Scent is one of the most important of the five senses. It has the ability to calm and relax us, bring back memories, and inspire us. Dana and Danielle, owners and founders of Jar Worthy, are bringing the power of scent to the masses with their amazing line of soy candles.
Jar Worthy candles come in delightful mason jars, each scent with a different color and equally delightful name. With a wide range of scents from Apple & Maple Bourbon and Caramel Popcorn to Day at The Spa and Hippie Shit, there’s no shortage of fragrances for everyone. The duo also experiments to introduce seasonal scents throughout the year.
Not only are their candles wonderfully aromatic, but they use only the highest quality of fragrances, dyes and cotton wicks. The use of soy allows for the candles to last longer than your typical paraffin candles, they produce a clean burn (no toxins, carcinogens or pollutants), and produce no black soot! And Jar Worthy isn’t just about candles, they also make great party favors and have plans to launch a line of homemade soaps and scrubs.
Their brick and mortar location is located at 14 Fair Street in Carmel, New York and their products can also be purchased online.
We caught up with co-owner Dana Hanrahan to find out all the details behind the Jar Worthy brand! {Keep reading for a special discount!}
What made you want to start your own candle business?
Two years ago we were faced with challenges of our own around the holidays. We decided to hand make gifts and sell them at local holiday bazaars. We offered a variety of things in mason jars, the candles included. We had a strong response from those who purchased our candles that we continued to make them through out the year and sell them. (This is a shorter version, if you want the full story you will have to attend one of our workshops where you can make your own custom scented candle!)
Does it take a lot of experimentation to get a scent just right?
Blending the fragrances to come up with our own signature scents doesn’t take nearly as long as it does choosing the color! That can take easily up to three different test batches to get it just right.
How long does it take to make a candle?
If you asked us this question two years ago…it took hours! We would double boil our wax on the stove. We considered 50 candles in a day a huge success. Little did we know that would change when we invested in our wax melter (a massive slow cooker); now we can pour easily 200 candles in a day!
What are some of your favorite scents?
It’s so hard to choose! But I’d say we always go back to Cilantro Lime and Olive Tree. Both are extremely fresh and clean scents.
How do you come up the names for each candle?
Majority of our names are inspired from our adventures. Sometimes our candles don’t have names until we figure out what it exactly is that it reminds us of. We’ve even changed some names a few times along the way. We just added a new wine inspired candle called “Oh Hey, Rosé!” You can never go wrong with a glass of rosé at the end of the day!
What are some of your most popular candles?
We have over 40 scents with seasonal rotation, so it definitely varies depending on what season we are in. Right now our most popular scents are Come-Hither, Chilled Sangria, Olive Tree, Mediterranean Breeze and Pumpkin Crumble.
What has been the biggest challenge in starting your own company?
The biggest challenge would have to be actually starting. You can have all these ideas and how great it would be to see them come to life. But you never start because you have the fear of failure or the “what ifs.” You will make mistakes along the way but the beauty of them is learning how to conquer them so they won’t happen again.
What has been the best surprise?
The outpouring of support from our family, friends and community when we had our Grand Opening! It was truly a humbling day. It may have been the first day in the last two years where we felt we were heading in the right direction expanding our business.
What can we expect to see from Jar Worthy in the future?
While we have huge plans for Jar Worthy, we live one day a time. Each day is the stepping-stone to the foundation of making Jar Worthy a household name around the world! But for now you can expect us to be even more daring with blending custom scents and adding more products to our candle line. If you have any suggestions on what you might like a candle to smell like feel free to reach out to us!
Jar Worthy has been generous enough to give our readers a 20% discount off their merchandise! Head to their site (or store in Carmel, NY) and use the code ‘TWIST20’ at checkout and see for yourself what all the fuss is about.
Twisted Talk: What’s your favorite scent? Which of their candles do you want? Discuss below!
