set flame to the wick

[fufaraw]

There was a candle factory outlet in a little town in the foothills of NC, years ago. DH and I made a thrice-yearly pilgrimage, the first visit was just when the leaves began to turn. The second was just before Christmas, braving the throngs, and the last visit was usually in February or early March, when they had restocked after the holiday locusts had cleaned out everything. No price on earth was worth visiting in late spring, summer, or early fall. The summer heat in the non-climate controlled warehouse intensified the various candle scents till it was an almost visible, palpable shimmer in the air. Even in cold weather, the unheated warehouse was full of scent. You'd walk out with it on your tongue, from when your nose shut down and you were breathing through your mouth.

But the rewards were worth it. You bought a paper bag with handles at the door: $15, $20, or $25. One third to one half of the floor was roped off, and you could fill your sack level to the top with anything inside that area: tealights, 10 and 14 hour votives, three-inch diameter pillars in three, four, six, and eight inch heights, three-wick pillars as high as ten inches. Of course, in this area you got to pick and choose and sniff, because this is where the...less successful scents and color batches wound up. I got a ginormous black and purple three-wick candle there, and wound up throwing it out because it stank so, even unlit, none of us could stand it in the house. So some caution was advised. Taper candles in all colors and lengths were fair game for the bag-filling, too. You had to fight the wedding planners off the 10 and 12-inch white and ivory tapers, but all colors were plentiful.

The shelves along the walls and the remainder of the floor was given to returned or discontinued merchandise, or damaged shipments. Bags of 50 tealights, or loose tealights for two cents apiece, 10 hour votives for 5 cents, and 14 hour votives for ten cents  apiece. Three-inch diameter pillars in three, four, six, and eight-inch heights, from $1 to $3. Boxed and branded pillars, tapers, three-wick pillars, square and oval-shaped pillars, poured-layer color candles, and reasonably civilized scents, all at 20% to 35% of retail, sometimes less. Tealight and votive holders in metal, ceramic and glass, candlesticks in glass, ceramic, brass, and occasionally boxed and branded silverplate, wax tarts and melters both electric and tealight-powered. There were votive holders of art glass and stained glass, pierced ceramic, copper, and rusted tin. There were infinite varieties of incense holders and both cone and stick incense, scented melting beads, bags of potpourri, glass bowls on brass footed stands to hold the potpourri. It was a sensory experience, and you walked out dizzied, with a full bag of goodies, and not that much poorer. I found *so many* holiday, birthday, and other special occasion gifts there. Sometimes it took a bit of dressing up, but that part was fun, too.

I found a stash of three-inch pillars in four, six, and eight inch heights in a nice ivory color. Unfortunately, my sense of smell had deserted me by then, and when I got them home, I felt like looking in dark corners and under the bed for something the cat might have dragged in and abandoned. I left the candles out in the cold on the enclosed porch for a few weeks, and the scent did subside a little, but it was still there. I couldn't give these to anybody as a gift!

As luck would have it, I was leafing through a decorating magazine, and all the expensively "rustic" rooms were accessorized with rusty metal and thick glass candleholders, and "dirty" candles. They looked like they'd been rolling around in the Impala's trunk for a while, maybe left over from some ritual or other. "Rolled in cinnamon" the fine print said. Aha!

I had spray adhesive for my art projects, so the candles and I had a date with the spray glue and a teaspoon of ground cinnamon on a sheet of waxed paper. The results were spectacular--plus, the cinnamon helped tone down the candles' regrettable scent. I had some plain Hershey's cocoa powder, the kind you have to add sugar and cook over a double boiler, and when I tried rolling candles in that, it worked equally well. So I poured a few coffee beans in the grinder and hit XXfine, and the resulting powder worked beautifully, too. So all that was left was to cut up a brown paper grocery bag, wrap each candle 2/3 high with the paper and tie it with a twist of raffia, or a length of wired sheer gold glittered ribbon, or holly-printed ribbon... whatever was handy, and presto! Awesome gifts that people really, really liked.

"Dirty" two-wick candle, this one rolled in coffee. The pillar stand came from the outlet, too.

This time of year, I always get restless. It's time for the annual fall trip to the candle outlet, and it might almost be worth a transcontinental trip. But tragically, it closed its doors several years ago. I just keep monitoring my stockpile, and enjoying the riches I have.