Pouring Candles… oh the change
It felt a bit wrong… The process was so very different. No drying rack needed. No wick prep needed (besides threading the needle and the mold) and no standing for hours dipping each pair in the vat of melted beeswax whilst half of the kitchen became off limits.
We invested in a few (four to be exact) taper molds to test out. And we poured. And we unmolded. And we stacked a few dozen perfectly straight candles in a fraction of the time that it takes to make hand dipped candles. It felt like I was making candles without soul at first. Like I was taking the easy way out. But, the fact was that we wanted to offer a more affordable option than our hand-dipped candles. We wanted to be able to produce gorgeous candles with the same exact ingredients, but without the sssslllllooowwwwwww (extremely satisfying but slow nonetheless) process that we’d been using.
Don’t get me wrong. I love our hand dipped candles more than any other candle in the world. Seriously. I know what it took to make each pair. But, for every day use and for more households to be able to enjoy our beeswax candles, I knew that I needed to decrease the cost of production (ahem, labor & materials-it takes a lot of beeswax to keep the vat full!!!) and not be such a snob about what I was creating. Frankly, I wanted more candles and I wanted to keep up with the demand that we’ve had for more candles. Finally, with the amount of winter storms and power outages that we’ve been experiencing lately, it was imperative that we keep a light shining in the darkness. At all costs.
XO, Melissa
