Tariffs, Cost of Goods & Our Commitment Moving Forward

Day to day living has become hard. The cost of gas, the cost of groceries, the cost of raising a family, the cost of entertainment and the cost of our sanity has all gone up in price. As we sit back and watch news reports, read articles and scroll through social media, we see the all too familiar news of trade wars and boycotts. And, as a small business owner, we are and will be challenged in ways we are not used to. 

We started making candles almost 5 years ago and as many of you know, because you have followed our journey, we have been in full business now for almost 3 1/2 of those years. We started because it became a passion of ours out of a "pandemic hobby" and now with a new addition to our family, it has become a business that we want to see evolve into a family legacy - but the current economic waters we tread are pushing the boundaries, so we wanted to write this blog post for complete transparency reasons. 

Back on April 2nd, the United States government announced new tariffs which included a 10% universal tariff on imports as well as substantial "reciprocal" tariffs on other countries including China. These tariffs affect us as business owners and YOU as consumers. It adds to the cost of raw materials such as wax, glass vessels and packaging - all the items we need to craft our amazing candles, room sprays and more. So, with that we wanted to updated everyone on some changes to pricing, packaging and anything else that may impact you.

Transparency - We know the most important thing many of you consider when purchasing from a business is quality, but we feel transparency goes hand-in-hand. With that being said, we will have to increase the pricing on some of your favorite items and/or change the weight. What do we mean by that?

• Our ever popular room sprays will see a price increase of $1 per unit starting June 1st, 2025. While we currently source our glassware from a distributor in the United States, they likely source them from an international supplier and have since raised the cost to us as a purchaser by just over $50 per order. And, they have been transparent with us that the price increases may continue to go up over the remainder of the year as they pay additional freight fees. To ensure we do not have to increase the cost of our room sprays any more in the foreseeable future, we settled on a $1 increase per unit to help us cover the differences. 
  
  
• We do not anticipate any price changes on our candles for one large reason (to be discussed further below related to wax), however, our large room 2-wick candle will have a change in filled wax weight starting in June 2025. We will begin filling the large room 2-wick candles to 14 ounces versus the original 15 ounces. This 1 ounce difference is to offset any price increases but also to ensure the full safety of the candle by not filling it so high to the top. There will be no changes to the 7.5 ounce small room 1-wick candles and no changes to the new 8.5 ounce incanto collection candles. These fill weights will remain the same.
  
  
• As we source new containers for our lotion product line, there may be price changes to these. We anticipate them remaining the same or slightly higher by $1 from previous lotions. This will all be dependent on the size of bottles we source and if the distributor can allocate large quantities to us at a slightly lower cost. We do know for certain that our new lotion bottles will likely change in design.
  
• As mentioned above with the transparency around our candles - we have decided to test new wax and wicks for our candle lines. This was a tough decision, but based on reducing overall costs and shipping fees. We currently use two different vendors for wax - one for coconut and one for soy wax. We blend the waxes ourselves in house and have absolutely loved our recipe for success. However, shipping and freight costs have skyrocketed and wax is heavy. Equating to more in shipping fees. We are now testing a pre blended CocoSoy, well refined wax and it has performed amazingly well. The other benefit is that it would ship to us from only 2 states away and would cut our overall cost of wax. This means that we would not need to increase the overall cost of our candles in the foreseeable future even if other aspects of the product itself go up in price from our outside vendors. Rest assure, even though we have decided to source a new wax blend, we continue to make quality a TOP PRIORITY and we will always make a clean burning candle. You will absolutely fall in love with the way the new candles burn and perform with scent throw. This change has been months in the decision making and testing and not a quick irrational decision based on overall costs. 
  
  
• Packaging: We currently source our handle bags and candle boxes from international vendors. And with that - means that we will have to pay tariffs on any future orders of these items. While we have not yet needed to place an order - we do know that the price will likely double on these materials. We are prepared to pivot at any moment, but we want to be transparent with you as our loyal customer that we may see outages on these bags and boxes as we place orders and/or longer shipping times fort hem . For example, typically when we order boxes, we can expect them to arrive in 35-45 days. As of right now, we have been informed that it can take up to 75 days for these same shipments to arrive. Another aspect we have been discussing in great detail has been around holiday themed candle boxes. 
  
  
• We will be constantly looking at ways to display and make our products in new and innovative channels to keep costs lower - while maintaining our brand standards. With that being said, we promise you that should the tariff situation change for the better and pricing comes back down across distributors and international vendors, we will look into adjusting any of our prices accordingly to ensure that savings are passed back to you. We know how important it is to shop local, shop small and support small businesses like us - so your trust in us is paramount. 

Words cannot express our gratitude for every single one of you that has purchased a candle, a room spray, a perfume or even came in to be part of a candle making experience with us. It is because of you that we get to wake up and pursue a passion of ours daily. It is because of you that we have the opportunity to be part of community events like farmers markets and craft markets and it is because of you that we have made so many phenomenal friends since the inception of 1982 Candle Co. So, it is because of YOU that we will continue to strive to move our brand forward and not let these trying times fold us into the ground. Sadly, we have lost so many small businesses that we started this journey with and we do not want to be a forgotten name. So thank you for taking the time to read through this blog post and for continuing to support our drive and determination to dream big.