VAMPIRES??

Your sense of smell is so powerful, it can transport you back to a childhood memory, an old friend, or the first time you heard that song that makes you cry. Pretty cool. That’s why I love to use scented candles when I write; using a scent to trigger my brain into writing mode can really aid in making the mental ‘movie’ of my character’s life crystal-clear, even helping me ‘hear’ and ‘feel’ what’s going on in their world more clearly than usual, too. Triggering your olfactory sense with a very particular smell just strengthens this experience!

1) Raid the Fragrance Aisle (drugstores & walmart/target will be cheapest.)

I bought this cologne because it smelled EXACTLY like how I picture my OC to smell like. It was super cheap at $13 for 3.5 oz. This one doesn’t come with a spritzer head, but if yours does have a sprayer on it you can *usually* remove it with a pair of pliers. This will make it easier to add to the candle wax later.

2) Raid the Candle Drawer/Cabinet

Ideally, you’ll want to start out with a brand new, unscented candle in a GLASS (not metal) container. (if you don’t have any new ones, but a few old ones are lying around, I’ll be mentioning how you can swing this project anyway, so keep reading!) I chose this Bombay candle because I loved the fancy box it comes in. It will be an Experience every time I sit down to use it AND it keeps the dust off the top when it’s sitting on my desk. This candle is a soy candle, but regular wax will work just the same!

REMOVE any stickers on the bottom! They can stick to the bottom of your pot and burn. Usually they peel off the glass easily, but you can use a little lighter fluid if you have it on hand. Just make sure to rinse it off the glass afterwards because it’s (obviously) flammable, and we’re going to be turning up the heat.

3) Prepare a Nice Bath

This is a good time to put on some music, ‘cause you’re gonna be babysitting this thing for a while. Put the candle in a typical pot, whatever will hold it + enough water to cover it about ¾ of the way comfortably without spilling over when the water starts to boil.

Turn the heat up to high to start with.

When it starts to boil (there are lots of bubbles, the candle might rattle a bit, but the water isn’t White Rapids-level turbulent!!) turn it down a little. My electric stove has levels Lo thru 10 (high.) I turned it to about 7 for most of the time after initial heat-up. If you have to use multiple candles to get enough wax for one new candle, you’ll just have to repeat this process a few times, OR (if you’re patient and like taking the easy way out–but who does?), you can freeze each of the candles in their glass containers overnight; then, the wax will pop right out and you can put all of the broken-up pieces into a new, large glass container and use this double-boiler method the exact same way.

This candle took about 45 minutes to liquefy. I used a pair of tongs (like what you use to flip a steak on the grill) to push it back to the middle whenever it rattled out of place.

4) Turn off the Heat, Grab the Wick, and Add the Smells

Still using the cooking tongs (but you could use a fork,) I fished out the wick. I added about 2 teaspoons of cologne to the melted candle, a half-teaspoon at a time until I liked the strength, then stirred it up with a wooden skewer, though anything disposable (like a straw) will work perfectly and keep the mess down. I then used a safety pin and a skewer to balance the wick in the middle.

I let the candle cool down until it was tolerable to touch, then removed it from the pot so it could sit in the cooler air on the counter.

FIN! Isn’t he cute?

Mine has freckles from the oil deposits of the fragrance. Don’t worry if yours does, too. And make sure to trim the wick down to ¼ of an inch before lighting it or you’ll have a bonfire!

Quick hack: If you don’t have an untouched candle with a good wick, or you’re creating a candle in a taller container than the one it started out in, try to steal one from a candlestick that hasn’t been too used up. You can pour hot water on it in a bowl to get it warm, let it sit, then take it out and gently pull from either end. You’ll eventually get the wick out. Then you can cut it to length and hang it in the new candle the same way we did with this one.

Use the wax toward your next candle project!

Extra Notes

Don’t panic if it looks like the candle wax will overflow while it’s becoming a liquid again. Liquid expands, solids contract. If for some reason any does spill over into the water, or if you need to spoon some out to make room for the fragrance like I did, it’s very easy to collect that wax off the surface of the water in the pot once it’s cooled down.

Clean anything wax-covered by soaking it in hot water and wiping off with a paper towel but DO NOT pour it down the sink.

Hey there. My name’s RJ and I created voicefinder, a resource for writers and other creatives. I also blog about the craft of writing (or I used to, before I became an elusive cryptid in 2018. <<) I’m also writing a book! It’s about (yes, you guessed it) werewolves and strip clubs. Don’t tell Tumblr or they’ll fire me.

