20 Skills Every Candle Maker Should Master
Mastering the art of candle making is one thing, but successfully building a candle business built on excellent products is another.
Your journey through the craft requires a particular set of skills – here’s 20 different skills you will need to master to truly accelerate your candle making technique and business!
1. Fundamentals of candle making
There’s no escaping it: in order to be a great candle maker you need to know how candles work.
Not just the science behind combustion, but the relationship between the wax, wick, container (if there is one), fragrance oil, flame, and even the room. Yes, the room.
As with anything in life, understanding the fundamentals, and practicing them, is critical to being successful. Can you imagine if professional soccer players didn’t know how to dribble?
It’s one of those 10,000 hours-type things.
Some people like to ask if candle making is simply melting wax down and adding fragrance to it.
Well, yeah, and by that same logic:
- Baseball is just swinging the bat and hitting the ball, right?
- Pop stars just sing a few notes, right?
- Film makers just press record, right?
Candles are more complex than many beginners think, and learning the fundamentals is just like any other skill that needs 10,000 hours to become great in.
Resources
- How To Calculate How Much Wax and Fragrance Oil You Need
- Explaining How Candles Work
- Which Wick Should You Use?
- Candle Making Beginners Course
2. Candle design testing & development
Think about all the factors that make up a candle:
- Fragrance oil
- Wick selection
- Container, mold, wax melt (the “type” of candle)
- Colors
- Wax choice
There are a LOT of ways to put those together!
On top of that, there’s all the little ways you could create the candle too. What does this mean?
The only way to know if a candle design works is to TEST it!
A lot of individuals just want the formula for how to make a candle without having to test anything. Not only is this difficult to do, it removes your accountability to the process.
Testing is important for safely developing a candle that burns well. How would you feel burning a candle that no one bothered to check if would explode? Not good, of course.
Learning how to test candle designs for SAFETY and PERFORMANCE (hot throw) are critical skills to acquire in your journey.
Resources
3. Temperature management
Your ability to figure out which temperatures correspond to the best looking (and smelling) candles will free you from the early bondage of crappy candles.
We’ve all been there – you do your best to make a pretty candle and it comes out like cottage cheese.
This is usually a function of temperature.
Candle making is broadly stated as the process of changing solid wax to a liquid, mixing in fragrance and color, then cooling it in a shape. Changing a wax from a solid to a liquid takes a pretty significant amount of heat and time.
Figuring out which wax needs which heat and for how long is key to success. What this really means is how high do you need to raise the temperature of the wax to ensure it cools and traps fragrance oils and colors evenly?
As a rule of thumb, soy wax should be held around 185°F (85°C) for about a minute while adding fragrance oil. Paraffin is similar. Palm wax and some coconut waxes should be raised to nearly 200°F (93°C) or above for best results.
That’s just max temperatures.
Figuring out what POUR temperature works best is a trick of its own, including how long it takes to reach that pour temp. Experimentation is the name of the game.
Resources
4. Reading trends
What’s in and what’s out?
Candles have been “in” since the 80’s, but the nuances with candle making change with the seasons.
As an example, phthalate-free fragrance oils have been trending in the macro, but early 2021 saw the rise of Palo Santo fragrance oil popularity.
If you watch the items carried by major candle making suppliers, you’ll learn what comes and goes there too. For some candle makers, trends won’t make much of a difference for your customer base. A lot of that depends on the story you’re telling, but there is a significant customer base that expects certain scents to exist around certain parts of the year.
Seasonal candles are a trend – a predictable trend.
Quarantine-themed candles a la 2020 were huge.
If you’re staying ahead, keep your eye on what every supplier and major wax manufacturer is doing every month, if not every week.
Resources
5. Short-term and long-term planning
If you’re making candles to sell, your efforts will require a somewhat structured approach.
For instance, candles need customers. Where will new customers come from? Will your sales take place in person, online, or will you stick to wholesale/white label sales only?
Additionally, candles need time to cure. Some wax takes longer than others, but planning out a product line often means having several cycles of testing to build out the new candles safely.
And like any other serious business, you benefit the most by having a plan. Plans show up every day, even when motivation doesn’t. Having a plan in place ensures you’ve traveled mentally to a time in the future and made decisions about what you desire that to look like.
As in your personal life, building a business plan structures your course, even if it’s loose!
Resources
6. Inventory management
Perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of building your candle empire (besides making candles) is your command over inventory.
What is inventory?
Inventory refers to the collection of raw materials in your workshop. These include unused jars, labels, wicks, wax, fragrance oil, color, and so much more. And most of it comes from outside suppliers.
There’s two main considerations for inventory management:
- Lead time
- Availability
Everything that ships takes time, and everything that takes time introduces potential risks to your throughput.
The time any given supply takes to arrive in your shop is called lead time. This includes the time it takes for the supplier to process the order.
Availability varies by supplier. Some items are almost always in stock, whereas others flux with the laws of supply and demand.
One of the best strategies for the average workshop is to build some level of variety in your suppliers for each type of supply. This way, you aren’t tied up if that single supplier is out of stock of some item.
