A day in the life of a candle maker

Sneak behind the scenes and see what a typical day might look like as a candle maker and small business owner.

10am - Arrive at the factory and fire up the laptop to check any online orders that have come through overnight. Carefully pack and prepare all the candle orders ready for taking to the post office.

10.30am - Finish and put away candles poured the day before. Candles take a good couple of hours to set, so we often leave them overnight. The wicks are then trimmed, lids put onto the jars, any spills wiped up then they are put away on the shelves.

11am - A customer arrives to pick up a click and collect order

11.05am - Start laying out new jars for pouring. Sammy hand labels all the candle jars off-site so we have plenty waiting to be poured into candles all prepared with their warning labels and fragrance labels on the side. Once they are laid out wicks are stuck in the candle jars, they're now ready for pouring.

12pm - The wax should be ready to pour into the candle jars. We have it set on a timer so our candle wax melter machine is working before we arrive, that way the wax is ready to go when we need it. Whilst we may now pour batches of 100 at a time we still use a 1L pouring jug to hand pour all the candles we make.

1pm - Break for lunch and scroll through social media to check out which posts are resonating with our audience. Make a mental note to take more photos later that afternoon.

1.30pm - Clean all the medicine cups and stirring spoons ready for our next workshop, this can take a while as we like to double wash things which come in contact with fragrance oils. Sanitise trays, pens and pencils and tidy up the room. 

2.30pm - Restock candles, room sprays, diffusers and melts in the store. Supply on the shelves are restocked daily so customers can always find products available in the store from our core range. Take a quick photo to use on social media later that night.

3pm - When restocking we noticed we are running low on Sandalwood and Vanilla melts. Pour a small batch of 20 soy wax melts.

3.30pm - Check the computer for more online orders, pack and prepare and add to the pile of other orders to be taken to the post office. 

4pm - Top up the wax machines with fresh wax, crush any empty boxes ready for repurposing or recycling and wipe down the candle pouring benches.

4.15pm - Head to the post office to get all the orders on the move before it's picked up at 4.30pm

5pm - Head home and spend 15minutes creating a social media post about our freshly stocked shelves before switching off for the day.