Dearest readers,
We've offered many of their summery scents online and at the storefront this year, but I am so very, very excited to announce the new scents we will be carrying this autumn. Tis the season for candle burning, after all. Next week at the shop, look for our autumn-themed collection featuring Apple Bourbon, Bonfire, Bluegrass Bourbon, Midnight Amber, Tobacco Barn, and Oakmoss & Amber.
I hope you enjoy getting to know Stefanie and Josh as much as I did!
Tell me about yourselves.
We’re Stefanie and Josh Brooks, owners of Commonwealth Candle. We were both born and raised in Louisville and currently live just outside of Louisville in Goshen. We have a 13-year-old son (who is too cool for us now) and two crazy cats. In our free time, we enjoy exploring Kentucky, trying new foods and finding small businesses to visit. We love to support local communities in any way we can. Stefanie loves to read and has read 50 books this year so far. Josh is a gamer and loves to play online with friends. We are mostly homebodies when we aren’t working.
What inspired you to become entrepreneurs?
Our company started as a craft project for Stefanie. She is a generally crafty person who likes to sew, paint, draw, and try any project at least once. One day in late 2018, she decided to try her hand at making candles. She bought a candle making kit from a craft store for her first go. That first candle turned out horrible! That set her on a path to start researching how to make a good candle. Once she has her mind set on something, she will figure out how to do it.
As she went down the rabbit hole, she learned about all the not-so-good things that are in a lot of candles. Surprisingly, the candle industry isn’t very regulated, which is a little scary considering you breathe in whatever you’re burning. After all this learning and research, we set out to make candles that not only smell great, but that you can feel good about burning in your home.
When you burn one of our candles, you can feel confident it doesn’t have any of the nasty stuff in it and is of the highest quality. We only use 100% soy wax, cotton wicks and phthalate-free and carcinogen-free fragrance oils. After months of testing, we finally had some great candles! We started giving them away to family and friends, who suggested we start selling them. We started a website and sold online and at local craft fairs. All the while, we were making candles in a bedroom in our house.
Things went great and after a while, it just became too much to have in our home. We rented a small production space for a couple years. Then, in 2023, we opened our own storefront in Jeffersontown, a Louisville suburb known locally as J-Town. When we opened our storefront, we wanted to have a space for the community to come and enjoy the experience of making their own candles. We’re one of only a few candle bars in the area. It has been great so far! We love meeting and getting to know people while teaching them the process of candle making.
Describe your workspace, and how you have arranged it to be meaningful to you and to your work.
We have a small storefront in J-Town. This space is not only a candle bar, but doubles as our production space as well. We were so grateful to find a space that worked exactly for our needs. Our space is cozy, and everyone comments on how cute it is. The setup works perfectly for us.
What inspires you most when you decide to establish a new scent?
At this point in our business, we make more than 40 scents. When adding new scents, I try to find ones that are different from the ones we currently have. For example, if we don’t have enough earthy scents or woody scents, I try to find fragrances we can use to round out our selection. We like to have a wide variety for people to choose from. We’re currently finalizing four new scents that will launch in a few weeks.
The first thing I look at when choosing new fragrances are the ingredients. Using clean oils is the most important aspect. Next is obviously the smell. Whether we use a scent as-is from one of our suppliers, or if we mix our own scent, the smell is ultimately the most important thing to our customers. What are the notes that come through? How strong is the scent when the candle is burning? There is nothing more frustrating than buying a candle, lighting it, then realizing you can’t smell it.
We thoroughly test all of our scents. Sometimes scents smell great in the bottle, but don't smell like anything when the candle is burning. Soy wax, especially, can be finicky—so testing is the most important step. Some scents just don’t work in soy wax. Once we settle on the scent selection, we choose names from there. I love picking Kentucky themed names. I plan on adding more of those in the future.
What part of the process, from designing a candle to shipping it out, do you enjoy most?
Our favorite thing about our company is making people happy. Candles make people smile. Did you know that smells recall memories better than any other sense? Just think about when you smell homemade bread or fresh cut grass or rain in the distance. What kind of memories does that bring back for you? We hope our candles bring happy memories back to people and help them make new happy memories too.
In terms of process, making the candle is our favorite part. Putting all these parts together to make something from scratch is so satisfying. Making something with your own two hands and knowing someone will actually enjoy it is such a great feeling.
What is your vision for the future of Commonwealth Candle?
I would love to eventually grow into a bigger space but stay in the J-town area. It would be great to one day have employees who can help. Right now, it’s just the two of us. Sometimes it can be overwhelming, but we are so grateful to be busy. We are getting ready to launch three new products—body lotion, body and hand wash and a body mist.
We would love to continue adding new, great-smelling products for people to enjoy. Research and development takes time, and you definitely learn new skills along the way. We are so excited to continue investing in our business and growing it to its full potential.
What else do you want customers of The Linen Closet to know?
We are so grateful for our consumer and business customers! We would not be where we are today without awesome people like you. We get to live our entrepreneurial dreams because of our customers, and that’s something we never take lightly. This journey has been hard, exciting, fun, stressful, tiring, and so joyful all at the same time. As an entrepreneur, you definitely get to enjoy the full range of emotions. But we wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Learn more at www.commonwealthcandle.com.
Until next time,
Brittany