A few photos to show you my product testing. All my candles undergo extensive testing before I will release them for sale. This ensures the customer can always gain the best out of my products.
Colour Testing – This spiral dinner candle was meant to be red – It turned out pink!
Moving onto Massage Candles – The wick was too small to start with – hence the small burn pool. I’ve moved onto a bigger wick and they burn perfectly now.
I’ve also had them tested by friends for excess oil, ‘the glide’ factor and scent. All so far that I’ve made have come back with positive results. My skin has never felt so soft for years!
Wax Play candles are the hardest item to test – Temperature reading every five minutes for a minimum of ten candles per variety! Lots of testing involved – yet I’ve completed all the necessary testing and documentation for my official Wax Play Candles.
I’m in the middle of changing all the soy wax play candles for a shorter, fatter version. I have found the new design more stable for doing picture work due to a lower center of gravity.
Spiral Soy Wax Dinner Candle – These are only a 32 g candle and I never expected to get through a two hour burn test. Here’s a before and after picture – Two hours later! It performed well to say I wasn’t starting with a lot of wax in the beginning.
Cosmetics
The thing for everyone to understand about cosmetics is – In the EU all cosmetics have to be tested before going on sale. It is an expensive business (Each item tested comes with a price tag of approx £159.00 plus VAT. You can get deals which means if you don’t change a lot in the recipe some companies will test 5 or 6 for this price.) There is a lot of paper work involved, but I enjoy making soaps and lip balms so for me it is worth the cost and extra effort involved to comply with the strict regulations. I will be adding more soaps and bath bombs at some point, but I need to save my pennies to cover the initial outlay first.
I see a lot of sellers breaking the law – Buy any product (Lip balm and Soaps have this issue) – any colour – any flavouring or scent!! With ten colours on offer and forty+ flavours it is an impossible task to have a licence for all of them. The criteria is strict for replicating a licensed product, and these offers are no fun for legitimate companies to compete with. Try it yourself if you’re in any doubt. Go to Ebay or Etsy, type in novelty soap for instance. You don’t have to look far to find the ones not playing by the law. (Gripe over with.)
Lip Balms is another one of my projects.
My licenced lip balms – Each one before going off for a licence were tested by friends – I wanted rich moisturising properties without the greasy residue lingering for too long. After quite a few trials with different recipe combinations I’ve found the one I like.
