New(ish) Candle Business! (which I keep meaning to talk about)

Posted by Jessi (Geo) on March 8, 2017 | 0 Comments

I have been meaning to make this post ever since I started back in October – it was originally a “where I’ve been post” because this is 1/2 of the reason I disappeared (and kind of fell off the face of the planet) for a couple of months. (The other 1/2 is my new library which I will get to in a separate post!)

Back in fall last year, I was spending a FORTUNE on bookish candles. THE OBSESSION IS REAL, GUYS. So I thought, Hmm, what if I make my OWN candles?! I could save so much money! (Laughing at my past self) Thus, a new hobby was born. I didn’t plan on selling when I started out, but I had enough people wanting them, and I thought I could, so I did! And here I am! (*coughs* hundreds of dollars later)

It was a VERY stressful process. Candlemaking, as it turns out, is NOT as easy as it sounds. I thought you would just mix the ingredients together, and VOILA! You have a candle! HAHAHAHAHAHAA NO. You have to take into consideration product ratios (if you don’t have enough fragrance oil your scent throw is weak, if you have too much it screws up the wax), pouring temperatures, you have to warm your containers first, frosting issues, there’s certain kinds of wicks for certain candles…the list goes on and on. There’s SO many things they don’t tell you in how to’s. Most of mine was trial and error, and WORK. A LOT OF WORK. (and a lot of yanking my hair out) I had issues with labeling – I wanted side labels specifically but couldn’t figure out how to make it work. Finally I broke down and invested in a Silhouette Cameo. Then I had issues with the machine not cutting properly, which took weeks to figure out (and ended up being a totally simple and ridiculously easy fix). I almost had a breakdown and gave up in the beginning because it was a lot more than I expected.

Things have finally settled down and I’ve got the hang of it now (5 months later, heh) and I love it! I’m passionate about candles and I try to infuse that passion into my work. I try my very best to only release candles that haven’t been done before. The only candles I have released that someone else has done already (or had as of me releasing them anyway) are Manon, Abraxos, and Butterbeer. I do research before releasing new candles to make sure it hasn’t been done before so that mine are 100% unique. It’s what I pride myself on. In fact, there’s been a couple of times I was about to release a new candle and someone else beat me to it, so I scrapped the candle altogether (Be Our Guest!). Standing out in the sea of candle companies is very important to me. I want mine to be special!

It’s been a very rewarding journey so far! It warms my heart to see 5 star reviews and people raving about my candles. It makes my day, actually. I want people to love them as much as I do!

Current candles in the shop

My specialty is custom Instagram handle and blog names! I’m very proud of this listing because no one else has ever done something like this on a candle before (and I’m really hoping no one else does, either). It’s perfect for photos, you can add your name and don’t have to watermark ;)