🎃Welcome!

If you’re here, then we already have something in common—candles! And more than likely you also live the candlecore lifestyle—candles everywhere!

MY STORY

I began as a natural cold-process soapmaker in 2002 and I loved it! But after the birth of my daughter, I didn’t want to have lye around. This led me to make non-toxic beeswax candles.

I continued making beeswax candles for many years until I actually became a beekeeper. In theory, I was going to use the beeswax from my new hives for my candles. In reality, my bees needed to put too much work into creating even the smallest amount of beeswax, and I didn’t have the heart to take it from them. In fact, I became so sympathetic to their plight that I became a lifelong green beekeeper—and stopped using beeswax completely.

Which led me back to natural glycerin soapmaking for a number of years, until the time came when soy wax appeared on the market. I was thrilled—sustainable wax from the very beans that grew all around my farm! The downside—as those of you who are soy candle fans know—turned out to be that soy wax doesn’t have the greatest scent throw…and it especially didn’t when it was first introduced!

Although soy wax improved greatly over time, its hot throw still left something to be desired. I made the best of it—using only the highest quality wax and fragrance oils with a maximum fragrance load—but the scent bubble still wouldn’t travel as far as I liked.

And then sustainable coconut wax appeared on the market—a clean-burning, low-frosting wax with better scent throw. This led to the creation of the candles I make today—a proprietary blend of vegan waxes, including both coconut and soy wax. When I burn a candle, I want to see and smell it—and I have crafted a candle that doesn’t disappoint!

ABOUT OUR CANDLES

Feel the love infused into everything we make.🤍

Each candle is handcrafted at our small organic farm in Durham, North Carolina, USA.

To ensure a clean and eco-friendly burn, we use a proprietary blend of vegan waxes, including coconut and soy wax.

Our candles are made with lead-free cotton wicks and high-quality phthalate-free fragrance oils.

We hand pour every order here on our farm. Nothing is made in advance to ensure that our products are at their peak freshness and performance when they are shipped to you.

When we receive your order, we put your candle in the queue to be poured. If your candle turns out perfectly on the first pour, we are able to ship your order quickly; if there is an imperfection we need to re-make it, and your order will ship as soon as it has cured.

OUR CANDLEMAKING PHILOSOPHY

We do what we do to make people happy. We love making people happy, and our candles bring a lot of joy wherever they go.

🤍We love our customers and value and reward our long-term relationships with them. We show our appreciation by offering/including one (or sometimes more) of the following in each and every order:

  • mystery scent candle* (coconut-soy wax)

  • mystery scent wax melt* (soy wax)

  • mystery flavor lip balm* (natural)

  • mystery scent soap* (natural/detergent-free)

  • mystery scent room and linen spray* (natural)

  • mystery scent hand lotion* (natural)

  • discount coupon for future orders

  • *All of these products are made fresh (a few days before) we ship them to you. We never include un-sold/old inventory (we make absolutely everything we offer on-demand so we never have any inventory on-hand that we’re trying to liquidate).

We are a very small business and make all of our candles ourselves on our farm, surrounded by our many furred, feathered, and other flying (honeybee and other pollinator) friends. Please keep this in mind when you order candles from us.

We deliberately use minimal natural packaging and packing materials to keep environmental impact low. This allows us to offer candles crafted using the highest-quality (and therefore, unfortunately, the most costly) materials available on the market at a reasonable cost. We focus our efforts on crafting high quality candles. You won’t find big-business super-slick packaging, branding, and labeling here.

HOW OUR CANDLES BURN

For those of you used to burning pure soy wax candles, please note this is not a pure soy wax candle and therefore it will not behave like one.

As a hardcore soy wax candle maker for many years, it was initially difficult for me to accept the new burn characteristics of a hybrid wax and realize they weren’t performance issues. But the stronger scent throw, longer burn life, and smoother surface of the coconut-soy wax blend candles quickly won me over.

  • You do not need a full wax melt pool for this candle to burn correctly. The wax on the sides of the jar will continue to slowly melt and slide into the existing wax melt pool, and all of the wax will be used by the end of the candle’s burn life.

  • Do not expect your candle to achieve a full wax melt pool (that reaches all sides of the jar) until it has burned about halfway down its jar (although sometimes sooner with certain fragrance oils). A layer of wax clinging to the sides of the jar is not considered to be tunneling with this wax blend.

  • Coconut wax is a slow burning wax so this candle has a longer burn life than a pure soy candle.

CARE OF PLANT-BASED WAX CANDLES

Please remember that plant-based wax candles need ongoing attention to burn their best.

  • Our candles have a very high fragrance load and most include essential oils—both of which can cause excessive mushrooming of the wick. We suggest extinguishing and trimming the wick to 1/4”-1/2” often (every 2-4 hours) to avoid the sooting produced by an over-large mushrooming wick.

  • Coconut-soy wax has a higher melting point than soy wax: if you keep your home at a very cool temperature, trim the wick closer to 1/2” to ensure your candle flame is large/high enough to heat and melt the wax in a cool environment. Our candles have a cotton wick specifically designed to produce a hotter flame for high-melt-point waxes, so if your candle is tunneling (only a tiny circle of wax is being melted after an hour into its burn), its wick has been trimmed too low to heat the candle wax effectively in its current environment.

