After semester 1 where we created our business Pen & paper we felt as if we had more to us so we went to something completely different and went to candles. Yes, that’s right we created a new business called SoyNatural Candles, but they weren’t any ordinary ones otherwise how would we be able to sell them ours were infused with natural plants and herbs that came out of our back garden and were made with soy wax meaning that it’s better for the environment. We chose to make candles because there was currently a big demand for them at the time and we also wanted to try new things.
Some challenges that our group faced during the process of this include finding decent priced soy wax as we didn’t want to harm the environment by using paraffin wax as well as finding a way to make them unique. We also had to do all of our production at someone’s house as we were required to melt the wax in a saucepan and keep the herbs and plants fresh when we put them in there. After our first market we found out something that had been happening to our candles. They were going mouldy because the plants had lots of air but this was easily solved by just covering the plants in the wax meaning that the plants wouldn’t have any air so that they’d mould.
During the production of our candles we would meet up every fortnight after school to produce our candles as we had 2 markets in that term and had to complete lots of pre-orders. Luckily we were able to produce them in bulks as we’d fill up the saucepan about halfway and 1 person would keep an eye on it while stirring while the other 2 would put the plants/herbs and wick inside of the jar meaning that we’d be able to produce them quite fast as we could allow the wax to dry overnight.
Some improvements and additions that we’d made to our candles include adding more plants and herbs as well as new sizes. We’d originally only had 1 size candle which was 150ml which would be infused with either flower petals or rosemary. After the first market we then added a new size which was 300ml and add new plants and herbs which were holy basil, lavender and some cute pink flowers. We’d constantly post on our social media page taking aesthetic pictures trying to get the word out of our business.
Altogether our business was quite successful and we were able to make $50 profit each.