Welcome to this, our first blog post.

First off, a little about who we are and what we do (for fuller info refer to our About Us page or visit our Wedding Candle website). We are a company which makes candles.

Simple right??

Wrong… It’s taken us 2 years to get to this point where we have products tried and tested, to the high quality levels we set ourselves along with the start of a business to go with it (and literally only the start).

So, this, our first post – the trials and tribulations of candle making.

If you’re thinking, like we were 2 years ago, how hard can it be, read on.

It all started with a real throw away comment by Alesia to me one day – “d’you know… I’ve always fancied having a go at making a candle”.

Trust me, if I knew then what I know now I’d have done what I usually do and ignored her (that’s gotta be worth a slap?!?).

Anyway, that was just the start of it.

First move was to get a candle making kit from Hobby Craft. Good fun but we realised even back then that it was a world away from where we wanted to be. Every attempt from that point forward left us generally with more questions than answers.

The first of them was do we really want to create candles from paraffin wax? After all, it’s a derivative of the oil trade and therefore evil – note that this is quite regularly up for debate – it’s a by product of an industry and certainly not the raison d’etre- i.e. the oil trade would still go on even if the paraffin wax sales disappeared completely. However, for us the sustainable argument was really quite compelling on it’s own but if you then add the fact that soy wax (the main ‘opposition’) lasts longer and most importantly burns far, far cleaner (i.e. much less soot) we were sold.

So, we had managed to make a couple of paraffin candles with the wax and moulds supplied in a kit which we didn’t like very much and certainly weren’t saleable. We had also now decided we wanted to steer away from the petrochemicals industry so soy was the way for us to go?

Next up – reading everything we could find even remotely relevant online. That took us weeks on it’s own!! However, after some fairly heavy Googling we thought we had all the answers. We knew all about pillar blends, container blends, single pour waxes, double pouring as a technique. We even knew all about dipping (we also knew we were going nowhere near it!!)

Again, the thought hit us (not for the first time or the last) – how hard can it be?

Wrong again!?!

First problem – getting hold of soy wax. Searching Google will bring up several big suppliers / manufacturers and many, many more hobbyist type suppliers. Wonderful, till we found out that 80% of them were in the US. Not a massive problem but not one we could really deal with on an ongoing basis on the grounds of cost.

However, we eventually narrowed down our search and found suppliers of soy wax in the UK who seemed like they’d still be there next year.

Next up – back to Google. How to make fragranced soy candles??

Again, sounded and looked easy. I bought in a big sample case of fragrances from somewhere and let Alesia’s nose do it’s thing.

Well, it certainly did that – she didn’t like any of ‘em!?! Mind you, I can’t really complain – I adopted the typical male shopping attitude – hoping that if I just say ‘yeah it’s alright’ to everything that the pain might at least be shortlived. I don’t know why we ever think that. Then again I don’t know why women keep asking when they know the answer they’re gonna get before they ask? All part of the wonderful and completely bemusing subject that is gender politics I guess?!?

Anyway, I digress, back to the fragrancy, smelly thing (and just in case you’re wondering – yes I do still get asked – daily!). After ruling out all of the initial fragrances we tried we then went on to buying, I think I can say with some degree of certainty, every fragrance available in the known world?!? Seriously, we’ve had hundreds of samples and blends which all got worked through in the same diligent manner – ‘what d’you think…?’… ‘It’s ok…’.

So, progress update – we’d made a couple of paraffin candles and were the proud owners of a couple of bags of soy wax (one pillar blend and one container blend) along with wicks to go in them and a stash of fragrances in a whole variety of little containers. Oh yeah, we had also invested in some votive sized glass containers and a couple of nice pillar moulds. Most importantly though we also had the knowledge. Google was our friend and we thought we’d be selling to Harrods, not to mention numerous high class boutiques (you know, the sort without the prices on the stuff in the windows), within the week.

We were off to the races – or so we thought…??