How We Actually Make Candles That Sell: Supplies, Temps, Scents, and Sales

#035. Thinking about starting a candle business or learning how to make candles the right way? In this episode, we’re answering real questions from new and growing candle makers who want clarity before wasting time or money.

We cover the most common mistakes beginners make when they first start making candles and what actually matters if you want candles that burn well, smell great, and sell consistently.

Inside this episode, you’ll learn:

• The essential candle making supplies you actually need when starting out
 • What you do not need to buy right away (and what can wait)
 • How to go from selling candles to friends and family to getting public sales
 • Different ways to sell candles beyond social media, including markets, fundraisers, and wholesale
 • What people really look for in a higher-end or more elevated candle
 • How to think about fragrance load percentage and why we start at 8%
 • How wick size, wax type, and fragrance load all work together
 • Wax temperatures explained clearly: heating, adding fragrance, and pouring
 • Why following supplier guidelines matters and when to adjust through testing

If you’re searching for:
 how to start a candle business
 how to make candles for beginners
 candle making tips that actually work
 candle fragrance load explained
 best candle making temperatures

this episode will help you build a strong foundation without overcomplicating things.

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Transcript

Welcome Back And Format

Starter Supply Checklist

Wax Melters And Temperature Control

Discounts And Resources

Beyond Friends And Family Sales

Choosing The Right Social Platforms

Markets, Fundraisers, And Wholesale

Goals And Inner Circle Workshops

What Defines A “Luxury” Candle

Scents, Vessels, And Packaging For Luxury

Fragrance Load Testing Strategy

Heating, Adding, And Pouring Temperatures

Final Resources And Sign Off

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome back to the podcast. I have taken a couple weeks off for the holiday season and we are back in the studio, ready to record, ready to answer more of your questions. So today I have a few questions that were submitted by uh viewers like yourself. You can always come and hang out with us inside of our Facebook group, ask questions there, and I will hop on here and answer those for you. You can also just put your questions in the comments below this video, and I will collect those for an upcoming video as well. Let's dive into this. Uh, the first question here is from Jennifer, and her question is what are some essential supplies that I need when I am starting out? So great question. It's a question we all have when we first start. Oftentimes I find that we end up buying way too many things, right? If you have the resources to do that, certainly fine. We have a supply list for you in the show notes below of every episode, but in this one uh specific, we have a supply list that is our candle supply list of all the tools and resources that we use to run our candle business with. You can download that completely for free. And it gives you the list of everything from wax to wicks to where to get vessels from, all of the different suppliers that we like to use, um, as well as a lot of just random items that you're gonna need, such as wick centering tools, the wick stickers that we use, the wicks that we use, different oils, the thermometers that we use, the scales, the melters, all of that stuff. So some of the items you're not gonna need right away. You do not need to go out and buy a wax melter. You can use the double boiler method, which is essentially boiling water on your stove, then having a pouring pitcher of wax above that that gets melted. The only thing with that is you're not gonna have consistent temperatures when you do that on the stove. So that's one of those bigger ticket items that I would recommend getting sooner in your journey than later, because a lot of the frustration when it comes to making candles is on the synthro. And a lot of that has to do with pouring at the right temperatures, getting your wax to the right temperature. So the supply list for you is there to download. Um, also, you'll see a link for a discount for two auto wax melters. We are huge fans of theirs, and we have an exclusive link for you in the show notes that can save you an additional, I believe, 5% at checkout. So, whatever the current promotion is, you'll save on top of that just by being part of the Candle Business Pro family. Next question here is from Victoria Reyes. And your question, Victoria, is how does one go from friends and family to public sales? So that's a great question. Oftentimes when we are building our business, that's who we are selling to our first, is our friends and our family. And then once that kind of those sales dry up, we need to look to get our products into the hands of strangers that we want to convert to customers, that we then want to convert to being super fans that are gonna come back and buy all the products that we put out there. So, what platform