Today we’d like to introduce you to Gloria Swonger.
Hi Gloria, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started making candles when I was around 12 or 13. I used to mix my grandmother’s partially burned candles together to make new ones. She caught me doing it one day and decided to buy me some candle-making kits from the craft store. Mainly because she was afraid I was going to burn the house down. The kits were not that great in the late ’90s/early ’00s, but they worked fine for a hobby. It was something I enjoyed doing with her as I was getting older and out of the phase of childhood interests. She loved candles. Unfortunately, as I left high school, worked, got married, and became a mom, I kind of let my hobby slip into the past.
When my children were toddlers, my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, which was a huge blow to our family. She was always the patriarch of the family. Around the same time, my husband was medically discharged from the Army, so we moved home to care for her. One day, about six months into us caring for her, she saw an old apple candle she bought once and thought it was real. Needless to say, she was about to eat it if I had not gotten it from her. This led to me telling my husband about how we used to make candles when I was a teenager. We had known each other since we were preteens, but it was one of those stories that were never really important enough to share until that moment. Something that seemed so frivolous but mirrored what life used to be like and how quickly it can change.
However, I still didn’t start making candles again after that. It was several years later in 2018, when I really started thinking about it. I had an over a decades-long career in healthcare at the time, COVID-19, still hadn’t happened. My husband and I were sitting on our deck we had just finished, and my husband was struggling to light some cheap bucket candle from the local dollar store to try and scare the bugs away. I was watching him and said, you know I better I could make better candles than that now. He responded by saying I am sure you could make them 1000 times better than this. So that was kind of the beginning of Hemp Wick Candles. I started researching and testing different ingredients to see what gave me a headache and what didn’t. I finally reached a good formula in 2019, opened for business in 2020, and added carved candles in 2022, which is a lost art I always wanted to learn.
I started off selling online but quickly grew to my first storefront in 2021 due to a large private label contract I had with a cosmetic company. I left my career in healthcare less than a year after opening my first storefront because my husband and children were having medical issues. I decided it was time to care for them and run my business full-time.
Then I grew some more and decided to leave my mall storefront at the end of 2022. I just opened a larger standalone storefront, also in Ashtabula, Ohio, in February of 2023. I recently added the county’s first candle bar, carved candle business workshops for other candle makers, and I am working on writing grants to franchise my business. Hemp Wick Candles is not where I want it to be yet, but I have big plans and am slowly moving towards those goals. I am ecstatic to see how much growth I have accomplished in just under three years in business though.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I don’t think starting and running a business is ever a smooth road. I started a business right as we were entering a global pandemic, which was great for online sales, but that declined as the world tried to get back to normal. I knew I had to open a storefront to continue to grow since most customers want to smell the candles they are buying. Then last year I saw a huge dip in in-person sales and huge increases in the cost of supplies. Just staying afloat was a struggle, but everyone made up for it during the Christmas season. Had it not been for that, I am not sure if I would have made it. We were also very lucky to have friends offer to rent us a newly remodeled space in a better location, which has attributed to more local exposure.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I had a long career in healthcare before ever being an entrepreneur. I have a master’s degree in public health and have worked in both clinical and healthcare settings.
I think I am better known for my unique candles at this point. Especially my carved candles. There are only a handful of candle makers left in the United States that still make carved candles, and I am one of them. I am predominantly self-taught. I had some training from a woman in Greece who has had a long career in carved candles and now sells equipment for it. However, it’s an art and a skill that must be practiced for at least a year before you are ready to start selling your creations. It’s also expensive to start up, supply, and equipment-wise. Those reasons alone are why I decided to create workshops for other candle makers to learn the craft. It’s been around since the 1600s and was really popular in the United States in the ’80s and ’90s, but it got lost in our technologically advanced world.
I recently had a wholesale order for 30 carved candles, which went to an awesome shop in Pennsylvania. So, I am pretty proud of that. I love knowing that my products are all over the place and more people get to enjoy them.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I think what I like best about Ashtabula is the mix of unique small business owners. It’s a daily struggle for us all when we have to compete against large corporations, but we still do it, and we collaborate and make it through.
I think what I like least is Ashtabula County in general is in a strange location between Cleveland and Erie for shopping. So sometimes as businesses, we feel “left behind” because most are just passing through instead of stopping to check out all the great things we have to offer. Even those who live here are so used to leaving the county to shop that they forget that we do have some really great things here.
Pricing:
- Jarred Candles $28
- Wax Melts $12
- Carved Candles $30+
- Candle Bar $15 – $40
Contact Info:
- Website: www.hempwickcandle.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/hempwickcandle
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/hempwickcandles
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/hempwickcandles
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/hempwickcandles
- Other: www.tiktok.com/hempwickcandles