  • Although coconut and soy wax are considered two of the cleanest-burning candle waxes available, all candle waxes and most essential oils produce some soot/residue when burned. Soot is a natural and inevitable byproduct of the combustion process. Before re-lighting the candle each and every time: trim the wick to 1/4”-1/2”; remove any debris from the candle; take a damp paper towel and run it along the inside rim and inside of the candle jar to remove any soot or residue (to keep the glass looking clean and clear).

  • Use a candle snuffer to extinguish your candle. Blowing out a candle can spray hot wax up and out of the jar and send smoldering pieces of wick out into the room. Extinguishing a candle by putting its lid on will trap the smoke in the jar, cloud its inside glass with soot, and impart a burnt/scorched scent to the wax.

  • If you can’t smell a candle after it has been burning for at least 30 minutes, it isn’t in a good location. To smell a candle’s true scent, “trap” the burning candle in a small bathroom with the door closed for at least 10 minutes and then open the door and the scent will hit you fully.

ADDITIONAL TIDBITS OF INFO/THIS N’ THAT

  • All of our fragrances are phthalate-free. However, the natural essential oils in many of our products may trigger reactions in sensitive individuals (especially cinnamon EO).

  • A “phthalate-free” fragrance does not mean an “all-natural” fragrance. We do not use all-natural fragrances in our products as we have found they usually have poor scent throw and may trigger reactions in sensitive individuals as often as their synthetic counterparts. We came to this decision after making candles using only all-natural fragrances for many years and listening to the feedback from our customers.

  • All of our candles are poured with a near-maximum fragrance load for a strong hot throw—we never cut our fragrance load to cut costs! Remember that an ozonic/air/light scent will never smell as strong as a bakey/resinous/heavy scent, even when it is poured at a high concentration.

  • Please remember that a plant-based wax candle will never have the super strong scent throw of a paraffin-based wax candle with scent boosters. Our candles have a strong scent throw for a plant-based wax candle. We do have a few scents that don’t carry as far, but we continue to offer them because they are truly delightful and can still enchant in a smaller space.

  • We personally test our candles for performance in our single-story farmhouse: it is about 2000 square feet with high ceilings, usually kept around 75F. The main kitchen/living space is about 1000 square feet with an open floorplan. I like a 16oz Mason Jar candle to fill that 1000 square feet with a moderate level of scent, and an 8oz Mason Jar candle to fill a bedroom or a bathroom with a moderate level of scent. When I enter and leave a room, I want to be able to detect the candle’s distinct fragrance (but I don’t want to be hit over the head by it). If my throat feels sore or I start to get a headache around a candle, I know its fragrance level is way too strong.

  • We give our candles away frequently to friends, family, and associates in exchange for feedback: we give them to people who we know won’t trim the wick; we give them to people who prefer super strong paraffin candles; we give them to people who are sensitive to burning candles in general. We use the feedback from this diverse group to try to create a candle that many different types of candle lovers can enjoy. We are constantly tweaking the way we make our candles based upon the feedback from our candle testers. This means the candle you receive now may or may not be the same as the candle you received before.

  • We have (and have had) many cats and dogs living around our burning candles for over twenty years. We have never had a (furry) pet have a reaction to any of our scents. Some of our cats actually seek out and settle in close to our candles. However, we have never had feathered indoor pets, and I understand they can be quite sensitive to all air-borne agents.

  • All of the scents we offer were selected because they are top-rated by reviewers in the soap/candle/perfume industry. That said, scent is extremely subjective, and it doesn’t mean you will necessarily like a scent even though it may have a cult following (petrichor!). I try to meet every scent on its own terms, and I can appreciate the beauty and complexity of each one—even if I don’t choose to use it in my own home.

  • We use laser and thermal printers to produce labels that do not bleed or smudge. These labels darken when exposed to high heat, so the label on your candle jar might turn color if your candle is left burning for prolonged periods of time or if there is only a small amount of wax (3/4” or less) remaining in the jar.

  • We encourage repurposing of our high-quality glass jars. Many of our labels have easy peel-off backing and can be quickly removed; others can be dissolved with isopropyl alcohol. Use a candle wick dipper to pry the metal wick holder from the bottom of the jar.

  • We love to use natural jute twine on our products and around the farm in general. Unfortunately, jute makes quite a mess and leaves its little thread-like fibers everywhere. We try very hard to keep the jute fibers out of our wax, but sometimes one slips in. We apologize in advance if you happen upon a jute fiber in a candle or wax melt.

  • If you chose to have a bow added to your candle jar, please remove it before burning as it is a potential fire hazard.

  • Always follow all instructions/directions/warnings listed on the warning label affixed to your candle or wax melts.

IN CLOSING

We are very friendly. Never hesitate to contact us at: candles@candlecore.com

We are too small a business and way too slow to accommodate wholesale orders. I insist upon having a personal relationship with every single candle I craft—I know exactly what each one looked and smelled like when it left our farm—and that just doesn’t work with mass market sales.

Many of you have requested that we offer candle bundles. I have listed one bundle in our top-selling style. Because we offer free shipping, it just isn’t cost-effective for us to ship many heavy candles at once (and we find it increases the risk that one or more might break).

If you had a great experience, we appreciate five star reviews. We love what we do and we pour heart and soul into our work.

🤍Jenny