are you the most comfortable with? Now, of course, you we have to do social media. I don't like social media, but we have to do social media. Depending on who your customer is, think about where they're going to be at most. Is that TikTok? Is that YouTube? Is that Instagram, Facebook? I'm an Instagram and Facebook. That's the demographic for my customer. Even though TikTok is made for all ages, I'm not good at the short form video. I know my strengths and my weaknesses. And so my customers aren't necessarily on TikTok as much as they are on probably Facebook, my demographic of my customers. Usually leans a little bit older, I believe, that are buying my candles. That's just who I'm going after. I'm going after the women boutique shoppers that are gonna be in that 38, 55 uh plus range. And of all the platforms out there, if you have the capacity to be on all of them, fantastic. But I always recommend just being on two. Be on two platforms to get started and get a base going. So that's as far as uh social media goes. But as far as how to get public sales outside of social media, and of course outside of the fringe and family, doing markets is fantastic. Doing fundraisers is fantastic. Inside the inner circle, we have workshops um on both of those on how to do fundraisers. Uh, I give you the exact script that we use there. Also, uh, there's a workshop on doing private label, corporate gifts. There's so many different ways of selling your candle. You can go right into wholesale. That's what we did when we first launched our candle business. It was February 26th and middle of winter here in Michigan. And there wasn't any markets to do until May. So when after we sold that first week into our friends and family, we needed to get our business out there. And I really went right into wholesale. And that's how we've acquired as many wholesale accounts as uh we have so far. Three years it took us to we're at 160 accounts. This year, we are hoping to get to 225. Last week we talked about our uh goals for the year. We have a goal workshop. Um, we actually have two of them inside the inner circle, one where we reflect back on the previous year and we dive into all of that. And then we have the one looking forward. And so in that workshop, if you watch that, we talked about our goal for a whole sell is gonna be to get to 225 accounts uh this year. So that is an option for you to go as well. So lots of different ways of selling besides just your friends and family. But you have to do what makes what what you what you're comfortable with, right? First and getting started because you're gonna need to get those initial sales. So fundraisers are super, super easy to do. If you have the right script and the right nonprofits to reach out to, uh, I highly recommend do that. So if you wanted to join the inner circle just to watch that um workshop and grab our scripts out of there, it's definitely gonna be worth your money to do that there. All right. So the next question here is from Danielle Oliver. And her question is what do people look for in a luxurious candle? All right. So I am not a fan of how much luxury is thrown around in the candle space. Me personally, I think of luxury as something that is hard to obtain for the majority of the population, which is totally fine to do because that means you are setting a specific uh specific niche, right? So think of what's luxury in the world that we think about. The type of cars that are luxury, those high-end cars, um, handbags, the Louis Vuitton and the Gucci's, uh, the Pradas, the Fendi's, all of those, those are considered luxury, right? There are some that are gonna be those mid-grade that want to possibly come across as like designer, and that's totally fine. Like, you know, you have those, let's say Michael Kors and Coach, those that are obtainable by more of the population, uh, they're still designer, they're still nice, but I wouldn't call them luxury. So when I look at candles, I think the same thing. I'm gonna go with the diptes and uh is it uh Bow Spa, those candles that are$75 to$100 for a three-ounce vote, like something I would never spend the money on myself personally, I would consider that more luxury. That if I just had a whole lot of revenue or money just sitting around that I wanted to spend on a candle that's gonna burn for 10 hours, then maybe I would do that. They're statement pieces. They are there for you as an individual, but it's also for them to tell a story to the rest of the public. When you see someone with a Louis Vuitton bag or a Gucci bag or wearing um, you know, red bottom shoes, they're doing it for themselves to because it makes us feel good, right? But they're also doing it for others to see and recognize. And it it's hey, this is where I'm at in life. Nothing wrong with that. That's not what this is about. This is just talking about what people are looking for in a luxurious candle. I see a lot of people go with the affordable luxury, and that's fine. I personally would, I don't use luxury in any of the branding, any of the marketing, any of the communication that I ever have with customers, because I believe luxury