Relying on one supplier for everything means you live and die by their ability to fulfill orders, stock your supplies, and ship successfully.
Having one supplier isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s something to think about. A varied portfolio of suppliers gives you more flexibility in the market and balances some of that risk.
In any case, your ability to maintain your supplies ensures you’re always capable of sales.
Resources
7. Label design
It goes without saying that graphic design skills elevate your candle game to the next level.
Just think about all the hip, chic, attractive packaging and unboxing content that exists. They all share a common eye for product design.
It almost doesn’t matter how good your candle is if the front of it looks like a first grade art project (unless that’s what you’re going for).
Getting started is relatively simple:
- Determine a flavor name
- Gather the legal required information for your label
- Design it using software
- Print it out and affix it to the candle or the packaging
- Profit!
However so many candle makers overlook this skill or take short-cuts.
Label design is far too valuable to overlook, so spend time learning and trying things out.
Labels are one of those skills that takes time to perfect, and requires a lot of constructive, hopefully not too harsh, feedback.
Resources
8. Budgeting and money management
Learning basic money skills is good for your personal life, but absolutely critical for your professional candle endeavors.
“Money management” is a broad statement for a collection of skills you need:
- Product Pricing
- Overhead
- Materials and Supplies costs
- Forecasting
You can tackle this with anything from pen and paper, to spreadsheets, to bookkeeping software – there are tons of ways to skin the cat.
Perhaps most importantly, can you learn to answer the question: Am I making money doing this?
Resources
9. Customer service
You don’t have a business without customers.
Your side hustle doesn’t exist if no one is buying or burning.
Customer service is key to growing, and ultimately serves to help you add value to someone’s life with what you’re creating.
Break it down into three levels.
Finding new customers. This is where you build channels to reach out. Lead generation, that sort of things.
Closing customers. The art of making the sale by promising value. For some people, you only need to have a great cold throw. Others want to be moved by a description (strong writing). And still some only buy candles when you stand for something greater – a story.
Keeping customers. After you’ve made the sale, what are you doing to make sure their experience is satisfactory if not extremely memorable? A strong customer base comes from building relationships, one by one. What do you have in your playbook to make this as great as possible for those you serve?
Resources
10. Learning and humility
Your mindset in this craft will make more of a difference than the tools you use.
Why?
Candle making is difficult. Too many people think they can just cobble candles together with little to no effort.
This line of thought is dangerous.
Truthfully, if you’re not ready to fail A LOT during the early stages (and beyond), you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.
Most candles won’t go your way until you’ve tried a few things with wicking and fragrance adjustments. That’s just how it goes, and there’s not much you can do.
Candles are complicated.
If you approach the craft with humility and a willingness to learn, you’ll be far less surprised when your first few candles in a new design look like discount garbage and have zero hot throw. You’ll even laugh at yourself as you take in this new and valuable lesson.
Besides learning about your craft, keep an eye on the industry and learn how different supplies fit into the scheme of candles too.
Watch a few videos on Armatage Candle Company’s YouTube channel. Peruse the candle forums (of which there are plenty).
Become the best sponge of information you can.
Resources
11. Patience
Success at anything that matters takes time.
Anything worth doing is worth doing bad. If candle making doesn’t come naturally to you, be okay with being bad for awhile.
Treat failure as learning instead of treating it as a personal attack. Nobody is great, or even average, at anything until they’ve spent time getting their hands dirty.
By that same logic, don’t expect results right away. Be patient. Keep trying.
It’ll come.
Above all, remember that sales are seasonal. Sometimes you’ll be up through the night packing orders and pouring candles. Other times you’ll question everything and wonder why you got yourself into this mess at all. That’s all normal!
Steer into the season and stay frosty.
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12. Focus
Starting and running a candle business isn’t for the faint of heart.
You have to think about inventory, social media, branding, product development, budgeting, and so much more.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the process.
In your toolbox is this incredible idea called FOCUS.
You may feel that not doing EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE will result in your immediate failure, but that’s not true. In fact, thought leaders today suggest that focusing on a smaller amount of more meaningful activities is a quicker way to grow.
After all, why spend time optimizing your Facebook description if you’re primarily targeting Instagram folks? The idea is to spend more time on less things.
A few ideas to help:
- Start your day the night before with a checklist of the first two items you will accomplish
- Use a Kanban board, or a Trello board, to spell out all the “to do” items in your head into a more formal structure
- Delegate things you suck at that aren’t business critical but are still important. The exception being candle making of course.
- Control what you can, and stop trying to control what you can’t (customer behavior, wink wink)
Resources
13. SEO
SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization”.
Good SEO means you drive organic traffic to your post, listing, or site on whatever platform you optimize it for.
Bad SEO just makes your work a bunch of extra noise that no one will find organically.
Every platform you host on, even if it’s your own, should attract some level of organic traffic. This could be search results on Etsy, Google, Pinterest, or even Instagram.
