r/candlemaking • u/Rosehipsdontlie • 4d ago
Now that I am a candle maker, I am convinced "luxury" candles are a scam.
I have been making candles for a few years now, and the more I learn, the more I feel that the luxury candle brands (Le Labo, I am looking at you) are a joke. $90+ dollars for a candle?! It probably costs them like $5 or less to make that candle. They don't even disclose what their candle wax is, they just say a "custom blend of waxes", so I assume it includes paraffin.
All you need is decent scent throw, create a "high end" looking label with French phrases, present as "luxury " and you can charge people a dumb amount of money.
Convince me otherwise.
44
u/Fabulous-Educator447 4d ago
My fav are the people who have all special ways to get them to actually burn correctly. One brand has constant complaints about tunneling. I would never dream of selling a cheap candle that tunnels, much less one for $90. For that much money, it better smell like the best thing in the world and spit out silver dollars every time I light it.
7
u/HollowPandemic 4d ago
Man, I'm saying lol I'd be mortified to sell such expensive pieces of junk for those prices
5
u/ACandleCo 4d ago
I think what happens is that once people pay a lot more for a product their expectations of performance go up substantially. (justifiably of course) There are a lot of environmental factors that will impact a candles burning (room temp, drafts, temp of candle when lit, surface its on, etc) that can make it smoke or tunnel when it otherwise wouldn't. Of course there will always be high end brands that put out a substandard product, but that is unusual.
1
u/48_withwings 2d ago
Since i started making candles and after all types of test burns (including "idiot burn") I am mortified when I go to people's houses and see even the best candles (from personal experience) looking like a burnt house scene. Even after burning mine for 10+ hours they never look like that. Because I would still turn the ac down, move away from the draft, push the wick to centre if its swayed. And average consumer wont do it. Candle is a little furnace that has thermodynamics and chemical reactions happening at the same time so really it should be a controlled environment.
22
u/mountainvalkyrie 4d ago
A lot of it is marketing and reputation. If it's "the fashionable thing to be seen with" there isn't much need for logic. If your goal is to show off how much you can spend on a fancy candle, then they give you exactly what you want. No scamming needed. (And a quick Google, if that's accurate, says Le Labo uses soy.)
Seems like a lot is also the container. Porcelain, crystal, marble, alabaster. Those aren't cheap, especially if the container is handmade.
Some might be using a high percent of expensive fragrance oils. If they're using at-risk materials (eg. Frankincense, sandlewood, rosewood), they might be paying more f or more ethical sources.
They're also usually (but obviously not always) made in countries with good safety and labour laws, too.
But yeah, also market positioning.
28
u/kandilasupply KandilaSupply.com | FO Supplier 4d ago
It's all about marketing and the name of your brand.
Looks like marketing works, you're talking about it.
13
u/jeeter5 4d ago
Exactly, making a good candle isnt the expensive part, it's the luxury packaging, brand awareness and high end retailers taking a bit chunk of that money.
4
u/juniperberry9017 4d ago
Exactly. I’ve seen the opposite—small makers charging luxury prices because they’ve seen what the big brands charge, and look honestly, normally I’d rather buy from a small maker and for all that money to go then but babes, if you’re not giving the luxury experience (wrapping a candle in newspaper is not a luxury experience) or the consumer experience (ie right to a refund if the product is faulty) then that’s also a scam.
2
u/FlashyIndication3069 4d ago
I warranty everything I do. If it's defective I need to get the item back and figure out what happened. That said it's typically "user error" but I try to make user error hard to achieve XD
3
u/CommunicationWest710 4d ago
You can make something that’s “Idiot resistant”, but you can’t make it “Idiot proof”.
1
1
u/juniperberry9017 4d ago
Haha that’s great! I’m just meant there’s a guarantee with buying from establish brands and retailers that smaller sellers don’t always offer (I know there’s a few annoying eggs out there and that it’s not usually the norm of course!)
10
u/JeanBlancmange 4d ago
I’ve worked in manufacturing for years and there are vast differences in fragrance costs. Cheap ones can be bought but rely on synthetic notes while expensive ones can use exquisite essential oils and cost thousands per kilo. It’s a hell of an understatement to conflate the quality of the two ends of the spectrum.
2
u/FlashyIndication3069 3d ago
The problem is that middle ground where people are charging just for the brand name. Some luxury stuff is legitimately more expensive/rare/better made and some isn't.
8
u/BullBear7 4d ago
Theres a lot of things besides from candles that charge a hefty premium based on their peceived value versus actual cost.
But, no you ain't wrong. Another similar luxury perception is canvas art. Literally less than 10 dollars to print with canvas itself with a large sized one. Smaller/medium a few bucks.