is something that is self-defined. So if we are trying to put out there to people, hey, this is a luxury line of candles or a collection that I have created, it's on them to decide if it's luxury or not. Is it something that's not as easily to obtain, or can anyone get it? Right. Um, so I don't think using the term luxury adds luxury to any brand that uses it actually. Back to what people would be looking for, it would be unique, elevated scents that are probably going to take your mind somewhere. Take you that's why a lot of the hotel collections that brands will put out are the image they give off is gonna be a little bit more luxurious, right? It's taking you to a space, it's taking you to a reminder of location. Whether that's Disney resorts or uh other high-end four-season type of hotels or retreats across the world. I think that's gonna be what is going to get you there. Um, it's gonna be the scents. If I have a uh a southern apple pie scent, I'm not I'm not thinking luxury with that, just as an example of what the alternative would be for there. I wouldn't consider the majority of our scents as luxury. We have a couple lines. Uh, we have our Aurora line, and for that, that would be the most luxurious line that we have in our brand. And so to answer your question, I'll kind of define what that is. In those candles, we are using a higher-end wax. We are using the coconut wax in those. It's going to perform better, it's going to give a better physical appearance. The wax looks better. The Senthro is much better. We use wooden wicks in those. I don't do wooden wicks in the rest of our candles because it's just really too inconsistent. Uh, but we do in those. It comes in a really nice vessel. It comes in a, it's a larger candle that we use. It's a 10-ounce pour versus some of our others that are gonna be like seven. Excuse me, it's actually a 12-ounce four in those. Uh, it's a nicer container that we're pouring those in so that it's a statement piece in someone's home. It it's wherever they put it, it just is an elevated feel. It gives a space more uh of an elevated feel as well. We also have laser engraved lids that go on top of those candles. And then they also go into a nice box that is branded as well. So the whole package, that's the candle that people will pick up when they want to gift to someone else. And for a nice gift, that's the candle that people go for. So that's the one that I would consider more luxurious for us. And I think it has the characteristics if you're wanting to build a luxurious brand uh to pull from. Have higher-end vessels that you're not going to see all the time, not anything with a twist top, um, you know, like a jar. You're not gonna want any of that. You're gonna want to have nice packaging all around. Even though packaging isn't necessary and we don't use it in a lot of our candles. Most of our candles don't have a box, most of them don't have a lid. Um, those are just add-ons that, again, luxury is those things that we don't need, we just want. And so that is really what's going to define what a luxurious uh candle can be and where you can fill up space in that being a niche for you uh in the market. All right. So the next question here is from Monique Roberts. And the question is how do I determine the fragrance load percentage when making my candles? So it's trial and error. It depends on what you're going for. Obviously, the more oil you put in, the stronger scent you can potentially get out of there, but it's not always the case. You are gonna have to do a lot of testing. So the way we get scent throw is when you match a uh percentage, a load of oil into the wax, and you have the proper wick size and a line of wicks because the different lines of wicks burn at different temperatures, they have different characteristics that work for different waxes, right? So simple math is that the more oil you put in, the stronger it's going to be. But it's not necessarily always the case because oftentimes people are using the wrong size wick. But as a good starting point, I would look at pouring it a higher percentage for us. As an here's an example for you, for us, we start all of our candles out at 8% uh fragrance. Okay. We're not trying to go for the strongest. We're just going right middle of the road, candle burns, it's good. Uh it has good scent throw. It's more cost effective than putting 10, 12% oil in there. We always start at 8%. We test that, we find the right size wick for that load, meaning it's burning properly, uh, doing all of our testing. Uh, it's a right size wick for that load. Now, is it giving it the hot throw we want? If not, then we are gonna raise that percentage up. Now, when we raise that percentage up, we're gonna likely have to adjust the wick as well because you the the more oil you have in there, the hotter it's gonna burn. So you may actually have to go down a size or two in your wick. Uh, you also may need to test different types of wicks for that oil and wax combination. So a lot of factors there, but in general, the fragrance load percentage um is gonna be based on what you want it to be to start and then go up if