Improving your rank on these platforms is a different game everywhere, but they all share two ideas:
- You need a lot of content
- That content should revolve around an idea or keyword
Optimizing SEO for each platform requires research specific to that platform, and content form-fitted for each of those components.
For instance, Etsy likes when you fill out all the fields in your listings and provide great product photography.
Instagram likes when you create Reels.
Tik Tok likes when you make… Tik Toks.
Find what your platform craves and then build it.
Great SEO strategies will ensure your content and store is easily found by those who think like you do and value what you offer. It’s also a great way to keep your advertising budget down without sacrificing traffic.
Resources
14. Sales
Every business needs customers. Customers are the product of sales.
Sales can be learned, but has levels just like any other skill.
If you’re strictly selling online, that requires an understanding of how to drive traffic to your digital store. Maybe that means a robust social media strategy or strong SEO (see #13 above).
Some people only sell at craft fairs in person. Sales in this context means attractive store fronts, inviting product exposure, and a warm smile.
Wholesale sellers need to understand B2B on a level other candle makers wouldn’t ever have to simply because they’re removing their relationship with the consumer.
Whatever context you find yourself in, buy a book.
Learn sales.
Master sales.
Resources
15. Networking
Building a network of fellow candle makers and suppliers allows you to navigate many aspects of the crafting world.
For instance, having the right relationship might give you insight into industry trends or opportunities you otherwise might not have if you operate in a bubble.
The other advantage of a strong network is solid lead generation.
If you can make people think about your brand FIRST when they think of candles, you’re doing your job very well. But look at yourself as more than a networked business.
Be a connector.
Find ways to connect your community. When you bridge a gap others have, it’s valuable to everyone!
This applies more to suppliers and other candle makers than it does to your customer relationship. Take part in discussions, sides in debates, and don’t be afraid to connect with people in your local area for collaborations or shared testing.
A popular hashtag is #communityovercompetition. Don’t be afraid of that!
16. Stress Relief
Every once in a while you’ll need to learn how to unwind and let your hair down (if you’re fortunate enough to have hair).
This isn’t a health and wellness blog, but taking care of yourself ensures you are investing in the greatest asset of your candle business: YOU!
Entrepreneurship is as much about building the business as it is growing yourself. Challenges are good, and creating value is important, but your physical and mental health are a priority.
Stress relief looks different for everyone, but knowing how to manage anxiety and stress without compromising your goals is definitely a skill worth maturing.
Resources
17. Copywriting
Were you any good at writing in school?
Even if you weren’t, that doesn’t mean you can’t learn it.
Copywriting isn’t really the same as normal writing. It’s an extension of sales, where you:
- Tell an interesting story
- Answer all your potential customer’s questions
- Assuage their potential fears
- Build trust on the front end of the process
Given this is a candle blog, there isn’t much depth around this skill. If you want to learn more, search for content related to copywriting as it’s a DEEP niche with tons to offer!
However, no copywriting blog or content will unleash your creativity or tell you what story to craft.
Your story is your responsibility to tell.
Remember, you aren’t selling a candle. You’re solving a problem, decorating a home, uplifting social status, or potentially serving humanity with your art.
Resources
18. Branding
Too many candle makers jump into the craft ready to start a business and they lock themselves into an identity before they really find an identity.
Branding is a misconception.
Why?
Your “brand” is what your customers get to decide. However, for the sake of this skill we’ll call branding what it really means: marketing.
If you’re early in your journey, don’t get caught up on having the right logo or the perfect social media description, or even consistent colors and fonts.
Secure the fundamentals before you have an audience.
Figure out your identity in the marketplace and what you really want to do with candles. It might not be the same as your first choice.
If you’re further along in your journey, make sure you build consistent themes and stories across every touchpoint of your business:
- Website colors
- Label/collection fonts
- Language you use with customers
- Copywriting
- General attitude towards the rest of the community
Your brand is built from your reputation. You can shape a lot of how that comes off by defining your principles and standards as a business and sticking to it.
19. Product photography
Nothing is more ignored in candle making than product photography, it seems.
Or GOOD product photography, at least.
It makes sense – photography is a tricky discipline to conquer since it’s literally an entire industry and side hustle of its own. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t obtain some novice photography skills of your own.
Basic photography is around balancing light and staging your photos appropriately. If you can figure that out, you’re already ahead of 95% of other candle makers which gives you an edge in the market.
Take time to learn about photography. If you have a modern smartphone, you’re already equipped with a state of the art camera.
No, you’re not making any movies with it, but you’re probably capable of shooting your candles in a flattering way with a few tweaks.
Resources
20. Discipline
Motivation is overrated.
Inspiration is overrated.
Only disciple remains. Dedication to the cause.
The one thing that will separate you the most from failure is your ability to show up even when you don’t want to.
It’s easy to consume your life with candle making when it’s exciting, but what will you do when nothing goes your way and you have a bad day? A bad week? Season? Year?
Discipline places planning and accountability OVER motivation and inspiration. It makes sure the not-so-fun elements of the work still get done alongside the fun parts.
And the best result?
Discipline ensures you can celebrate your success knowing you didn’t come this far just to come this far.
