During Covid - I know that's a cliche story now - but during covid, my girlfriend Sophia purchased an at home paraffin wax kit, like the kind they dip your hands in at the nail salon. She continued to dip my hands and feet in this hot wax and I started to realize that paraffin is the same typical wax you find in commercially available candles. I peeled that wax from my limbs, rolled up a piece of napkin paper into a wick, craft a phallic male organ around it, slapped it on our countertop and lit it. Behold...This wax penis burned just like a candle!
Immediately, I purchased us an Amazon candle making kit to pass the time during covid. Two days later - God bless 2 day Prime shipping - we started making wax candles for our home. Before the candles even hardened and set, I was thinking of cool candle company names (I like to buy website domains for fun and speculation). BADWAX was one of the first domains that had a nice ring and fell in line with the title of our first two candle names: EAT ME OUT FOR ONCE & DON'T DO DRUGS IN OUR BATHROOM. The domain had been purchased by a website shark selling it for a profit and he was selling it for $2,000! We were both struggling financially after Covid, but something in my gut forced me to click the purchase button on GoDaddy. Sophia thought I was crazy and I knew she was questioning if I was going to be a reckless lover and life partner. She was still the most supportive queen and started designing some label templates and we created a shared Apple notepad with all the badass, edgy and funny names we could come up with. The dirtiest ones came from her mind... I was both impressed and concerned with what went on in her mind.
Within two weeks we sought out the best quality suppliers of soy wax, glass containers, other materials we could find and set up a Shopify store with the experience of the previous failed companies I had attempted. We were up and running in less than two weeks with a few thousand dollars of inventory, mounting sunk costs and ZERO sales. November was a couple days away and the holidays were right around the corner and still no sales after day 1. I brought free candles to friends and everyone loved the packaging and names. I knew the candles something people would love, but how would everyone know that candles of this quality with these amazing titles were available? I started blasting ads on every social platform I knew and sales started cranking.
There was one problem - we had no idea how to properly make a candle - after the first few days of making candles on the small stove top kit from Amazon we knew we were way in over our heads. With hours of research, advice from the homie & owner John, over at California Candle Supply, upgrading to a large commercial wax melter and converting my office den to a candle factory we were properly ready for production. It was a mad house, scattered candle jars, stacks of boxes, spilled wax and all. Sophia and I couldn't do it alone so my parents, both mom and dad came over a few nights a week after their jobs and helped with what they could. They are amazing.
We got all the orders out in time and quickly improved our process. A big shoutout goes to guys over at Suavecito Pomade who have allowed us to use a portion of their warehouse and helped us set up our first store front in Downtown Santa Ana located at 221 W. 4th Street, Santa Ana, CA. Their drive for success, experience and ability to turn everything they touch to gold is something to be revered.
https://gosolo.subkit.com/badwax/
