LitUp

As the post title says I am wondering to see if anyone would be interested in buying FO that's been made specifically for candles. When we switched over to working with our FO manufacturer we learned that most FO on the market is made for bath and body products as well as candles.  Currently there are regulations that dictate how much of certain base components can be used in a FO formula when the FO is intended to be used in bath/body products. Since we only make candles and none are intended to be used as a lotion candle we had them start making all of our FO to be formulated for just candles.

Now I understand why most companies out there sell FO that is also rated for bath and body, because they're trying to target multiple markets. Makes sense. Since we don't make any soap or bath and body products we've been considering having FO made just for candles. Now if this isn't something that interests people we don't see any point in moving forward so here I am looking for feedback. Would this be something you as a candle maker would be interested in? We're very open to feedback so please let me know any questions or concerns you might have.

Cheers

PJ

I did a search first to see if the Danish concept of Hygge had been discussed before but I didn't see anything - if it has and I missed it I do apologize. We hadn't heard of hygge until last fall, but since this we've fallen in love with it and make sure it tell all of our customers about it. It's a great conversation piece and we use it to increase our order size with customers. Hygge is a Danish lifestyle philosophy and one of the main aspects of it is burning candles. Not just one or two candles but a ton. We wrote a blog post that talks more about it and different ways that people can incorporate it into their life. I wanted to share it here and ask for feedback on the post it self since we are new to blogging and also to hopefully offer a tool to the community to help you sell more. Honest feedback is greatly appreciated.

Mod: Link removed. Self promotion. 

5 hours ago, iansmommaya said:

I have no idea. I can link photos I like or websites I like the photos in, but I have no idea. I do know I NEEEEEEEEED to redo the photos on my website and I like the ones with the green trees in the background better then the ones with the stark white background...

Really you want both styles of picture, your product photos solos with a white background and also lifestyle shots. Looking at your website if you I would say unless you're going to actually remove the background in the solo shots with white backdrops so they're a pure white then go with the trees in the background ones for your photography. If you don't have software to remove the backgrounds yourself but want them done I suggest googling image touch up companies, specifically clipping services, they are extremely reasonable priced for the images you'd need done.

On 3/26/2018 at 5:00 PM, TallTayl said:

If you used mold release, and test caps (in the plumbing section of the hardware store) it could work. Drill a wick hole in the test cap, seal with high temp tape... 

Dont the PVC caps have a curvature to them?

On 3/7/2018 at 10:10 AM, Lighten Up said:

It's pretty simple. I offer one jar and a limited selection of fragrances, some are year round, some seasonal. I provide a flyer with all the info and, when it's time, an order form. I do not offer 'samples'. I do have a promo pack with 2 full sized candles and the flyer. I will, however, front the committed group a mixed case of the fragrances to count against their order.

 

I started with friend that was a teacher and it has snowballed over the last 10 years. Everything has been referral or someone that has bought my candle from a fundraiser and has a group of their own. I do no advertising.

Thanks for the insight. My aunt had asked me about using our candles for a fundraiser for their school since I think they currently use yankee. We've been thinking about ways to go about it but that helps with some of the things we've been considering!

I saw a competitor to mine who also does beer bottle candles have one of his employees leave his company and start his own, making pretty much the exact same product, same label style, same cut same packaging same trade show booth set up it's sickening. It is super hard to go after someone, because as long as the design is 10% different or so then it's considered not a copy

We started with almost 50 different fragrances, which was a ton to try and handle starting off.6-10 candles of each. We quickly scaled back....to 34 I think still insane honestly looking at it now. Overtime we saw what sold and what didn't and currently sit at about 15 year round fragrances. Each event is different so its hard to say how much you need but I feel its always better to over prepare then to lose out on sales. 

8 hours ago, Kerven said:

They sent out another email Wed. with a Q&A about the incident.

Haven't seen either of those come through, would you post the contents?

On 3/26/2018 at 7:38 PM, Faerywren said:

You should be able to use Sun & Sea. One of the big no no's is using a trademarked name and putting "type" after it. People think if they add "type", they are okay to use the trademarked name. They would be wrong. What a trademark attorney told me once was to rename every dupe and, if I wanted, I could put a disclaimer on my items saying, "Similar to Aquolina's Pink Sugar" or "Our version of Bath and Body Works Secret Wonderland".

Exactly. Companies selling FO get away with just adding "type" to the name because with a trademark you have to actually trademark the name for different categories. Most companies only trademark it for candles or wax melts, almost none trade mark it for fragrance oils.

Just a heads up on the home office deduction as this is one I looked more into this year. So when you sell your home it's tax free up to a certain number, I think $250k. However if you claim that deduction as a depreciation of $10,000, you will be subject to tax on that amount when you sell.

