Interesting topic Wanda and thanks for the instructions on how to carve out a pillar. I've usually just let them burn enough to make a well to hold a real tealight then messed around with a knife but your way sounds much neater. :-) I burn real tealights, votives, tapers, then pillars in that order of frequency but tealights the most. I have a bazillion tealight holders (ys finds) and feel they are safer than tapers with the cats. I like the beeswax or soya the best altho have a lifetime supply of paraffin ones but mostly use them outdoors in the summer. Ikea has the best quality paraffin tealights for the lowest price IMO and sell in bags of 100 for about $3 on sale ($4-something regular) and I've also bot them at YS's for even less. I do have some battery ones I got a few years ago for the RV (for safety) but wasn't impressed with the appearance of the flame altho I've been told they have improved so should give them a try again. I like the idea of remote control pillars as I have the same accessibility problem on my mantel. I'd like to use them as there are convection currents because of the stove and my beeswax tapers dripped on the silk poinsettias at Christmas.

I had a feeling it was Chinese. The Chinese use a different manufacturing method than the Breton Technology used by Cambria, Caesarstone, Silestone, and the other big manufacturers. When I bought my Pentalquartz, which is Breton-made in Vietnam, the warehouse manager told me that the owner of Pental, which is a big west coast granite company, went to China to see their manufacturing facility, and he wouldn't buy it. He said the resins are cured at lower temperatures for shorter time periods. So there's the cost-savings, but it's not as durable. I've read here of surface pitting with Chinese quartz. That's unheard of with Breton quartz. So now we see your water marks, which is ridiculous. I would have them take that junk out and buy a reliable brand of quartz myself. I'm saving your photo to show others what can happen when they buy Chinese. They never believe me that Chinese quartz can have problems. They just look at how pretty it is and how much money they save.

Hi! I'm doing soy candles for the first time and tryed CB-135 with US ECSENTIA chocolate fudge FO (10%) The contaminar have 3" of diameter,. The candle looked lovely: smoth surface and very fragrant. 24h after, I Light the candles ( I make 3 diferent wicks: eco wick 4 ; eco wick 6 (following wick Guide) and small woodwick from 4CANDLES. Wick 6 did made a nice melt pool and the wick 4 also get the edges but not so quickly. The woodwick make the candle tunneling. The scent was perfect and I was confident. After reach a Good melt pool I let the candle burn for about 3 hours. When wax resolidify, There was an awful brown strip on the three candles on the place of the melting pools. Next day lighted the candles again: very poor scent, the melting pool get much more time to achieve but did with wick ECO 6 and ECO 4 and did not with woodwick. The colour of the surfaces get much more dark even. I try the same wax with diferent scents this time: 2 from 4candles and 1 from scent perfique. now I have to Wait 48h and then light then to see what happen. If someone did already face this problem, please help me.

What brands of fragrance oils have you tried? There can be great differences in quality. It sounds like you are doing everything right, but you may just be using an oil that works poorly.