Rising Stars: Meet Marjie Sanderson

Today we’d like to introduce you to Marjie Sanderson. They and their team shared their story with us below:

In 2014, Tennessee Candle Company was started by Marjie Sanderson, and still operates, at Sanderson Family Farm & Vineyard, located in beautiful Northwest Tennessee. The farm is 100 acres of natural beauty, gardens, a 20-acre vineyard, berry brambles, and an orchard. There you will also find a quaint candle and soap cottage, where all of our products are made. It is here that artist, gardener, and lover-of-fragrances and baths, Marjie Sanderson, hand-crafts candles, wax melts, artisan soaps & bath & body products. Some of those natural and organic ingredients on the farm even make their way into the products, such as rose petals and rose hips from their 175 rose bushes that grow at the end of their grapevines, and oils infused with herbs she grows.

At the time Marjie and her husband Bill were opening their newly-built vineyard tasting room in 2014, Marjie had hopes of making as many personalized products as possible that came from their land, to sell in their gift shop. She wanted their visitors to take a piece of the farm, and love of it, home with them. Marjie has always been a flower and herb grower, candle and soap lover, and enjoys using products with fragrance in baths. After researching the candle and soap-making process and ingredients for several years, Marjie produced her first candles in 2014 and has not slowed down since. She found that many of the same fragrances used in her candles could be used in other bath & body products, so she added artisan cold process soaps and has recently expanded her line with whipped sugar soap, bubble baths, and lotion bars, which also incorporate essential oils.

Each candle is hand-poured in small batches, using the maximum fragrance appropriate for her wax and fragrances, and soaps are hand-crafted premium artisan soaps with attention to fine detail and creativity. The most luxurious natural oils, clays, botanicals, colorants, and additives are used, and she chooses organic when available.

Today, candles and soap are all made in the sweet and warm candle & soap cottage on the farm, but find their way to many locations. You can find their products at the farm’s winery tasting room at White Squirrel Winery in Kenton, TN, Discovery Park of America in Union City, TN, Old Country Store in Jackson, TN and various boutiques and stores across Tennessee to Gatlinburg, southern Missouri, southern Illinois, Alabama, and Kentucky.

As Marjie says, “We hope that you love our products as much as we love creating them and that you take a little piece of the beauty and love of Northwest Tennessee home with you!”

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I think my candle journey has been a smooth one for the most part. I would say the hardest part is the testing of wicks and the trials and errors with that. Once I got the correct wicks, after much testing, I had to perfect the pour by making sure to diminish air pockets so the wicks burned smoothly. I also had to understand how much wax to pour into my particular containers so that they burned well. For instance, a jar with a “shoulder” should not have wax past the shoulder or it will have a hard time burning around the shoulder of the jar.

Another obstacle I had to overcome, and which many candle and soap-makers deal with, is wanting to experiment with too many fragrances at first. I love fragrance, so I get a little over-excited and want to try them all. I have learned through the years which ones I like, which ones my customers do or do not like, and also which ones I need or do not need for my line.

Another obstacle, or achievement reached with soap-making has been to develop a deep understanding of the saponification process from raw oils, butters and lye, to soap. In the beginning, I was so afraid of the lye. You cannot make soap without lye. Of course, one always has to be extra cautious and knowledgeable with the use of lye in cold process soap and in general, but with years comes experience. Once you get the hang of it, use safety precautions and correct measurements, perfect your recipes, and grow in knowledge and experience, real creativity can begin. As with candles, with time and experience comes wisdom and knowledge. With experience and knowledge, I was able to anticipate and avoid glycerin rivers, false trace, color-morphing, fragrance fading or any other obstacles or wild variables soap makers deal with. Again, knowing your craft helps to anticipate and avoid these things, and that took time to do.

One more obstacle that I deal with even today is balance. When I started making candles in 2014, I was teaching Visual Art full-time at a local school, coaching tennis after school, and helping at our newly-built winery with the garden beds, decorations, and events. Juggling that with candle and soap-making was and still is a challenge, but I have grown my business to the point where it is a priority that will not take a back seat and can balance things well. You have to get ahead of the seasonal rushes or you will fall behind. Many makers find that they have to create things months ahead of the actual season, and that takes foresight and planning.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am an artist first and foremost. I have been a traditional visual artist and a digital graphic artist my entire adult life. I love working with my hands, with colors, with designs, and this translates, I feel, very well into the candle and soap-making craft. Being creative is prevalent in my family. I love to create something that another person loves so much that they want to buy it for themselves or another person. It is such a good feeling.

