Sep 10, 2008

Waxing successful: Candle shop burns hot in fallBy Chris Van TuylCommercialAppeal.com

For John Loftin, there’s currently little rest for the weary.

It’s that time of the year when his shop, Hedge Farm Candles, near Red Banks, is in high gear.

“In the fall, it gets really busy,” said Loftin, “and from now until the end of December, we’ll be pretty nonstop.”

OK, OK, hedgefarm.com is the Web site, but here’s a warning to the general public: Not so fast.

“The Web site is a very small part of our business,” Loftin said. “We’re wholesale and we go to the Atlanta, New York and Chicago gift shows and take orders from shops all over the country. Some shops in the Caribbean buy from us, and we ship it all out from here. UPS comes out every day and hauls out a load of candles.”

Before too long, Mid-Southerners will be getting their opportunity at the business that started back in 1997.

“Sometime after Thanksgiving, early December, we’ll have a week of open house,” said Loftin, 48. “It’s a very big week. It’s very busy.”

According to Loftin, people will drive for miles to purchase even those imperfect items.

“They’re lined up 10 to 15 cars to get in the driveway,” he said. “We’ve built the customer base over the years. We’ve done some newspaper advertising in the past — we didn’t last year and we had a record crowd.

“We do a postcard to the people who have been here before and just word-of-mouth. They tell friends, and it’s grown to be a pretty good week for us.”

Among the most popular items are terra cotta mini garden urns that contain four fragrances: cinnamon and fire, kiwi cucumber, orange and cloves and pomegranate.

Read complete article.