After moving from our apartment in Westchester County, NY to Philadelphia, PA and before I could start my job search in the city where Rocky jogged up the Art Museum's steps, my partner, Orlando encouraged me to do something I love for work rather than sitting in an office cubicle all day sifting through medical claims - you can read more about this in my post,
Reinventing Dennis. "You know, you are the creative type and you should really do something with your talents." He then mentioned that I really enjoyed making candles.
Yes, I've made candles before but just to give out as gifts for Christmas but if I'm going to make candles for sale, I know I have to learn a whole lot more. I ordered some books, researched online and watched YouTube videos of successful chandlers - okay, I got this!!!!
I decided I would start off with six candles that would eventually be the staple scents I would sell all year long and then branch out with seasonal and limited time fragrances as my business grew. So the first thing I ordered were a
whole bunch of 1 ounce test sized bottles of fragrance oils, from various candle suppliers, to choose which scents I would want for my signature line. I knew I wanted at least one in each of these categories; a floral, an earthy, a masculine, a clean, a food and tropical. While talking with a friend of mine, Georgeanne, who is the co-owner of a nationally acclaimed customer anthropology and retail consultant group, recommended I come up with a signature scent. A scent that would be original and exclusive to my brand.
When the fragrance oils arrived, I immediately opened the bottles and dipped paper perfume strips into the oil. My dining room smelled like the perfume section at Macy's and after sniffing all those fragrances, I gave myself a damn headache! Some fragrances were offensive and others were amazing! I narrowed it down to about 20 and then 10. There were many I loved and it was hard to decide which ones to use for the six main scents I wanted. I also needed to create the unique signature scent for my brand. It needed to appeal to men, woman and everyone in between. I wanted it to be an uplifting,
light and bright scent - etherial in a way - yet grounded! Don't ask me what that means, haha! So I started combining two fragrances together but they weren't unique enough for me. I added a third and then a fourth. Some were meh, others were disgusting and just as I was ready to give up, I think I was onto something. My combination consisted of green leaves, white florals, citrus and some woodsy scents. I started out with equal parts of the fragrance oils, but some needed to stand out more and others need to be pushed back into the background - sort of speak. So I played with the percentages until I hit that sweet spot! I have my signature scent.
I've decided to stick with soy wax for a "clean" burn - it is what I used before, so I am familiar with its quirkiness and was successful with - and now that I have my fragrances and wax picked out, it was time to choose the containers. I think I viewed every candle supply and glass jar companies there is online and viewed hundreds of vessels - or at least it felt that way! It was overwhelming because I want it to be perfect - I finally found one that I thought would be perfect for my brand's look - matte white translucent jars. I just love the way the warm glow of the flame shows through and illuminate the vessel.
When choosing both my signature scent and the white vessels, the key word here is "light" - the opposite of darkness (blind). As some of you may know, I am legally blind and The Lighthouse for the Blind played a major role during my school years by providing low vision aids, guidance and assigned me a tutor, Ms. Flynn, who was with me from elementary school all the way to high school. This candle, which I named Illume, is dedicated to Ms. Flynn (may she Rest In Peace) and as a thank you to The Lighthouse, a percentage of the proceeds from sales, will be donated to this amazing organization. I am forever grateful to their services.
While I waited for my supplies to arrive, I continued to browse the candle supply sites, spoke with friends and with other candlemakers in Facebook groups, I realized some people are concerned about using candles in their home and I decided to offer flameless options as well. I researched how to make reed diffusers, room/linen sprays and wax melts. So when it was time to come up with a name for my small business, I wanted to avoid using certain words like chandler, candles, wick, flame or wax..., that would only identify with just one particular product - so something like DelBene Candles was definitely out. I asked myself, what was I providing? I was offering people with scented products for their home. By answering that simple question, I came up with a name; The Scented Home, perfect! With a name picked out, I searched the business name and the trademark data base and it wasn't taken, so I moved forward and filed for my LLC.
