Crafty1_AJ

Yes they do! In black, kraft, and white.

Several of my best candle customers are men. One guy in MN buys a 9 pack every few months and sends them also to his daughter. Another in CA gets big boxes full for himself AND his mom. And one of my best local female customers buys candles by the case. Who gets up and lights one every morning? Her husband. My own husband is not afraid to show his love for my candles and melts. LOL Candles are not feminine...they are neutral. Genderless. ( I think I just invented a word. )

Glad to meet you!

Screw what your co-workers think. Good for you to pursue your dream anyway. And I'm so glad your family supports you. That means the world.

Clear Black...I think Amazon Handmade is just trying to compete with Etsy and get their share of the pie. LOL I have my issues with Amazon, but am still choosing at this time to sell there because the more places you turn up when someone enters a relevant Google search string, the more likely you are to make a sale. I just googled "soy candle that smells like bread baking" and I turned up on the first page of hits twice, once for my Etsy shop listing and once for my Amazon listing. So I'm doubling my chances at a sale. My website listing also popped up in the first 3-4 pages of returns. I know from personal experience that I usually find what I want in the first few pages of a search and seldom have to check past page 4 or 5. To answer your question, handmade and commercially produced are two separate markets. I appreciate the workmanship and care that goes into (most!) handmade items and like to support people who are working hard with their hands and their creative bents to make an honest dollar, as I am trying to do. There will always be consumers who are bottom-liners -- those whose main concern is the lowest price. These people are not our target market. But there will also always be consumers who look more at quality and craftsmanship, and have a genuine appreciation for handmade. In this day and age of mass production and impersonal customer service, lots of people are liking the handmade difference.

Nice to meet you - welcome!

I trim the wick before each burn.

No, you did great.

I have my own website, plus I sell on Etsy and Amazon Handmade. In addition, I do local markets and shows 9 months of the year. My business revenue is about 2/3 online, 1/3 local /direct. I don't wholesale - retail only. I don't like putting all my eggs in one basket - you never know what's going to fly until you try it. This candle gig is my day job. I also sell some wax melts, soap, and lip balms, but the bulk of our sales, by far, is candles.

Wax and fragrance get weighed for candles. I use the pounds / ounces setting on my scale most of the time. I use a measuring spoon for UV inhibitor, however, and as the others said, I don't weigh colorants. I go by number of drops or dye chips for consistent results. For soap, I weigh all ingredients in grams, except for the water and fragrance, when I use pounds / ounces setting again.

I'm going to TRY some kraft slider tray boxes for now and switch to white or clear labels. Decided the leaf boxes were a tad too big for my soaps and my soap trays, so going with a slightly smaller box for now. (Have to re-tool my labels to make them a bit shorter - good times. Thank goodness I was a typesetter previous to starting my candle/soap biz!) One of the main reasons for going with this box is that it fits my soap trays better. I had to display soap in the leaf boxes vertically because they were too wide. Now I will be able to display soaps horizontally ... much better option. More stable for transporting, and the label is easier to read without standing on your head. Can't wait to see your picture! I was stressing over this decision, then decided to just take the plunge and order a few. Farmer's market starts in April, so not much time to dawdle. Soaps on the curing racks are ready to package now. I figure can always change if I end up hating these boxes. LOL My regulars DO notice change, though! I love the boxes at Bailey's best, but they would eat quite a bit of my profit. My 2nd preference is the black leaf boxes with white labels if the slider ones don't work out. I only ordered a case of boxes, so no biggie. Trying to relax a bit about this decision, though I need my product packaging to look sharp. I would think kraft will fly with the "natural" crowd, but the younger generation seems to like black. There I go again ... overthinking it.

Same. Large, clear plastic containers that I have marked clearly with type and size. I am paranoid that I or my assistant will grab the wrong size of wick, so I am really careful when unpacking wicks. Since we do make both paraffin and soy candles, and we use different wicks for each, I even keep the soy wicks on one shelf organized by size, and the paraffin wicks on an entirely separate shelf by size.

Could also use black clay or black oxide. That's what I use for black swirls.

