Question on Liquid Paraffin vs Kerosene and an obseravation.

First off; the observation. After months of trial and error (more error) it has been brought to my attention the most ratios stated in formulas are by weight NOT by volume. I feel this lil tidbit should be stickied somewhere so folks new to the hobby will not waist time and money believing everything is by volume.

On to the question. When Liquid Paraffin is mentioned are we taking Kerosene (UK) or actual Liquid Wax Paraffin (US) ?

Thanks n happy goooin'

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Permalink Reply by tim on February 25, 2022 at 8:08pm

It is far easier to be accurate with weight than with volume which is why it is used (same reason professional bakers weigh their flour).

if you know the density of your ingredient you can calculate the volume relatively easily, and until literally yesterday when I bought a digital scale (yet to use it however) i did all my measurements by volume. of course I can't say that this method worked particularly well considering i've attempted to make a lava lamp like 10 times and only one of them came even remotely close to flowing properly (this is the reason i bought the scale hahaha, we shall see how much it helps as soon as i find another bottle to make another lamp).

as for the liquid paraffin, i assume they are referring to the us definition because some of these recipes call for actual kerosene in addition to liquid paraffin. i have been using mineral oil and it seems to work quite well.