Welcome to the BC Blog! Here you'll find articles about our company Bitter Creek Candle Supply, Inc., as well as articles on candlemaking, soapmaking, bath & body, air fresheners, the craft business, etc! Grab a cup of coffee and make yourself at home :) Check back often for new articles and contests for our blog followers!
Who doesn't just love glitter and sparkly things? Sparkly things are just so HAPPY!!!
Just think of the possibility for summer with our new 24 Karat Gold Mica and our new Bronze Mica! The Bronze Mica is an excellent to add that summer sheen without the damaging UV rays of the sun! Just add some bronze or bronze & gold mica to our Refillable Powder Brush shown above, brush on the skin and voila! Instant color! These are a super HOT item this summer and can be found at many upscale merchants! Your cost for the brush and the mica per unit is around $4.25 each. These easily sell for around $18-20 each filled! This is an excellent profit item with very low labor.
I rarely tell people this but I am a skeptic. There, I said it. :) My glass is pretty well half full in life but it can often be half empty when it comes to new products, especially in our industry. Maybe it comes from over a decade of testing everything new on the market to have less than 5% work for me.
A few weeks back, the owner of EcoSoya sent us some of their new wax, EcoSoya CB XceL to test. This wax promised things I'd have never believed from any wax, let alone a soy. It promised single pour that didn't have to be poured slushy, it promised me excellent scent throw both hot and cold, it promised little to no frost and it was 100% soy? This literally goes against the grain of everything I'd learned about soy to this point but good news, it delivered!!!
I think this wax will revolutionize how people view soy. I bought my very first case and plan to spend the next few weeks testing all my scents in it to make the switch. This is the first time I've even considered switching soy waxes since my last change which was over 8 years ago! I've been using soy waxes since the latter part of the 1990's and this I have to say is the best soy container wax out there by far!
Bitter Creek has added this outstanding wax to their inventory this week, and it's now available for purchase on the shopping cart at BCN! I highly suggest all soy users or for that matter soy skeptics give this wax a whirl! I don't think it will disappoint you in any way! I have renewed my faith in the natural wax industry. The perfect soy wax really does exist!
For those that test this wax, please share your feedback either through our shopping cart, on our message board or here on the blog! In the mean time, I am going to be testing my heart out and will share my results as well.
Thanks for reading & Happy Candlemaking! Flicker Bitter Creek Tech Support
Pillar Candles are all the rage from Primitive to Contemporary! Here you will learn how to create that beautiful one of a kind look that a mottled layer pillar candle gives!
First, pre-wick your molds by threading the wicking through the bottom hole in the mold. Tie the wicking off to a wick rod across the top of the mold. Pull the wick tight and place a mold plug into the hole along side the wick, taking care to be sure the wick is tight! Seal the bottom of the mold area around the plug and over it with the mold sealer putty.
After your molds are ready, melt your wax. Heat the wax to 185, add your dye, then fragrance (I used .7 weight oz of fragrance per lb of wax for this particular scent and candle). Allow the wax to cool down to about 165 and pour into room temp molds. After your first layer is in the mold, swish the wax gently in the mold to bring it slightly up the side as shown below. Allow the wax to cool a bit, and poke relief holes around the wick. I use bamboo skewers for this.
Repeat the process above for your next layer.
For the third layer, repeat the same process as for the first layer, except completely fill the mold.
After you have poured the final layer and poked the relief holes, you will need to do a final layer or two. Repeat the process of poking relief holes with each subsequent layer. Do the final repours at 185*.
Have fun with making layered pillars. They are beautiful candles that draw a lot if interest!
Our 4th Annual BC Convention was a big success! We had a great group of attendees and speakers, and received lots of great feedback. There was a good mix of previous attendees as well as new people from all over the country. Everyone had tons of fun and loved meeting other fellow candle & soapmakers. I've gotten so many emails from people telling me how much they enjoyed themselves and how much they learned. It always makes me feel so good to know our convention inspires people and renews their passion for their businesses! I really enjoyed the demos and speakers as well. Everyone did such a great job and they were very educational.
It was quite an eventful weekend. The gift swap went wonderfully with many beautiful baskets and products made by our talented customers, and Tangi did a great job running the swap this year. She also coordinated a dinner gathering at Bubba Gump's where we all had awesome food and fun! Between all the yummy food at Bubba's and the Outback Steakhouse, I'm surprised we all still fit in our clothes, lol! There was also a fundraiser for one of our employees who is going through cancer treatments, that was coordinated by Kim, Jules and Sabrina and we thank them for coming up with the idea to do something so nice for Al and his family. The items donated for the raffle were incredible, and between raffle tickets and cash donations the group was able to raise $2,000! We cannot thank everyone enough for such heartwarming generosity!
The weekend did not go on without a twist... as we discovered Sunday morning that one of our trucks full of supplies was stolen from the parking lot. Luckily the majority of the customer orders were in our enclosed hauling trailer, and only some wax and B&B products were in the other truck that was stolen. But we hated to disappoint those who had items missing. Our customers were so nice and understanding, and we shipped out the missing items to them right away, so everything worked out. The police finally found our truck in another town close by, and we recovered most of the contents aside from a few personal items that were stolen. Thanks to everyone for your understanding, patience and support!
We have updated our online convention photo album with some pics from this year's event, and I have many more pics to add soon. If anyone has more photos to share I would love to add some to the album, so please email copies to me at BCdoneen@yahoo.com and I will get more added!http://bittercreek.myphotoalbum.com/
Thanks again to everyone for joining us this year, and we hope to see you again next time! :)
As you all know, prices on various supply items have been rising recently due to the rising costs of raw materials, shipping, etc. We realize this is difficult for all of us in the industry, especially in these rough economic times. Many of you who have been loyal customers of ours for many years know that we have very rarely ever raised prices in the past, and in most cases when there have been slight increases in our costs, we have absorbed those increases and tried our best to avoid passing them on to you. Unfortunately in the last year or so, there have been some unavoidable increases that we have had to pass on. Many times we receive no advanced warning of these increases, we don't find out until we place our orders from our manufacturers. But we will do our best to notify you of any price increases as soon as we find out, so you have the most notice possible to adjust your pricing as well.
BCN’s prices on metal jelly jar lids & smelly jelly lids will be increasing in the next couple of weeks.Also our price on Love Spell type fragrance has recently increased.
On that note, we do have some GOOD news to share! Our prices on IGI waxes have just been decreased!And our pricing on our AromaMagic™ Wands (our wood diffuser reeds) are also being decreased! We are committed to finding you the best prices we can, so we are constantly checking product sources and trying to negotiate better deals so we can give you the best prices possible on our products (while maintaining the best quality)!
You will sometimes notice some fluctuations in prices between BCN and BCS on certain items, especially wax.For example, BCS’s prices on IGI waxes decreased recently because they had to order a load after IGI’s first price decrease.But at the time BCN was not able to lower our pricing yet as we were still on the load from before the decrease.Now there has been a 2nd price decrease from IGI, and since we ordered at the new lower prices, we are able to adjust our pricing down at BCN to reflect that.Prices on waxes can also depend on the plant it comes from, as some waxes cost a bit different from different IGI plants.Shipping on truckloads also factors into the prices and can cause them to vary from our two locations as well.With the more frequent fluctuations in wax prices lately, it’s difficult to keep pricing consistent and predictable, but we will always continue to adjust our prices based on our current costs and keep our prices as competitive as we can.
We sincerely appreciate your business and value your loyalty to our company. We want to thank you all for choosing BC as your supplier and helping our business grow, and we will continue striving to help your business grow in every way we can ☺