you want stronger or go down if you can afford to not have as much scent, right? Some people are their niche is to make the strongest candles possible. And there's also a niche of people that want a very light candle. So it really depends on the demographic that you're targeting. And what is it that they want? What is your what is one of the values of the the brand that you're putting out and that you're representing to your customers? That we we we generally want to stay consistent, right? We don't generally want to have some light burning candles, some strong burning candles. That's when you're gonna get uh confused customer because if they have burned through many of your candles and they buy, they buy and burn one and it's significantly lighter or significantly stronger, that might throw them off a little bit. So just something to keep in mind uh when it comes to that. But generally 8%. To answer your question uh simply, we start at 8% and then we adjust for that. If you uh go through our candle making course, we start at 8% and then we make some modifications based on those uh scent throws. So something to keep in mind. You can also find information about that course uh in the show show notes below. Last question here uh for today's episode is gonna be from Kara Shelton. And Kara's question is what is the right temperature to heat the wax to and when to add scent and pour? Okay, great question. And to get it out of the way, I really like how you mentioned three different things here. There's a temperature that we heat the wax to, then there is a temperature that we add the oil to, and then there is a temperature that we pour. Okay. Now, I would recommend going to the supplier that you're buying the wax from, generally on the product page, they're going to have some really good notes because they want to provide you with the notes so that you have a really well-built candle that burns really well, and then you go back and buy more from them, right? So for us, for us, if we are making soy candles 464, our sweet spot, that I'll share the secret with you. Our sweet spot is we heat our wax up to 187, we let it cool down to 185, which is generally just the temperature that's going to drop as we pour from our wax melter into our pouring pitcher. It's going to drop a couple degrees pretty quick. If you're only pouring one or two candles, it'll actually drop really, really quick because you're not going to be putting as much wax into the pitcher. The more hot wax you're pouring into your pouring pitcher, the warmer it's going to stay. It's not going to cool as quick. So we we pour ours for like our 10-ounce candles. We are pouring six candles at a time. If they're like our five-ounce tin, we're pouring 10 of those candles at a time. So we're pouring four pounds of wax almost into our pouring pitcher. It's going to drop a couple degrees. So we add our oil in at 185, and then we let that cool. We stir it for two to three minutes minimum. And then we always keep following up as we're going through the cooling process. And then we are going to pour under 140 degrees, ideally at under 135 degrees is where we pour. Every wax is different. With our coconut um candles, it's completely different temperatures for that. So I highly recommend looking at what your supplier recommends on their uh notes. Uh whoever, so because every wax is going to be different. Some waxes you can mix um and pour right away with soy, the 464 that we use for a lot of our candles. If it's too hot when you pour the wax, and that oil is separated still. It hasn't, it'll blend, but it has to cool down to stay blended. And so that's one of the keys. If you don't get that full blend and the temperature to drop, your wax and your oil is separating, which is when you're going to get one of those candles that burns well at first, but then as you go through it, they you end up with kind of losing the scent. So that's kind of why that happens. And so every wax can be a little bit different. So just keep that in mind. Look to the supplier. Um, also just reach out to us uh about a specific wax and we'll try to help you if it's one that we have uh a lot of experience on. So in our candle making course, we actually have an entire guide on by which wax you're using, the temperatures you need to go to, uh, the adding and the scent, and then also the pouring temperatures. The pouring temperatures is really what's important as well as just getting your wax to uh to the right temperature. Hopefully, this has helped you out uh today answering these few questions here. We'll be back next week with either more questions or another hot topic for us to cover. Thank you so much. As always, you can visit Candle BusinessPro.com to get lots of free resources. We have our supply list, we have our free calculator on how we do candle math that's completely free for you. And you can also join some of our other paid courses. We have our candle making course, our wholesale course, and the inner circle, which is our growing community of candle makers that are building and growing big businesses. So thank you so much for tuning in. Have a fantastic day.