’t wait to test burn these and let you know how they do! I LOVE the smell of the Sweet Potato Pecan Pie fragrance, and the cold throw is great. I’m hoping that, even though I didn’t get to use a whole 1oz like I normally would, it will still throw well. We shall see!

That’s it for now. I’ll post an update once I start test burning them!

Review: Soy Wax GW 464-Golden Brands

June 19, 2014 by SoyCandleMakingTime 62 Comments

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UPDATE: I bought some more 464 wax from Candle Science this time to try again. There was a huge difference! Click the link to see how it went: Golden Brands 464 Pour Temp Test-1

I’ve heard great things about Golden Brands 464 soy wax. It is supposed to give beautiful tops in container candles. Here is what the Golden Brands website says about their 464 and 444 blends:

“Golden Wax has two blended waxes that contain a soy-based additive and are both natural and kosher. This soy-based additive enables the soy to be poured at a hotter temperature reducing frosting and increasing FO load. These waxes blend well with paraffin, slack wax, and microcrystalline waxes.”

It says of the 464 specifically “Has a lower melt point which helps with the burn and gives better glass adhesion”

So, in testing this wax, I expect to see beautiful smooth tops when cooled, and very minimal or no “wet” spots around the jar (where the wax has pulled away from the jar in spots). No frosting, craters, etc….. I also expect an even better hot throw than the 100% soy wax I normally use.

Most of the reviews I’ve read have been extremely positive. Some of the reviews said they had problems with lumpy tops and sink holes until they tried pouring at 160-170 degrees, and then they came out perfectly.

The instructions for the GW 464 wax say to:

Heat soy wax to 185 F (so fragrance oil fully dissolves)-
Add fragrance oil and color
Remove from heat and stir gently for 2 minutes
Allow soy wax to cool to desired pour temperature (suggested temp is 130-140 degrees)
Stir gently one last time and pour candle

I noticed when melting the 464 wax that it has a thicker, creamier appearance than the other waxes I’ve used.

First Test Candles

So let’s get right into the results of my testing. This first picture below shows the cracks and sink hole I got. This is only 2 of the test candles. For my first round of testing, I made 4 8oz candles with the Golden Brands 464 wax and Melon Fig Apricot fragrance oil (Candle Cocoon) and 2 drops of dye for each lb of wax (1 drop in each 8oz candle)

One candle using Eco-14 wick poured at about 135 degrees .5oz (1/2oz)fragrance oil
One candle using CD-16 wick poured at about 135 degrees .5oz (1/2oz)fragrance oil
One candle using CD-16 wick poured at 170 degrees .25oz (1/4oz)fragrance oil
One candle using CD-18 wick poured at 100 degrees. .25oz (1/4oz) fragrance oil

You can see the sink holes below, and that is what happened to all of the total of 9 candles I made with this wax. The only one that got smallest sink hole was the one I poured at 100 degrees. Other than that, the ones I poured at higher temperatures looked the nicest as far as smooth shiny appearance and no frosting or wet spots. The lower the temperature, the rougher looking the top was.

Oh the Bubbles!

The two pictures below are of the first 4 test candles as I was burning them. I had a horrible time with air bubbles in these! (you can see the bubbles all around the edge of the melted wax) I’ve never had a problem with my soy wax getting air bubbles, but this wax seems to be very susceptible to it. I think because it has a thicker consistency when it’s melted.

The bubbles caused the wicks to burn very inconsistently with popping and crackling and the candles, especially the ones with more fragrance oil in them, did not end up burning to the edge like I would expect with my normal CD 16 and 18 wicks. These wicks work great in these jars with other soy waxes I’ve tried and especially my normal 100% soy wax from American Soy Organics (formerly Enchanted Lites Soy wax)

The picture below is of the test candles that I used .5oz of fragrance oil in each candle. The candle on the left had a hard time staying lit after a couple burn sessions and the wicks on almost all 4 of them seemed to get really thick which was weird.

More Testing!

Here are the next 3 test candles I made. I used:

Eco 14 wick in all of them
.5oz Melon Fig Apricot in the green one, poured at 90 degrees
.5oz PearBerry and no dye in one, poured at 130 degrees
.5oz Pumpkin Pie and no dye in one, poured at 110 degrees

This time I made sure to stir and pour these Very, Very slowly to minimize air bubbles. They all still got sink holes, but they did not have near as many air bubbles and ended up burning a lot better, though there was still some crackling and popping mostly with the green candle which I used the Melon Fig Apricot oil again.

The other two candles I tried Pumpkin Pie in one, and PearBerry in the other with no dye in those two.

My theory is that the Melon Fig Apricot is a heavier fragrance oil so it may have a harder time burning, especially with this particular wax and the added dye.

The picture below is toward the end of the two candles on the right (middle candle and green candle). The one on the far left I started testing later than the other two so it is not finished burning yet. As you can see, the one in the middle is done (total burn time about 49 hours). It burned mostly to the edge, but still left more wax on the sides of the jar than my other soy wax candles do. The green candle actually burned longer than the middle one (about 55 hours) and it also surprised me that it actually melted more wax off the sides too. I thought since that one had more air bubbles, it might not burn as well as the other two, but I think it actually did better.

With my observation of this soy wax, if you can get it to work well for you, is that it probably needs a little hotter wick than some other soy waxes.

The candle below is a candle I had made using the same Melon, Fig, Apricot oil as the other green candles, and the same amount of dye. Notice there are no air bubbles and it is burning nicely. The difference? This candle was made using the Millenium Blend soy wax from American Soy Organics (previously Enchanted Lites). I just thought I would show this so you can see that it is definitely the GW(Golden Brands) 464 wax that is the problem and not the dye or fragrance oil.

One Last Test…..

And these are the last two candles I made using the Golden Brands 464 wax. Here’s what I used:

.5oz Oatmeal Milk and Honey fragrance oil in each candle
CD-16 wick in each candle
No dye in either candle
Poured one on the left at 140 degrees
Poured candle on the right at 125 degrees

Both candles still got sink holes. I also stirred and poured these Very, very slowly and they both did much better without many bubbles, although they still have some. They seem to be burning pretty well and fairly cleanly too.

So What Do I Think???

Well, my experience with this soy wax has not been a good one. I’ve heard others rave about this wax, yet I’ve also heard of some others having issues with it. I followed advice and poured at higher temperatures, but it seems no matter what temperature I poured the wax into the jars at, they all got sink holes. Now that is a pretty easy fix if you just want to leave some wax in the pour pot so you can pour a little on to top them off and fix the holes, but I also had that horrible air bubble issue. Even though it was much better after I started stirring and pouring much slower, I still don’t like the fact that they still had some air bubbles which caused the candles to crack and pop a bit. And I don’t like the fact that I have to tip toe around trying to get this wax to work well when I have used other soy waxes that are much less complicated.

Now, I don’t know, maybe I got a bad batch, and I’ll probably try ordering some of this wax from Candlescience next time, but I’ve never gotten a “bad batch” of my regular soy wax which works pretty consistently for me.

On the positive side, if it weren’t for the sink hole and air bubbles, this wax cools to a beautiful, smooth, shiny appearance when poured at higher temps.

Have you tried or do you use Golden Brands 464 wax? I would love to hear your experience with it and any tips you might have! Just leave a comment below!