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Curiosity Got The Best Of Us & What We Learned Was Shocking . .
Hello & Welcome, I'm Teresa Schumacher and this is my wonderful,
husband Jeffrey, and our adorable son Christian. Christian was
one at the time this picture was taken. He is 4 now. We also
have an adorable 9 month old baby boy, Joshua! We are so
thankful and blessed with our family and our soy candle
business. Owning a business is a lot, I mean a lot of hard work but oh so rewarding. The funny thing is, we were not
interested in building a soy candle business. That was never
initially our interest. Our candle journey was ignited by our
common passion for health and wellness.
My husband and I have always enjoyed relaxing with scented
candles. We burned many high quality, name brand candles. We became curious as to why our candle jars turned black and why we
saw black smoke trickling from the wicks. Then we began to
notice a layer of black dust on our T.V. and in our stereo
system. At that point we realized, not only was this black film
on our candle jars but it also must be in the air we are
breathing. We wondered what it was and if it was harmful.
Our
curiosity motivated us to research the health aspects of
candles. What we found out was shocking!
We
learned that most candles are made from paraffin wax, which is a
refined gasoline, a petroleum by-product. To learn more about
paraffin wax, we received a report from the Environmental
Protection Agency. The report stated that paraffin wax is
harmful when burned, as bad as second-hand smoke, and
contains 11 toxins, two that are considered above the excess
cancer risk with multiple exposures.
We
were astonished. In addition we learned that most commercially
made fragrances were almost as harmful as the paraffin wax
because the fragrances were made with petroleum oil. We also
learned about the metals used in wicks and an entire host of
synthetic additives, commonly used. These synthetic additives add to the
toxicity of candles.
Frustrated With Candles, We
Developed Extraordinarily
Scented Soy Candles Just For
Ourselves & . .
The
unhealthy paraffin based
fragrances led us to utilize soy
bean oil fragrances. We believe
we were one of the first to use
soy bean oil fragrances. And to
this day we don't know of any
other candle manufacturers who
are willing to expend the extra
money to use healthier
fragrances. We also use 100%
cotton wicks.
let's get back to
our story . . .
To
say the least, we
were very frustrated with the candles that were currently on the
market. Besides being unhealthy, they often had little or no
aroma. The candle wax burned uneven, leaving a big hole down the
center. Most often big chunks of wax were left on the side of
the jar and the wicks often got buried in the wax.
We
loved burning candles and were not ready to give up that
pleasure, but we were also not going to put our health in
jeopardy. We were convinced that there had to be a way to make a
healthier candle.
We
learned that in 1998, students at Purdue University invented Soy
Wax. Soy wax has no harmful carcinogens, burns with no petro-carbon
soot and lasts
longer than paraffin wax.
We
then began the long adventure of learning about candle making
with soy wax. Trying different formulations of soy wax, we ended
up developing our own unique soy formulation for our
extraordinary scented soy candles.
First
Candles Horrible, But then . . .
I
finally made my first Soy Candles. How hard can it be, right.
Melt and pour. Well, they looked beautiful but burned uneven and
had hardly any scent. I was about to learn that there was much, much
more involved to making a highly scented, great performing
candle.
So,
out of this desire to make a healthier candle, emerged
candles that are not only healthy, but are scented above and
beyond the best of scented candles!
These candles are amazing, we thought. They burned clean and
evenly, they are healthy and WOW what a scent. The scent is
incredible, lasting from the very top to the very bottom.
My
husband brought them to work as a little "test run" and his co-workers
loved them. Friends and family loved them and everyone seemed to
want more. At this point my husband thought this would be a fun
little side business for me to enjoy and bring in some extra
money.
People Where Amazed At The Crowd
Around This Little Stand & . .
During my prayer time in December 2001, I was inspired to call
some of the local malls to rent space to sell the candles we had
made before Christmas. All the
malls were way too expensive, except the Summit Park Mall. We
were able to rent a space for a fantastic rate for the last 2 weeks
before Christmas. This mall was a dying mall with a lot of "mall
walkers" but little, what we call "retail traffic". The mall
itself was beautiful and it was so exciting to have our own
little store.
As
we began to set up, no exaggeration people starting coming from
everywhere, smelling and buying our candles. Our candles are so
strong, as we pushed the dolly loaded with our candles through
the doors, workers
from the other stores, mall walkers and guest of the mall were
so enticed by our beautifully fragrant candles they had to come
over. Frequent shoppers of the mall would tell us the had never
seen anything quite like this. The mall is always very quite and
low key even during the big Christmas rush.
