If you are learning how to start a candle business, the very first decision you have to make is also one of the most confusing: what wax do I pour? I remember standing at our kitchen table back during the pandemic, staring at four bags of different wax, completely stuck. My wife and I had spent way ...

Every January, our candle sales fell off a cliff. The holiday rush that had us pouring past midnight in December would go quiet almost overnight, and by the second week of the new year I would be staring at a full studio wondering how we were going to keep the lights on until spring. That slow seaso...

One of the quietest ways to lose money in this business is not a bad wick or a weak scent throw. It is pouring too much of the wrong thing. We learned that the hard way at Garsnett Beacon, back when we were still working off the kitchen table in Holland, Michigan. I would get excited about a new sce...

Most candle makers I talk to are chasing the same thing every single month: a fresh batch of new customers. You post, you go to a market, you make some sales, and then the first of the month rolls around and the counter resets to zero. I lived that for a long time. When we started Garsnett Beacon Ca...

The first time a customer review actually landed us money, it was not on our website. A woman bought a candle at a little market in Holland, Michigan, burned it for a week, and left us a gushing note about how it reminded her of her grandmother's kitchen. A shop owner two towns over saw that review,...

Here is something nobody told me when we started Garsnett Beacon Candle Co. at our kitchen table back in the pandemic: the way your customer burns your candle at home matters almost as much as how you poured it. You can nail the wax, the fragrance load, the curing, and the wick, and still get a mess...

When people ask me how to start a candle business, the very first thing they worry about is money. They picture a rented studio, a wall of professional equipment, and thousands of dollars in supplies before they can pour a single candle. I get it, because that fear kept me stuck for longer than it s...

When we started Garsnett Beacon Candle Co. at our kitchen table during the pandemic, I thought the fragrance part of candle making would be the easy part. You pick a scent you like, you pour it in, done. Then I smelled a competitor's candle that had this warm, layered scent I could not stop thinking...

I still remember the email. It came in on a random Tuesday, back when our whole operation still lived on our kitchen table in Holland, Michigan. A regional gift shop chain wanted candles for all of their locations, and they wanted them in five weeks. My first reaction was pure excitement. My second ...

One of the most overlooked ways to sell a big batch of candles in a single shot is the humble fundraiser. Schools, sports teams, churches, dance studios, booster clubs, and animal rescues all need money, and most of them are stuck selling the same tired catalog junk year after year. When we started ...

When we started Garsnett Beacon Candle Co. at our kitchen table during the pandemic, I had no idea if we were actually making money. Candles were selling and our bank account went up and down. But if you had asked me point blank, "What does it cost to make that candle, and how much of the sale price...

When we started Garsnett Beacon Candle Co. at our kitchen table during the pandemic, I thought pouring a candle was the easy part. Melt the wax, add fragrance, pour it in the jar, done. Then I lined up my first batch the next morning and half of them had lumpy, cratered, frosted tops that looked lik...