Woman’s candles help keep the environment clean

Published 11:43 pm Monday, November 12, 2007

NORTH RIVER — Cari Burk works alone in her basement mixing dyes and oils to create vibrant colors and fragrant scents.

Three crockpots sit on the counter filled with wax pellets. Across the room, 36 small mason jars are lined up waiting to be filled.

It takes about three hours from start to finish to turn the wax, dyes and oils into the colorful, aromatic candles that she sells at farmer’s markets, arts festivals, bazaars and online.

Many candles are likely made in a similar way, but what makes Burk’s candles different from the scores of others on the market is that they’re made from soy — not paraffin or beeswax.

“Soy is a clean product, where paraffin is petroleum-based, so it’s kind of dirty,” the 51-year-old North River woman says. “My favorite part is it’s a renewable, sustainable resource. It’s not a petroleum product and we’re supporting local farmers.”

Soy candles have been on the market for a few years, but have only recently begun gaining popularity. Burk has sold her soy candles for three years and still gets people constantly asking why her candles are made from soy.

Soy candles burn longer and cleaner than regular candles — they produce little or no soot — and don’t cause headaches like some waxes do, she says. They also clean up easily with soap and water.

And, soy is good for the skin.

“My hands are real soft when I get done working after a few days,” Burk says.

When Burk decided to go into candle-making, she planned to work with beeswax, but stumbled on soy while doing some research online. She read about the benefits of soy wax, which is hydrogenated soybean oil, and found a small company in Iowa that sold it.

She spent about a year experimenting on the best ways to melt the wax and creating colors and scents for her candles before offering her “Out of the Barn” soy candles to the public. Her mother, Louise Burk, was her tester.

“I’m a candle nut, I burn them all the time,” Louise Burk says. “From the very beginning, I burnt her candles to see how they smelled and gave her my opinion of them.

“Boy, there’s not a fragrance that she makes that doesn’t smell good.”

Her favorite, though, is one she helped create called Mom’s Danish Pastry, which is a combination of bitter almond, cinnamon and vanilla scents.

On this particular day, Cari Burk is burning her Old Man Winter candle and the peppermint scent that wafts throughout her home is energizing and crisp.

And, it’s coming from just one 8-ounce candle.

“That was important to me,” Burk says. “I was really tired of buying a candle where I loved the smell in the jar, but then couldn’t smell it when it burns.”

That’s why she uses essential oils to scent her candles, rather than fragrant oils. She invests in pure essential oils that she gets from a small business in Missouri. The owner is conscientious about her product so Burk says she knows she’s getting quality oils.

In her basement workshop, she has “a few thousand dollars” worth of oils — about 40 different ones — that she mixes to create the 17 candle scents she currently sells. She blends different oils on a piece of felt to see what it smells like. If she likes it, she lets it sit for a while and then goes back and smells it again to see if it’s a keeper.

“Essential oils are expensive and a little harder to work with,” Burk says, but adds that it’s worth the extra effort to create long-lasting scents.

The aromatherapy benefits of the essential oils are an added bonus.

Her favorite oil right now is Shog Wuh, which is a mix of cedar, sage and vetiver, a grass native to India.

“It’s pretty earthy and a couple of massage therapists that I have for clients buy it by the case,” Burk says. “It’s supposed to be calming.”

Aimee Filipowicz of Seattle is one massage therapist who uses Burk’s soy candles in her practice. She burns Shog Wuh most frequently and also likes Spiced Blossom, which is a mix of lavender, bergamot and clove and is supposed to help release stress, encourage relaxation and elevate moods.

Filipowicz found the “Out of the Barn” candles at the farmer’s market in Astoria, Ore., about a year ago and just fell in love with them because of their high quality. They’re the only candles she uses.

“They’re a great product,” she says. “I have a cabin near Astoria, Ore., and if I need candles, I make excuses to go down to the cabin and get the candles.”

Using quality products is key to producing quality candles, Burk says. And quality candles sell themselves — after people realize what soy candles are — and produce repeat customers.

“They smell absolutely wonderful,” her mother says. “When people buy them, a lot of them return not only because they’re clean, but also because of the beautiful colors she has in them. They’re different and unique.

“I’m just awfully proud of her.”

Burk, who spent nearly 20 years as a nurse, says she doesn’t really know why she decided to make candles. She was getting burned out in nursing and her husband, Bruce, was always encouraging her, telling her she could do anything.

She quit nursing about seven years ago — though she still keeps her license current — after getting laid off when Grays Harbor Community Hospital started phasing out its home health division.

“That gave me an opportunity” to start her own business, she says. “I don’t know that I would have taken the leap otherwise.”

After looking at a couple of different small-business options, she decided on candles.

“It was pretty nervous going out into the public to start with,” she says. “I wasn’t sure what direction to take, whether I should market it to stores or what.”

She got a couple of stores to stock her candles, but they weren’t really marketing them. She decided to take them to flea markets and farmer’s markets and “it just opened a whole new world,” she says.

“You get stuck in your square box of feeling like you have to work for someone and take a paycheck home every other week, otherwise you don’t feel secure,” Burk says. “It is a bit scary being out there, but it’s much more rewarding. Not that nursing isn’t rewarding, but I was just stretched so thin.”

Burk makes the candles all by herself, all by hand, and sells them all by herself, too.

The candles sell for $15 a jar and burn for about 50 hours. They can also be purchased online. Keeping with the theme of renewable resources and creating less waste, Burke offers a $1 discount on the next purchase to customers who bring back the mason jars and lids.

On the days when she’s not at the markets, she’s at home making more candles or working on creating new products. Burk sells a natural insect repellent called “Bug Me Not,” which is made with essential oils and soy oil.