We
were selling an extraordinary amount of candles per day. We had
a hard time keeping up. It was just the two of us. No employees
at this time and we were
making them at night in our kitchen and inventorying them in our
basement. Everyone was amazed at our success, including
ourselves and even our parents. My husband then began to take
this more seriously. We began to see the markings of a
successful business. Who knew - that making candles in our small
kitchen would turn into to making candles in a full fledge factory,
with 2 retail stores and employing
over 25 employess and wholesaling all through our the United
States! Here is what happened next . . .
The
next month was our wedding, January 19th, 2001 and we gave out
our candles as wedding favors. When we got back from our
honeymoon our answering machine was packed with messages
regarding how to get more candles and who made them. One of
those messages was our very first wholesale client - The very
high end and luxurious,
Capello's Salon & Day Spa's in
Williamsville, N.Y.
Now
it is, February 2001 and for Valentines day we decide to rent a
small space at the Boulevard mall called a kiosk, which is still
there today, 5 years later! This was another huge success. At
that time I was pregnant and I had to leave the mall
temporarily. But we were back in the mall again 2 months later
and never left again. Everyone loved our candles, and our
customers were so happy to see us back. This happened at the
perfect time, as the fortune 500 company my husband worked for
laid off a substantial number of employees in the New York area,
Jeff being one of them. So, little did we know this little business was to become our main
income.
Another successful venture was the Erie County Fair in August
2001. WOW, we did and still do an incredible amount of business
there. We won’t give out our numbers, but let’s just say the
people we did tell were in shock! Vendors at the fair to
this day are still amazed at the crowds are soy candles bring
in; they had never seen anything like it. People actually came
back into the fair just to buy more of our candles. We are
told we are one of the top producing vendors for that show every
year! We are very thankful for the opportunity to be part of the
Erie county Fair year after year.
January 2002 we designed and optimized our first website. It
started just as a place for our local customers to refer there
friends and family who lived out of state to buy our soy
candles. Then we began to show up in all the search engines for
specific keywords and now this little website brings in as much
income as our local retail stores.
So How Do We do it?
Well, we developed a couple of exclusive techniques that know
other candle manufacturers know about. Of course we are not
going to give away our secrets, but we will give you a brief
overview of how Pure Integrity Candles have come to be so great
. . .
Our
"Innovative Fragrance Technology", includes
our unique "7 Step Pouring Process"
and our exclusive "Intelliscent
Fragrances". The latest innovation
in candle making!
The combination of these techniques enables our soy wax to
absorb an exceptionally greater amount of scent.
We
hand - pour all of our candles.
Our unique "Intelliscents Fragrances"! Our "Intelliscents"
were developed specifically for us to be used in our unique soy
wax formulation.
Typical fragrances are manufactured in petroleum oil, yuck!
Harmful and not so strong. Pure Integrity's fragrances
are manufactured in soy Bean Oil and all I can say is WOW - you
can smell the difference! Pure Integrity "Intelliscents" smell
sooooooooo good. Our soy bean oil fragrances are so strong, so
realistic they will leave you wanting more and more!
There is not a better smelling, better performing,
candle out their - Once you’ve burned Pure Integrity Candles,
you just won't want to burn anything else.
The Future
Is Bright With Pure Integrity Candles!
Currently in 2007 . . . . we
have 2 beautiful retail locations in the prominent, area malls
in Buffalo, N.Y., as well as an extensive list of high-end
salon/spa's in Buffalo. We have wholesale and fundraising accounts throughout
the United States. We receive wholesale requests on a daily
basis through our website!
What is in the future . . .we hope to add an
exclusive line of spa candles and soy melts. We will continue adding
additional scents to our current candle line and to offer a
variety of
contemporary candle accessories.
From
this point on it has been one success after another. Challenges
arise every now and then but you see when you seek GOD daily
for guidance, as his word says, he will direct your path. His
direction has saved us many times, because he sees things that
we don't, what might look great, may really be trouble and
vice/versa. He showers us with his blessings and his favor is
upon us as we put him first
and seek to do his will!
So,
there you have it, our story!
We are told over and over again,
our candles are truly the best scented candles around. We know
they are, and are very thankful and excited for what the future
holds.
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