Looking to see if anyone has recommendations for suppliers for their fragrances. Not blended together both separate and on their own. Thanks!

The best beer scent we found was from natures garden, and it smells like a light sweet lager. We had tons of requests for this fragrance when we started out since we vend at beer festivals a good amount. That said we discontinued using this scent almost 2 years ago. It smells nice but it never sold! That was one of our first lessons when it comes to acting on what customers say you should make!

Maybe a pine or other wood type smell

If you are concerned about shipping in the summer you can require a signature so the package isnt left sitting in the sun just to make sure.

Jared I think you'll find this forum to be a wealth of knowledge with great people, if you ever have a specific question I'm always happy to answer if you want to shoot me a DM. Also using the search feature of the forum is helpful when looking for different topics.

On 3/18/2018 at 10:51 AM, Quentin said:

I'm pretty sure I know what a hot throw is, but what is a COLD throw?

Q

Cold throw is how your candle smells when unlit

4 minutes ago, Lighten Up said:

Schools, sports teams, dance, band, 4-H, travel clubs, etc... anyone that has a group that needs money.

How does it work? Do you provide them samples or do they just sell based off a linesheet?

We started on etsy but quickly ended that for our own website. You just get lost in a sea of other people doing the same thing. There is always someone willing to undercut you with pricing that is only sustainable for someone who never plans to sell wholesale and honestly it just hurts the community and pricing in general with lower price point. Do events, lots of events and build up a following that way.

On 2/26/2018 at 2:11 PM, Clear Black said:

As of now, my 16oz candles cost $7 to make. A few of the items are pricey, but I hope to drive that cost more towards the $5 per mark when I can afford to buy raw mats in bigger bulk. So for now im at the $7 per mark. Im thinking they will retail between $18/$20. So if they cost me $7 to make and retail for $20, what should the wholesale buyer be getting from the $13 profit on each candle? Would it be $3 me, $10 buyer? Does the buyer typically get the larger profit portion? Hope this makes sense in any way. I know a bunch of you folks have wholesale accounts and can maybe shed some light here. I really do think the $7 per candle cost is hurting me when it comes to wholesale and I am ok with that knowing I can further cut costs in the future by making bigger material purchases.

 

Thoughts?

$7 is a very high wholesale cost to have, and if that is your cost then the minimum you want to sell it for is $14 wholesale and the retail will have a markup of 2-2.3x so $28 to  $32.20. Keystone aka a 2x retail markup used to be the standard but more and more stores are going as high as 2.3x markup in order to make enough money to survive. We stepped into wholesale full time last year and went from being carried in 5 stores locally to 140 in the US along with stores in Canada and Hong Kong, so if you have specific questions I'm more than happy to help out answering where I can.

- 270# Water jacket wax melter 

-65# direct heat melter

- rite hete wax pump

-restaurant heating strip 500watt x3( went from spending all day with a heat gun to finish yesterdays batches to cranking through 600 candles in about an hour and a half.)

We use 464 wax with about 9% FO and use hemp wicks, been great for us for the last 4 years but one of our selling points is how strong our cold and hot throws are.

5 hours ago, Clear Black said:

 

Yes, those are hella cute and would be a good idea if they would work with my container. Sadly they wouldnt. But maybe I can custom create my own like you said, hmmm

We use that style but have our custom sized for our container. We go through a company called Nagel Paper, the lids are listed under speciality if you wanted to look into it.

On 3/5/2018 at 9:58 AM, Trappeur said:

Now the thing I could never really figure out was how to incorporate time and labor and that really needs to go into the production of each candle....

Hi Trappeur - if you're looking for a way to figure out how much your labor cost is for making a candle I can share the way we do it. It certainly plays into what your gross margin is on your product and without it if you're selling wholesale at keystone minus those costs you're making less than 50% margin. We take every part of the production and do one thing at a time for an hour- so for an hour we just wick, for an hour we just label, for an hour we just pour ect. Then mark down how many of each part you accomplish in an hour. We divide what we pay someone to help us with production hourly by how many candles they get done per task.

Wicking - $0.04

Pouring - $0.05

Making Boxes - $0.03

Label/Trim/Box $0.08

This also can help you see what areas you can improve upon to help drive down cost. Also how many candles would you say you sell in a year? How many fragrances do you offer? If you're moving quantity you could easily get some of your materials cost down, easily drop fragrance cost to $0.80 or less, wicks to $0.04 and labels to around $0.12

On 2/2/2018 at 2:39 AM, wcgxxx said:

is this for flaming candle ??

Indeed.

Different fragrances also take different cure times I've found. Some they have incredible le throw after a few days, other will take 2-3 weeks before they have a good cold/hot throw.