CHENNAI: The aroma you are surrounded with helps you attain a better mood. While room freshners do the trick, candles have also known to be an effective item, which more than just lights dark spaces. They improve the mood, and provide a certain cosiness to the interiors. These wax creations, beyond its cylindrical appearance, can be handmade creatively too. Taking to this art is Carelyn Hannah, a final-year postgraduate from the city. For her, candle-making is more than just a hobby — it’s a therapeutic journey and an expressive outlet that brings light and tranquillity into her life and the lives of others.
Her journey illuminates the beauty of handmade artistry and resulted in Candacent, a narrative moulded carefully following her first experiment with a simple soy wax candle. Soon, she began incorporating intricate designs.
“Since I was young, I was fascinated by all handmade handicrafts like crochets, resin art and more. Growing up, I realised that’s where my heart lies in making handicrafts,” she says. She gets the love for making candles from her mother, Jebapriyam, who started making candles when she was pregnant with Carelyn. She turned to this craft during the pandemic, and enrolled in a candle-making workshop.
As she spots jars in store displays, she imagines candles in them in different shapes, colours, fragrances, and sizes. “Mould candles are always appealing but I prefer making jar candles as they’re elite and classy,” she says. After experimenting with a certain colour or fragrance, she distributes samples to her friends, and then puts them up for sale based on their feedback. The fragrances she offers include bourbon vanilla, strawberry, green apple, lavender, blue ocean, and sweet mango.
The fragrances sourced for the candles are generally expensive but she chooses to experiment with them to invent new scents. “The vendors I deal with send me the new fragrances that are available in the market for me to try on and if they give me a good aroma, I go on to sell them,” she says while blending new flavours recommended by her friends and family — a combination of chocolate and vanilla.
Carelyn uses soy wax, a plant-based vegan wax to make the candles, and it quite hard to source this variety in the city. “A major reason for me to use soy wax is because it gives out only pastel shades however the colours are added,” she notes. Not one to compromise on quality, she is looking forward to making candles using beeswax in the future as it’s the purest form of wax and is available, mostly in the USA.
While the fragrance and colour are aspects that one look for in candles, the designs can attract customers. Carelyn makes her candles in the shape of ice-creams, puddings and other interesting items. She also customises the candles. “I’m not great with drawing and crafting but I think this is also a form of art as I experiment with the textures,” she says.
Carelyn believes that the personality of the person and the surroundings they are in play an important role in making a candle. “If I’m impatient or if I’m not in a good mood, I might ruin and mix up the ingredients; they crack up and have light holes that will in turn affect my customers,” she says.
Making candles at home is not an easy process as it requires much space and is such a challenging task. “I make a mess when I have a large candle order as wax sticks to surfaces immediately, but it’s great when your entire family stands with you and cleans up the mess I make,” she smiles.
Her candle-making business has had some repeat customers and has been a hit at a college entrepreneurship event, where she made a sale of 90-100 jar candles, of which the Bourbon Vanilla and Lavender candle jars were favourites. She looks forward to setting up a small candle store after graduation.
To order, visit @le_candescent on Instagram.