I live in the Midwest, but my novel takes place in an imaginary town in Montana. That’s where you come in, because I gotta do research, research, r e s e a r c h or you’ll all know I’m a fraud. I don’t want to be crucified.  ._.

YOUR MISSION, IF YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT:

I need as many Montananbananans to DM me (or submit an ‘ask’) with incredible details of the places you’ve grown up, worked, or frequently visited.

I’m particularly interested in: small towns, old mills, any places with ghosts, local legends, edible wild plants (and toxic ones), and any slang your grandparents still use.

Also on my wishlist:

Any information on:

Places that have made you feel strange or wonderful or like there’s a sense of lost time

Observations of human behavior in small towns, bars, churches (particularly Lutheran and Catholic), and clubs

Cool stuff I should totally put in my book

Natural places like waterfalls and hot springs that most tourists won’t know about / care to find

Have you found grafitti out in the middle of nowhere and wondered who’d bother to do it? Or if it was really put there by a human?

Where could I reasonably hide a werewolf, or an entire group of them?

If you are Native American, especially living on a reservation or have family / friends who do, can you please tell me more?

If you are Native American, what kind of people outside of your culture do you disagree with / agree with most? (this won’t be published, don’t worry.)

If you aren’t a Native American, what is your view on them? (this won’t be published, don’t worry.)

What kinds of guns do farmers own?

Do people 'warsh’ their clothes? What dialect tidbits sticks out most when you’re talking to old people; what differences do you hear in people who are from another state?

Gimme the creepy stuff

But also the cool natural stuff

And any old buildings I should check out

pls just help i need it ;v;

hey folks i made some treats, come geddem

(free to use, i just made them for fun while at work, also well aware i missed some so if u want any others just LMK nicely)

hey guys i made some treats, come geddem

(free to use, i just made them for fun while at work, also well aware i missed some so if u want any others just LMK nicely)

Let’s start with the most ridiculously conservative version of where Jeff Bezos keeps his money. (Also let’s lose a quick $5b and say he has $100b rather than $105b, for simplicity.) Now, let’s say he keeps $100b in a savings account that earns 1% interest, compounded annually. 

(Let me make it clear that both the rate and the percentage are ridiculously low and nobody would do this ever, especially with one hundred billion dollars. This is for educational purposes only.)

So, that means, at the end of the year, he’ll have “earned” a billion dollars just for having this much money in this particular savings account. 

I put quote marks around “earned” because he didn’t work for it. He got money for having money. HE GOT A BILLION DOLLARS FOR HAVING A HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS. (And again I remind you that this is the absolutely ridiculous lowest version for explanation’s sake.)

So in this example, if he spends $10m a day for a year, that’s $3b650m he spends in one year. BUT HE “EARNS” BACK A BILLION DOLLARS JUST FOR HAVING MONEY. So he actually only spent $2b650m. (Again, these are not the real numbers; I’m simplifying.) So your span of time has to be much, much longer than 27 years. It’s not that straightforward.

BUT! Jeff Bezos doesn’t keep his $105b in a 1%/yr savings account. He has a diverse portfolio, high-yield interest investments, most likely offshore accounts (I can’t remember if he was in the Panama Papers or not), etc. So if the lowest possible example has him “earning” a billion dollars a year just because he has money, imagine what he’s “earning” just because he has money in a diversified portfolio where he’s getting way, way more than 1% back annually. 

He could spend, as the above comment says, ten million dollars every single day, and literally make it all back plus a whole lot more. He would never run out of money.

Try to understand the evils of capitalism here.

A person with $100 billion could spend $10 million a day, every day, for his whole life, and that person would die with more money than they had when they began spending $10 million a day.

i worked at a fancy gourmet coffee shop, but not everyone who came in knew that or cared, so we’d occasionally get ppl who got all their coffee knowledge from starbuckses. starbuckae? starbukakke

anyway sbux has this thing where they’re literally just wrong about what they call some drinks. for example, a cappuccino is traditionally a double shot of espresso with milk foam, like a few sips of drink, but at starbucks the smallest possible “cappuccino” is 8oz and espresso with that much milk? is really just a bastard latte. 

but to explain that to someone who doesnt know better takes time, and there a line forming, and a latte… is close enough to what someone who thinks of a cappuccino as a 16oz drink is expecting. so if someone asked for a “large cappuccino” we were instructed to go “okay :)”, plug in a large latte, and then, before they could see, scroll down to the secret buttons, the forbidden buttons, the deceit buttons, and press the one called “cappuccino”, in “quotes”, which would not only put a cappuccino on their receipt, but would send a message to the barista, across the room, who would then make a latte, see the pink “cappuccino” indicator, and go 

“large cappuccino? :)”