I was putting away sample / display soap bars once, when I noticed a small set of teeth marks in the bottom of one. Kid-sized teeth marks. Didn't even see the kid chomp on it! Must have had my back turned for a moment.

Probably thought they were free samples. Argh... I also had a customer once ask what my soap was. When I told the customer, the next question was, "Like, what do you do with it?" Then, "Does it WORK?" Naw, I sell non-functional soap just to mess with ya... Ack...

I love VBN too. That one has a caramel note.

Agreed. That is a really good one.

I have found that most true, straight vanillas are fairly soft and fleeting by nature. That's just the nature of vanillas. They are not barn-burner scents like most florals, for example, which can be smelled in the next zip code. Now if you get a good vanilla blend, they can be pretty strong. Creme Brulee or Birthday Cake, for example. I used to use Creme Brulee from Bluegrass. I could smell that one through half my house. And cinnamon vanillas, or hazelnut vanillas, etc - nice and strong. I also used to love Peak's Vanilla Passion. I think it may have been a vanilla-floral blend?

I kinda strayed off topic in another thread by posting a couple of my cute / funny customer stories. So I decided to start a new thread about the lighter side of business - funny things that have happened to sellers here. Two of my favorite customer stories...sweet little old lady comes up to buy a bar of soap. I hand her the bag and give a friendly reminder to make sure the bar is well-drained between uses and not left sitting in a puddle. Her response, "Oh, I'm not going to use it in the bathroom. It's for my underwear drawer." LOL Then I once had a cute little boy in his Boy Scout uniform come up to my booth and marvel at the candles. "How do you get them to smell so good? Do you, like, squeeze pine needles or something?" I stifled a grin and politely explained how we scent candles. Your stories? Let's have a good laugh today.

I try to remember to tell customers who buy 3-12 bars at a time to store them in a cool, dry place away from direct light sources since they are obviously stocking up. Two of my favorite customer stories...sweet little old lady comes up to buy a bar of soap. I hand her the bag and give a friendly reminder to make sure the bar is well-drained between uses and not left sitting in a puddle. Her response, "Oh I'm not going to use it in the bath. It's for my underwear drawer." LOL Then I once had a cute little boy come up to my booth and marvel at the candles. "How do you get them to smell so good? Do you, like, squeeze pine needles or something?" I stifled a grin and politely explained how we scent candles.

I do pick the orders personally. That's one thing I don't hire out. It's a quality control / accuracy issue. I inspect every candle going out for quality. My picking the orders also avoids sending the paraffin version of coconut when the customer ordered the soy. It also avoids the "whoops, customer ordered 2 and we only shipped one" scenario.

I do as the others mentioned, and I also use sweet orange essential oil on the outsides to clean up wax. It works great.

I have hired help to make candles. While waiting for wax to cool to pouring temps, they pack orders. So it is figured into my costs that way. We have worked out a fairly efficient system! No sense standing around twiddling thumbs waiting for wax to cool. LOL If they finish packing orders and are still waiting, they clean and tidy up. Making soap and candles is a messy business. Or they weigh out hard and soft oils for soap batches. There's always plenty to do! They also trim, cap, and label the previous day's candle pours, or package cured soap while waiting. You're absolutely right -- figure in everything. Our time is our most precious commodity! One of the ways I increase productivity and lower my costs is by offering small discounts on multiple purchases. It takes me almost the same time to pack one candle as it does three ... and the fuller the box, the less void fill I have to use.

Oh how nice. Great gift. Have fun creating. I had a 50 lb. bag (unopened) of palm pillar wax pellets on the floor of my workshop and we had a flood. Sucks. Bottom layer of wax got watered. I had my container waxes up on blocks, but that darn bag was directly in contact with the floor. Lesson learned.

Very pretty carved candles. Love them. I also don't sell very many pillars, though I adore palm pillars. They're so beautiful. But when I did sell pillars, I always warned customers to burn them on a candle plate in case of blowouts. I don't get blowouts myself on solid pillars because I watch the burn and hug, but when I did chunk candles, those were a bit more dicey on blowouts. If the melting overpour hits a chunk just right, there ya go...leak. I always burn pillars on a candle plate, though. Maybe offer those for sale too, if you plan to sell pillars?