It took a long time to create my color recipes for candles and the scent blending as well. I am very good at matching colors to a scent, to give the purchaser a sensual experience not only with fragrance but with the visual color as well. I find it harder to have color in my wax than not, because imperfections, such as “wet spots”, which show through a clear container, show up more with colored wax than wax without color. It is a harder process when you add color. The same goes for the “frosting” of the wax, which happens to the soy content when it is cold. You can see that more in colored wax. Because of that, I am pretty proud of the fact that I have developed a way to master those elements that candlemakers who just use white or natural wax do not have to deal with as much.

As far as fragrance goes, I am known to blend up to 7 different fragrances to achieve what I feel is the perfect blend I am aiming for. For instance, my “Elvis” candle is a blend of 7 fragrances to achieve the scent combination of peanut butter, hickory maple bacon, and banana. It takes time, and you can’t buy or make up that time, you just have to experience and live it with trial and error. Not all of my fragrances are blends of 7 scents, but some are. I am very good at pulling the notes out of a scent and knowing what a customer might find appealing.

I am most known, product-wise, for my wooden wick mason jar candle line. Some have called it “country”, some call it “French country”, “rustic”, etc, but hands down, that style of container is my top-selling product and bread and butter. I think people get a warm feeling when they see a mason jar. I offer a more “elegant” and upscale cotton wick tumbler style candle line as well knowing that a mason jar is not the style that will fit everybody’s decor, but the mason jars probably outsell the tumblers 2-1. The tumblers are white or amber and have natural wax with no color and cotton wicks instead of wood wicks.

I think what sets my soap apart from some others is some of the designs and embeds I use. I am not relegated to a specific regimen of style that some soap chains in our area are bound to. I have the freedom to get creative and add or subtract some to my line anytime I want. One of my biggest senses of pride goes towards my husband Bill, who has been the most helpful and encouraging through the years. He designed and built my candle cottage, did the plumbing in it, built my 5 wooden soap loaf molds, 5 wooden soap slabs, a soap log cutter, which cuts my soap slabs into 3 loaves, and he built my soap bar slicer. He is incredibly talented and generous. He also gives me great business advice and he pushes me to finish things when I’m exhausted and inspires me and believes in me.

I think that I am most proud of the fact that I make everything right here on the farm and that I can offer a small batch of handmade products, right down to the label designs seen on my products, which I create in Adobe Photoshop. My hands have “touched” and designed each product, so when I see that it appeals to someone, it makes me happy. My products do not come from a huge mechanical assembly production line, they come from me, and I am proud of that.

What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
The biggest lesson I have learned along the way is that you cannot be everything to everyone. I make what I make, and if someone is pleased with the results and wants to purchase it, that is great. But you cannot be every style to everyone. There is room for everyone in this industry, and be yourself, know your style, know your product, what you want to offer, and do it well. If another company has a different style, great, let them do them well, and I will do what I do well. If they offer a style of container or product the public is going crazy over, I do not have to jump on every bandwagon to compete. You have to be authentic, and the customer will feel that authenticity.

Another HUGE lesson is that more times than not, when a wholesale customer that carries my line asked me to create something for them that is similar to another popular item or brand, it usually becomes a mistake, and just doesn’t work out as planned. That is something I will not do. That, again, comes down to knowing who you are, what you want to create, and what you do well. Trying to copy another brand will always flop. Be true to your style, your product, and your brand’s personality, and do it well, and consistently well. This is what I would share with anyone just starting to make candles or soap.

Pricing:

• $16.99 (mason jar wooden wick candles)
• $16.99 (cotton wick tumbler candles)
• $8.00 (artisan bar soap)
• $12.oo (whipped sugar soap)
• $10.50 (8oz cotton wick tin candle)

Contact Info:

• Website: www.tennesseecandlecompany.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/tennesseecandlecompany
• Facebook: facebook.com/tennesseecandlecompany 

Image Credits
Marjie Parsons Sanderson & Bill Sanderson