Creating a Candle Making Business

Starting a candle making business can be a fantastic opportunity as a demand is growing for home scented products and studies show that 7 out of 10 households burn candles.

Overall the key to starting your candle business is obviously to master candle making skill and  techniques with a professional who will share knowledge and expertise, both for the candle making process itself and assisting you in creating your own business. There is a lot more to it than just making a candle! You need to know about the composition and ingredients of your product and be familiar with the process of candle making and its challenges. Starting a business requires planning and candle businesses in particular need to adhere to CLP (Classification, Labelling and Packaging) regulations to ensure you are running a legal business.

Know your Market

Know your audience! If you feel your company has the most success by marketing natural wax candles you will need to choose a soy, beeswax, coconut and other natural vegetable waxes. You need to be able to clearly define your brand persona to the finest details as if you do not know this you do do not know who to market your product to and who to make it for. Please remember people buy from people so your brand story needs to stand out. It needs to be genuine, transparent and you need to be able to clearly define your whys and the purpose of your business. Again if this part is missing what is the point as no one will understand who you are and there will be a disappoint somewhere on your journey.

Keep it simple

To get started, it is always recommended to keep things simple. Focus on a single type of line, i.e. container candles. If you go into all sorts of products you will confuse the target audience and you will be nothing else that Jack of all trades, Jack of no trades! You need to start simple and with a few products of your own . Strive for perfection and nothing else.

Signature Fragrance

This is the most important part and the aspect of your business. You need to keep in mind that  you are in the perfumery business and consumers today are demanding unique and well designed fragrances that not only will last but be different with long lasting performance. If you are out there buying someone else’s fragrances and naming them under your brand name, oh dear – that is bad! I recommend you invest in professional course and learn how to make bespoke signature fragrance for your candle and home fragrance products. Have a look at this workshop it might give you an answer.

Know your Wax

Decide on the wax you want to work with. If it is a soy then try all soy waxes available as you need to find one that works best for you and has the best performance with your fragrance.

Candle Wicking

This is the hardest part of the product development and it does require a lots of time and efforts. Your wick plays an important part in your product so this must be taken seriously. Your wick must be compatible with your fragrance. It needs to give nice and clean and safe burn. There are lots of different wicks available to buy from cotton and linen to paper and wood. You must not rush this part. Happy testing!

Stay Legal

One of the hardest realities in today’s business climate is that before you sell your first candle you must be sure that you are legal and your candle is safe to be sold to the public. You need to be compliant in line with CLP.

The key to starting and growing any business is to completely understand what you may be getting involved with and to have a process in place. We specialise in this day in and day out at the Beauty Handmade workshops, offering tailor made business candle and home fragrance courses on a 1-2-1 basis and according to your business needs and requirements.

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