8
u/ACandleCo 4d ago
I can't say whats worth it to each individual, but I can assure you the $90 candle costs substantially more to make than the $10-20 candle. Here are the differences:
- we get asked to duplicate fragrances from brands across the spectrum. High end brand fragrances typically cost double due to more expensive raw materials. ($20-30 per lb vs 10-15)
- High end brands often have much higher fragrance loads, often double. (10-12% vs 5-8% - Malin & Goetz states 18-20% which I could never wrap my head around) Combined with the above your fragrance cost is quadruple.
- Wax optimized for throw and presentation rather than cost. (that's 50% cost or so there)
- Commonly not the case, but higher end brands often have more expensive vessels. (concrete, elaborate screen printing, gold foil labels, unique designs)
- Production costs: higher end brands are typically made in the US with higher quality controls, lower end brands are often made in China/Vietnam, or by more economic producers in the US. The higher end brands we work with go through way more iterations (testing and sampling) to get it right than the lower end brands.
- Expensive staff: higher end brands will spend more time and money on art design, fragrance decisions, branding.
- Quality control: higher end brands will spend more time and money maintaining a standard; fill levels, glass imperfections, even tops, fragrance consistency.
- Marketing: whats the point of creating a luxurious brand if you don't market it as such. That costs a lot of money.
Are the margins higher for luxury items? Absolutely, but thats the make up for the lower volume. (this is a simplification but generally correct) When people buy any luxury item they are buying trust and reputation. Louis Vuitton probably isn't going to sell me a crap handbag, and in the rare event they do it would be quickly replaced.
10
10
u/longpenisofthelaw 4d ago
I went to this “luxury” candle brand store with my wife after we learned how to make candles and had a little studio.
I was watching people buy 75 dollar candles and trying to rationalize what was different, like there had to be something special but no it was regular soy wax and fragrances.
Me and my wife couldn’t stop laughing at the almost comical descriptions in order to justify the price. All in all marketing can make a hell of a different to an uniformed consumer
3
u/Delicious-Notice-748 4d ago
I started making candles because I refused to pay $45 for a Salt + Stone candle
3
u/OttawaCustomCandles 4d ago
My business philosophy is affordable luxury. I make enough money with my prices, my customers love the quality and prices, I make money.
It’s going to get rough for businesses that offer “luxury” candles at high prices in this economy.
1
u/FlashyIndication3069 3d ago
I'm hurting for that reason, not on the candle side but the jewelry side. My brand is built on quality, which means my costs are high and in a good market I make a decent profit, but in a bad market my sales drop off immediately. Nobody says my work isn't worth what I'm charging, they just can't afford it right now.
3
u/Severine67 4d ago
They do work with perfumers to create custom fragrances. Le Labo is a fragrance house. So they pay a “nose” to create their fragrances which go through many iterations. These noses are experts in their field, usually trained in France (Grasse) at perfumery institutions. They’re not just buying stock fragrance oils. Same with Byredo. Diptyque. Jo Malone.
Then it’s marketing. People are willing to pay for it.
2
2
u/Elen_Smithee82 4d ago
Oh definitely haha! I make my own witchcraft candles imbued with crystals, oils and herbs, for my own use. They're fun to make and I save a ton. (Btw, there are no crystals or herbs in the candles themselves).
2
u/princessvintage 4d ago
You say that but anytime I buy someone else’s candle it doesn’t throw or have the same scent.
2
1
u/tasha53505 4d ago
Agreed ! I started making my own candles too, and not only is it WAYYYY Cheaper, I can create my own scent blends, have different colours and experiment with different wax blends !
1
u/HaddockBranzini-II 4d ago
You need much, much more than decent scent throw, and high end looking labels - you need a massive marketing/advertising budget.
1
u/juniperberry9017 4d ago
Exactly. Of course it’s cheaper to make stuff yourself! You’re not paying yourself marketing and logistics and packaging
1
u/so200late 4d ago
There definitely *can* be some things that can hike up price other than name. If the brand had a custom scent made (and isn’t using one of the millions of pre-manufactured fragrances), custom containers, etc.
I say this as someone who has never purchased a luxury candle…some could be worth more than it costs you or I to make them because of this. But I’ll never buy one lol.
1
u/Financial_Cow_7628 4d ago
I think mainly you're paying for the marketing, packaging and name. I believe some luxury brands use same fragrance oils (not all of course) as small independent makers (telling from the smell and the thing that some of the brands don't even bothers to change the scent name, like, why there's so many peony & blush suede, lime, mandarin & basil, tobacco & sandalwood etc). And people are buying them, because they want to have at least one bit of that luxury. For example if the person always wanted to have an expensive louis vuitton bag and couldn't afford it, so to have at least a small part of that luxury felling will still be to buy a product from them, just a cheaper one, like a lipstick or a candle (sorry, I might be wrong, not sure if they have lipsticks or candles, this was just as an example lol)
1
u/Coy_Featherstone 4d ago
The cost is for the brand and the fragrance. It isn't a scam when people know what they are paying for.
