Lightning Labels Blog

Real Men Can Now Burn Candles

Michael Chorazak was walking down the street one cold Portland (Oregon) day when he noticed the air was filled with the sweet scent of burning wood. As he passed a housewares store he wondered why candles were never scented with smells that men like. A light went on is his head and a new business was born.

Hotwicks is the name of his candle company, and it has a unique niche in the candle industry - candles aimed at men. He currently has eight different scented candles: beer (pictured above), campfire, coffee, grass, hippie, pigskin, stripper, and urinal cake. All the candles are in plain tin cans with two beautiful matching labels: a wrap around label and a lid label.

We print a lot of candle labels here at Lightning Labels but few with the striking wraparound labels that are part of a Hotwicks candle. All eight flavors have rich and vibrant colors leveraging the quality of our state of the art digital label presses. Here are some candle labels that really help the product stand out on the shelf in a retail store.

Obviously this is a fun and unique product and Michael has used the element of fun in his labels as well. Every wrap around label features a fun little saying about the candle. For example, the grass flavored candle says "all the pleasure of a freshly mowed lawn without any of the work." His web site also takes a light hearted approach to his candles.

Michael has done a lot of things right with his launch of Hotwicks Candles (he even has a blog). I will certainly be following his innovative new company with great interest.

Delicious Looking Candle Labels

Yes, this delicious looking label actually goes on a candle jar. It is the creation of Kristin Graham of Greenhouse Soy Company of Dayton, Ohio. Kristin founded her candle company just this year, and she designed all the labels herself.

Here at Lightning Labels we deal with a lot of startup companies and often it is the founder of the company who creates the artwork for the labels and does the ordering. In these situations we see some artwork that is poorly done, some that is just ok, but occasionally we see artwork that is beautifully designed. I think you would agree that Kristin has created a very striking candle label here.

She has several other delicious candle scents such as apple pie, banana bread and lemon cheesecake, all with beautiful color photos. She uses Photos.com, a subscription service for royalty free photos. We love printing these high resolution photo labels on our digital label printer, it shows off the photo quality work of the HP-Indigo presses.

Digital label printing is the only affordable way for startup companies like Greenhouse Soy Company to get small quantities of high quality labels. Kristin ordered just 200 labels each of more than 50 products - with traditional label printing the cost for plates alone would have been over $10,000 before printing. With Lightning Labels she was able to get beautiful high resolution labels for all her products for about one-fifth of that amount. 

Striking Photo Candle Labels

We printed these candle labels last week for Heartland Candle Company and we thought they came out beautifully. I always like it when we get great high resolution artwork with vibrant colors that really shows off the quality of our digital label presses.

There is so much excellent stock photography that is free or very inexpensive (from places like iStockPhoto) that it is easy to include a photograph on your product labels. These web sites have great search capabilities and you can search literally millions of photos instantly on any topic.

Of course you need more than just a great photo to make an attractive label. You need a design that fits your product, that blends your text in with the image. With Heartland Candle's labels, they used a simple but striking design by making the photo the center of attention with minimal text. For the scent name they just screened back the photo so you can still see it behind the text. Their designer has done an excellent job in creating a label that will really stand out on their products.

More Resources for Soap and Candle Makers

We have many customers who buy custom soap labels and candle labels, so last year I wrote about some candle and soapmaking resources. In my research and in talking with our customers I have discovered a few more resources, so I thought I would share them with you:

Soap Wire - a newswire for the natural personal care products industry (Lightning Labels is a sponsor of this web site)
Saponifier - a bimonthly online magazine dedicated to makers of handcrafted soap, toiletries and candles.
Candle Making Survival - this is a Yahoo Group with almost 5,000 members, making them one of the largest online groups of candlemakers in the world.

Of course, as with anything these days a Google search will provide a wealth of information. But I know several Lightning Labels customers who use these soap and candle making resources on a regular basis. We also have a dedicated candle labels page on our web site.

Unique Candle Labels

Jay Johnson and his son Ross founded My Town Scents back in 2003. Nothing unusual there except that Jay's son Ross was only 12 at the time, and the concept was actually his idea. Ross suggested that they make a candle that smelled like a beach and they put the name of their town, Duxbury Beach on the candle label.

Jay made up a plain white candle label with Duxbury Beach and put it on their high quality candles. When it sold like hot cakes, he realized his son was on to something. It was also then that Ross decided he wanted a piece of the action. So, the 12-year-old entrepreneur negotiated a royalty payment for each candle sold, with the understanding that this money go directly in to his college fund.

My Town Scents' candles are made only with the highest quality materials. The candle label is always a beautiful watercolor painting of a scene from the town featured. Here at Lightning Labels, we love doing labels like this because it really shows off the quality of our digital label printing. The labels featured above were printed on our white polypropylene material with a matte laminate.

Soap and Candle Making Resources

David Fisher, said in his Candle and Soap Making blog on the weekend that there is a new publication out targeted at startups and hobbyists in the candle, soap and herbal product industries. It is called Create The Dream. It is being published quarterly and it looks like it will be a very valuable resource for anyone involved in the candle and soap making industry.

As a Lightning Labels customer, I know many of you produce your own soaps, candles and herbal products so I wanted to make you all aware of this new resource. Other resources that I recommend are:

• Soap Dish Forum
• Candletech.com
• SoapTeacher.com

Of course, if you need any help with labels then you should go the Lightning Labels web site or contact me. I will be happy to help you even if you don't want to order any labels.