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Date: 12/3/2021
WILBRAHAM – Deana Gore found truth in the saying “necessity is the mother of invention.” The owner of Wilbraham Candle, an online retailer that also sells at craft fairs and farmer’s markets, got tired of sooty candles that gave off black smoke. So, she decided to do something about it.
“I’ve always had an entrepreneurial mindset,” owner Deana Gore said. Before Wilbraham Candle, she owned an online home décor business called Old Country Primitives that sold antiques and reproductions, as well as candles.
In the early 2010s, Gore and her husband, Raymond Gore, tried candle making and couldn’t find the right “recipe” to make the kind of candle she was looking for, she said. After putting the idea aside for a while, they attempted it again. After two and a half years, the couple found the right recipe. Gore sold them for a time under Old Country Primitives but in 2016, she closed the site and opened Wilbraham Candle.
Selling primarily online with select opportunities for customers to sample the scents in person has been a successful business model for Wilbraham Candle. Online sales are “feasible,” for Gore, who works a fulltime job as vice president of people and business resources at Propark Mobility. “This is a good hobby, for now. We hope to make it our sole focus one day.”
In the meantime, she said, “We have a modest social media following,” Gore said. “We gain trust from our customers based on our quality. They’ll try a new scent without smelling it first.”
Those scents are created in a basement workshop in Gore’s Wilbraham home. “I’m primarily the scent scientist,” Gore said. She described her inspiration for scents, “I bake and cook a lot, so at first it scents were based on a recipe. Now, I’ll smell something in the environment and think, that smells like this, this and this. And then I’ll put things together and I’ll say I wonder what this would smell like mixed with this and that?”
She added with a laugh, “sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s really not. It’s a lot of trial and error.”
Wilbraham Candle offers collections, such as the Spa Collection, Everyday Collection and a seasonal collection. The Everyday Collection is sold year-round and offers between and 12 and 18 scents. In addition to florals and woodsy scents, Wilbraham Candle offers scents with names like “Wilbraham Peach,” “1763 House” and “Rustic Farmhouse.” A new fragrance to the 2022 Winter Collection is “Home for the Holidays,” described on the website as, “nostalgic notes of orange, cinnamon stick, hints of mulling spices and a whole lot of Holiday memories.”
All the scents are available in jar candles, wax melts, air fresheners and room sprays.
“Everything is made by hand. We make everything in small batches, almost like craft beer,” Gore said. Wilbraham Candle carries a small inventory but will make products to order during their busy seasons, such as the holidays. Wilbraham Candle will also sell customer candles for events such as weddings and family reunions.
When purchased at in-person events, the candles come in a gift bag and a tag. When a gift is bought online, Gore said, they can be shipped as gift baskets.
Gore, who has a background in marketing, said she designed her brand packing to be intentionally minimalist. While larger candle companies often have labels that advertise the scent, Gore said, “I wanted something simple. No flashy colors. Something that will go with any décor.” As Gore states on the Wilbraham Candles website, this allows the scent of the clean-burning white candles to “speak for themselves.”
The next in-person event scheduled for Wilbraham Candle is the Dec. 11 Holly Fair at the Wilbraham United Church, Main St. For more information on Wilbraham Candle and its products, visit https://www.wilbrahamcandle.com.