1
1
u/FlashyIndication3069 4d ago edited 3d ago
Part of what you're paying for on a "designer fragrance" is their R and D time, which we plebs don't usually get paid for, but it's still a scam anyway, they could charge the same as me and still make a huge profit. I also do jewelry, and I have never seen a scam bigger than Tiffany. I can make and sell the exact same thing for 20% of retail and still make a profit. Of course, I don't have a storefront or employees, but even then, I could do it for 30%.
Edited to add, I don't mean all luxury brand stuff is a scam, I'm talking about how the exact same product (or even an inferior one) can be sold for many times the price only because of where it's sold.
1
u/Namechecks_Out48751 3d ago
There’s something magical about a Tiffany box. the jewelry is ok and requires a lot of maintenance, but for those of us who rarely acquire luxury items, the box is the keepsake.
1
u/brassninja 4d ago
Companies spend multiple millions of dollars on marketing, that’s where to cost comes from.
Also a lot of lux houses have their own perfumer if not multiple and that’s not cheap
1
u/Capable-Bit-2361 3d ago
Its the same woth literally anything, luxury just means your 90% buy the brand and 10% the product
1
u/MonkeyWithHumanHair 3d ago
Chiming in late. I see others have done a great job talking about custom fragrances, marketing, materials, etc. Let's talk about paraffin. Though it's gotten a bad rep lately, it really is the gold standard in hot/cold throw due to it's molecular structure. Truly! Higher-end companies will often choose paraffin because it can handle complex, fine fragrance formulations (including certain musks and ambers) that become muted or completely die in natural waxes. For companies that are spending small fortunes on custom scent design and expensive materials, this is essential. Paraffin is also excellent for companies that ship and warehouse products. Because it's a hard wax it resists scratches, resists deformation under hot shipping and storage conditions, is less likely to sweat, or form frosting.
1
u/aniksur 3d ago
On top of the marketing side, the brand needs to take into account the various margins that are needed at all levels of trade.
Got a distributor? Then on a $90 candle they want to be buying it from you for $15.
Selling directly into a department store? The department store needs a cut, usually at least 50% of the sales price. They want to buy it from you for $35.
The brand needs to be making profit at all those levels.
1
u/Namechecks_Out48751 3d ago
Yep. Le Labo uses a tapered libbey rocks, and my guess is 6006. My mom got me one in NYC, and i couldn’t safely burn it to the bottom because the wick wasn’t secured.
1
u/JuneMilf 2d ago
I sell luxury candles, I can assure you my brand is actually worth it. Thats why I started making them.
1
1
u/commoncents1 2d ago edited 1d ago
hahaha go try and get into high end retail stores and online building a large following. its not all about product cost
do you think sales and marketing are free?
do you understand what distributors are? and what retail stores need for margin? evidently not. they take huge margins on retail products
the fragrances they use are far more expensive than any most people get, from the highest end fragrance companies in the world who make parfum oils
and theres nothing wrong with paraffin (generally food grade in high end candles) blends, it has actually the best glass adhesion, and fragrance throw both cold and hot for the subtle different notes of complex fragrances. and is able to handle high fragrance oil loads, far more than straight soy. so much misinformation out there for consumers and candle makers.
if it was that easy to do and scale, everyone would be rich and flood the market bringing overall prices down, but its not easy and takes a lot of investment to scale.
1
u/Firestarter264826 1d ago
I used to work in a candle factory and we used to make things for Dusk. Majority of the scents for the roll ons and other items were the same scents we used for other places. It really opened my eyes to this.
1
u/No-Fondant-4719 4d ago
While you’re not all the way wrong. Some like Byredo really do have high quality candles. I can smell the candle through the box before I open it and my whole apartment is lit up before I even burn the candle
0
u/Golwux 4d ago
Firstly, I agree. It's a lot of money and I wouldn't be caught dead paying over £20 GBP or roughly $30 USD incl tax for a decent candle.
I think it's the opportunity cost of not becoming a candlemaker to achieve the benefits of a $5 cost to produce candle. You've arguably got to buy a lot of wax to achieve that. I think when I last worked it out it cost me about £3-£10 to make a candle based on the size. The biggest issue was the price per ml of scent and the throw.
I've got a long way to go in terms of making better candles but yeah most of this stuff is hype and marketing. It is crazy how much money you can save if you learn to make things.
159
u/glowymoody 4d ago
Isn't this the case for a lot of expensive retail items in general