When all the supplies for candles, melts, sprays and diffusers came in, I started working on making the candles first because testing how a candle burns is important and a long process The cure time is two weeks for soy candles and it is recommended to wait the full two weeks before testing them (although, some candlemakers test after a week and others only 48 hour). While waiting for the candles to cure, I made the room/linen sprays and reed diffusers in the meantime. Finally, the day has come to do my burn tests! I lifted the lid off the first jar, the scent was amazing and I knew I had this down pat.
 |
| mushroom wick |
When doing a burn test, you have to look at how the wick is performing; pay attention to the size of the flame and see if it is too big or too small, make sure it is not producing too much smoke or soot and if it is mushrooming. Next notice the melt pool after 2 hours of burning. At this point, the melt pool should have reached the edge of your container (if close, it might just take a bit longer to reach it). After 4 hours, your melt pool should have reached the edge of your container and be 1/2 inch deep. If the flame is large and/or the wick is mushrooming or producing soot & smoking and if the melt pool is deeper than 1/2 an inch, it could mean there is too much fragrance oil in it or it could mean the wick is too large for the container. If the flame is too small, the melt pool does not reach the edge of the container, it means the wick is too small. I tested three different wicks. One was definitely too small, the other was definitely too big and the third..... seemed to be doing well but once the candle was lit, the scent disappeared altogether - what the fu...? Soy can be tricky. It needs to be heated to 185ºF and you have to experiment at what temperature to pour in your vessels in order to obtain a smooth surface, avoid sinkholes and craters. Sometimes, you have to do a second pour or use a heat gun to melt the top and let it solidify again to obtain a smooth top. Different fragrances and the amount added, wax type, size of vessel, wick type, and pour temperatures all affect each other, so it's very important to run burn tests for every type of candle you make. At the same time, I thought I would try a coconut blend wax, tops came out smooth on the first poor, and the cold and hot throw were good and although I did like it, it's low melt point concerned me during summer months with shipping. Last summer, I ordered a coconut wax candle from another candlemaker, I made friends with on TikTok and when it arrived, it was completely melted and wax was everywhere in the package. She was beyond upset when I told her and my candle making friend insisted she replace it. We agreed it should be in autumn when temps cooled down but she wound up changing her wax after several other clients mentioned the same thing happened to them. I received it late autumn and her beautiful candle sits on my mantle in my fireplace. Anyway, this raised a red flag. If I were to use this wax, I'd use it during colder months and sell at markets only. I don't want this to happen with my candles during shipping in summer, so for now, coconut wax is out. Once I am happy with the cold and hot throw with my soy wax candles, I will experiment with other wax types. It's funny, when I was making candles just to give as gifts, they burned properly with amazing cold and hot throw, but, now that I am starting my business, I'm having issues. Damn, Murphy and his law!
With all the testing I did, I ran out of supplies. When I went to reorder supplies, I learned that the jars I picked out were discontinued and wicks were on back order for several months. This put a delay in continuing with testing. In the meantime, my niece was getting married and she asked if I would make candles as favors for her guests. I was honored that she asked me but I was also worried about getting supplies in time or at all. Also, I was concerned I wouldn't get a good hot throw in time for her wedding in October. We really had to move quick at this point, we needed to decide on a scent and choose the vessels. She came up from Tennessee and she chose Gardenia and Tuberose as her scent and we found a cute 7oz jar that can hold 5oz of wax. So now it was time to order everything. Luckily, the jars she chose were smaller than the jars I'm using for my line and the wicks needed for that size vessel were in stock. I ordered three sizes that should work with that size jar. With all the supplies in, I needed time to test to make sure they had a good hot throw. Luckily, toward the end of September, they worked out perfectly and I spent the next three weeks making 200 candles, tying bows, hot glueing flowers and attaching labels. This whole scenario turned out to be a blessing because I really was getting frustrated with not acheiving the hot throw I desired for my candles and these candles smelled amazing.
There is still a lot more to get done before I can open up shop. Slowly but surely, I'll get there. I want to ensure that my candles burn perfectly and have an amazing cold and hot throw! I want to provide you with high quality products. In the meantime, I hope you will continue to join me on my candle making journey.
|
| Dennis DelBene
Owner, The Scented Home | | |
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment