Christmas Lights Lose their “Vibe”

Welcome to episode eight of the all about Quincy podcast. It’s been a few months since my last episode and, you know, the holidays and everything. They had a lot going on. What is it about Christmas lights the day after Christmas, they just have this totally different vibe. And I know we’re well past Christmas now, but people are still lighting their Christmas lights and their windows. And I think it’s nice because there’s a lot of dark and gloomy news going on.

Speaker 1: And aside from all of the dark and gloomy weather we have here in the wintertime. So I, I like, I like seeing the lights. I think they add a certain brightness and spark, but they have a totally different energy to them. If you will, then the lead up to Christmas, do you feel that way There’s just, it’s kind of like, you know, the Christmas tree has a different vibe to it on Christmas morning versus Christmas Eve. I don’t know if I’m the only one that feels that way. but yeah, the holidays we’re here as you know,

We Said Goodbye to Zoe

“Follow You Follow Me” Copyright 1978 Genesis. Songwriters: Michael Rutherford / Phil Collins / Tony Banks. Follow You Follow Me lyrics © Concord Music Publishing LLC

I’m a big fan of dogs. we unfortunately had to say goodbye to Zoe in early November. Zoe was 14 years, eight months old and she just got tired and we had to say goodbye. And it’s been very, very hard, to say goodbye to Zoe.

Speaker 1: we miss her every day, but we have, Quinn’s still Quinn missed Zoe for quite a while. and if you ever have a pet that, ha you’ve had to say goodbye to, you know, that if you have other pets along with them, that you, that they miss them and Quinn, turned one year old the day after we said goodbye to Zoe, which was ironically sad. But, also, you know, we had, we were excited for Quinn as well. So I actually created a tribute video for Zoe with some videos and pictures that I had taken over the time that we had Zoe. Some folks may realize that we adopted, Zoe from my brother and sister-in-law and his family because unfortunately my nephew was allergic to her. So you’ll the video has pictures of Zoe from when she was a puppy all the way up until her very last couple of days.

Speaker 1: And I took the song, follow you, follow me by the band Genesis and created a tribute video of Zoe. She touched so many lives and filled so many lives with love that I just had that project within me too. and this is how I express myself through a production. So at any rate, if you would like to see that video, you can go to all about Quincy podcast.com and look at the show notes for this episode, episode eight. And you will be able to watch that tribute video there allaboutQuincypodcast.com, episode eight. if you’d like to check that out at any rate that was difficult. And then we had the holidays and everything like that. So it’s been a bit since we’ve done an episode and I’m excited about today’s episode because this is, this is, a local business, very local, and some folks that I have met during my walks with Zoe and Quinn, they have a dog too named Lucy, and I’m talking about Juliana and Tyler Oates.

Quincy Candles

Speaker 1: And, we were talking in the park and, you know, you just strike up conversations with your neighbors and you say, find out what they do and all of that. And I found out they are a local candle making company and they make nontoxic candles. And I said, Hey, I need to get you on the podcast. So that’s what we did. after the holidays, after they went through their Christmas rush and their Christmas break and got out all of their candles and everything like that, this is a fascinating interview because as you’ll hear in my conversation with them, there’s a lot more to it in making a candle and developing the scent of a candle and all the different aspects of a candle and why you want to have a non-toxic candle in your home. So let’s not delay this anymore. Let’s get right to my conversation with Juliana and Tyler Oates. I think you’re going to love it.

Speaker 1: Welcome back. As I said, at the beginning of the episode, my guests today are Juliana and Tyler Oates, founders of Oates Home Co. and they make non-toxic candles folks. How are you doing great to be here Thanks for having us. Thank you for being on that all about Quincy podcast. I should tell our listeners how we met and that was through walking our dogs in the neighborhood during this what seems to be a never-ending path, with your dog, Lucy and my dogs, Zoe and Quinn. And now unfortunately just Quinn, but, yeah. So see each other in the neighborhood passing. And then we just had some conversation, I think maybe it was after Thanksgiving. And we were like, well, what do you do What do you do And so here we are. And tell us about your background, how you started making these non-toxic candles and why.

Speaker 2: Yeah, it kind of started because of me. So I’ve always had breathing issues my whole life. My parents are really good and Tommy a lot about how the things in my, in our home and my body can affect how we breathe and affects the air quality that we have. That’s always been something that I’ve struggled with throughout my life is trying to create better air quality inside my home so that I can breathe. Except when you’re in COVID I think the world has gotten a little more aware of that, right We’re really careful about how we breathe. Now. Everyone’s concerned about that. So couples came out of our own need. I was really particular about the things that we brought into our home specifically for candles, and Tyler’s always loved them. Every time we found a new set that he liked, that I was like, Nope, not made with good ingredients. I’m not bringing that in finding candles that we, the sense that we wanted and then made with clean ingredients made with pure story wax oils, where the company are willing to disclose the types of oils, what was in the oils, how they were made. So we’ve been just kind of out of our own. We’ve gotten a really particular in a good way to, we know exactly where the wicks come from, what kind of cotton it is, what the cotton is treated with 10, make the Wicks and the candle like we’ve gone deep. We know

Speaker 3: I think especially, in today’s day and age, everyone is concerned about what they’re breathing in. And so I think it is very important to consider, like we were saying earlier, what sort of products you bring into your home And I think with us, I mean, what we do is everything is handmade by us. So, and in small batches, so we know exactly what’s going into that. And so that’s why, again, we are very careful in what we source while we put in. It’s not a factory that this is coming out of, that something could have mixed in. I mean, this is all made right out of our kitchen. So

Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, it’s interesting. I looked at your, I’m sorry to cut you off there. Julianna, I’m looking at your website over here on my other monitor in our comfortable, but not overly ostentatious studios here. And there’s actually a, like a pre-roll video that you’ve got of the whole process, the clothes pins, very clever, but it works. Yeah. And, and I’ll let the listener go to, as it Oates home C o.com and they can see what we’re talking about. Yeah. You can see right on your website, the process of making the candles, what did you want to say Juliana about

Speaker 2: I think for the average consumer, there’s probably three things they can really easily look forward to help make sure they’re making better choices in their candles. I think it kind of boils down to the wax that, that a candle, the oils that are in the candle and then what the Wick is made from a little things like instead of choosing petroleum, like you mentioned earlier, petroleum is a, an oil by-product and actually breathing it in as, just as harmful as secondhand smoke. So it’s a big deal to bring in a petroleum or an paraffin wax candle.

Speaker 1: So parafin is

Speaker 2: Paraffin as the same petroleum they’re both made from the oil byproduct. So choosing something like soy wax or beeswax, or even coconut wax, they beat burned, clean lean, and they don’t give off the same kind of stuff that affects our lungs. So choosing a better wax can be really helpful for people looking for healthier choices, choosing camels that will say things like Falaise free, which is a kind of disrupts our endocrine system or our hormone system in our body choosing roles are companies that specifically say we don’t include these things. You know, if somebody doesn’t say they don’t, they probably do. So just reading those labels carefully, it was always a good way to make sure you’re choosing a better product.

Speaker 1: Obviously you are interested in having your own candles for your own home. Sure. The air quality. How did this turn into a business

Speaker 3: For us Again, I’m the candle guy. So anytime we went to the store, I usually found my way into the candle section there. And, always enjoyed looking. I always like having it kind of just changes the atmosphere in your home. And especially when you have guests over just having a nice smelling home, but in terms of it becoming a business, you know, Juliana does a lot of crafting stuff on her on and, and you know, doing different things. And so we were like, well, you know, we, she used to make soaps and she makes earrings and she does all these different things. And so I was like, why don’t we make our own candles And then also just both of us working in, in, you know, corporate world and, and in business, we were like, well, if we’re making these for ourselves, we might as well make these available to others and turn that into a business. So that’s kind of how it

Speaker 1: Take the skill set that you’re using in your other work and applying it to your own benefit. I think that’s cool. The candle section, Tyler. I gotta, I gotta say that for me. What, like, if you remember walking in a mall and I won’t say the name of the right, you walk by and you go, oh my God, I’ve got a headache, all that smell green. Am I alone in that for me I suppose. It’s like, you know, I know that Disney, when you go to a Disney park and you smell popcorn, it’s because the popcorn kiosks, they have blowers and they’re blowing that smell out around them. And I’m wondering if the candle shops do the same thing, because for me it was just like, oh, I’m never, I can’t go in there. It’s just overpowering. And I’m 30 yards away.

Speaker 2: We feel the same way. We don’t even know. We don’t. I always avoid the Kendall iron stores because it does give me a headache. I feel like I always have said, you can like taste the chemicals in the air from bad produce candles. So we avoid those ones and natural candles shouldn’t have that same kind of intensity to it. Cause that’s not trying to change the particles in your air to cover them up with smells. It’s actually just giving little hints of it. It shouldn’t be replacing what’s in your air with Babson. It should just be adding a secondary sentence. So hopefully natural ones shouldn’t be as intense. A lot of that’s depending on your sensitivity.

Speaker 1: Right. And I think just like the, I’ll use a word juxtaposition of all those aromas can create a cacophony fusion in your brain

Speaker 2: And you walk past that in the mall and you just get hit in the face with all smells. Yeah.

Speaker 1: So why is it that those scents are more, what’s the word I’m looking for in a natural candle Why are they more subtle, I suppose Is it because you use fewer or a less amount of the aroma or

Speaker 2: That’s a little bit we’ve perfected our correct percentages, trying to figure out exactly what but part of it is because of how it’s chemically made. There’s nothing in it that your body is negatively responding to because it’s not changing how your body interprets new sense, like your endocrine system, which is your present your hormone system. When it smells something that’s toxic to it, your body has a reverse reaction. Even if you like it to do a smell, it smells good. Your body goes, oh, oh no, this is too much. And it kind of makes you over-interpret it. Do you smell it a lot because your body’s trying to say this probably isn’t great for you for us when it’s the less toxic ingredient, not just for us, anything that’s less toxic is going to be different because we are losing a little bit less. We’re also using cleaner ingredients that your body knows how to process like an actual oil extracted from an actual fruit or plant, but your body knows what to do.

Speaker 3: And it’s also part in part, we have our percentages, right But it’s also the education side of things is also knowing what size candle is appropriate for the space. You’re trying to, you know, fill scent with. So standard size candle is a seven and a half ounce candle. And that’s great for a standard room or, you know, either a bathroom, your bedroom, things like that. If you have a larger, more open living room, we also make 30 ounce candles, which is a three-week much larger candle. And because it has a larger surface area, it does have, what’s kind of going to the educational side. There’s something called a cold throw in a hot throw in candles gel.

Speaker 1: So I have deep here. We people want to know we’re not talking about blankets.

Speaker 3: So the cold throw is what you consider the smell when you smell a candle before it’s burned. And so if you just take off the cap and you smell it, that’s, what’s called a cold throw scent. That’s what you’re

Speaker 2: Smelling. When you walk past that unnamed store in the mall, right

Speaker 3: Okay. Not to be named. And then when you take a candle and you light it and when you can smell that candle, once you you’ve lit it and it burns in the room, that’s, what’s called a hot throw. And then there’s also a range to that hot bro. We can light a single candle in our living room, but I don’t always smell it when I’m up the stairs or maybe around the corner in the kitchen. But when I come back into this room, I can smell it. And so sometimes it’s also just finding the appropriate sized candle for that space. I know

Speaker 1: I’ve never put that together. I always thought the candle sizes were based on like the shelf size or the table size that you had available to put the candle on. Sure. Also makes perfect sense that no pun intended sense. and, yes, I play with words all day that this size of the candle would impact the range of the aroma creative from burning the candle. That is very cool. I looked at your website and I see that you make different candles. What is your most popular scent

Speaker 2: I think currently it’s one called Pamella Menta, which is a citrus mint kind of blend is grapefruit orange lemon, blood orange, a bunch of different citrus and mins. And now what I think is our current,

Speaker 3: And that was also one of the original candles we released when we first started, we originally started with what we call the which is three candles that you can also find in a bundle currently it’s Pamella Menta, we have Camelia. And then we also have Monaco three, very distinctly different smells, and sense. but I would say pomelo Menta has been definitely number one, since we’ve started, how

Speaker 1: Come up with the sense Do you just like play with different smells and say, Hey, I really liked that or, Ooh, it didn’t really well. What is your, you know, like pantry of half spent candles look like I mean, it was a lot of trial and error involved in creating these.

Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And the funny thing is not that we have titles here, we both own it, but she definitely does a lot of the business oriented things, the running our website and knowing all that sort of thing. I feel like a lot of times I end up usually making more of the sense. I would say that one’s definitely more of a team effort and making sense, but a lot of the making part is what I like to do, but a lot of it is trial and error and we sit down and we’ll look over a hundred different sorts of sense that you try and put together. And then we just come up with combinations and it’s trial and error, and sometimes we make candles that smell great, but then we tweak it maybe five, six, maybe 20 times until we get it to the specific scent we’re going for. Sometimes we get it right on the first try. And sometimes we make candles that are so bad. We never want to try making that again.

Speaker 1: how do you know when it’s just right Do you do like, you know, taste test for candles or

Speaker 2: I do a burn test. So one for like for Pramila Menta, I knew I wanted a citrus mint. So one of my favorite combinations. So we started off looking at every, or we have already know what are different combinations we could have, what percentage should be lemon or grapefruit or orange. And then you make a slightly different one. That’s tweaked by 5% with a different percentage and assign that if different one that’s tweaked by 5% different. So like how I said, we could make 20 variations of one candle, they’re all a little bit different and we kind of keep them all. So at some point we’ll do a burn test. Well, we’ll have our little testers we’re making put in a room, come back in five minutes and smell it when you blow it out, do it the next one and try to figure out what it smells better. It’s a lot of note taking. And for us, a lot of thinking about how sensors so emotional, right What do I smell from this What notes am I getting How does it feel different It’s definitely hard though to choose just one because sometimes they all smell great. And sometimes they do not.

Speaker 1: What’s the worst one that you made.

Speaker 3: We

Speaker 2: Tried like a chest.

Speaker 3: Yeah. That one was bad. It was like a vanilla Chestnut that we were trying to do for the holidays. Both of us do not the vanilla, vanilla scent. So we usually don’t go for those sorts of things. Even though it’s a popular scent, we personally just don’t like that smell. There was another one we tried, I think it was like a brown sugar whiskey candle. And that one, it was just too sweet. And it just, they didn’t go

Speaker 2: Because we’re, we mix our own. So sometimes people who make candles, just buy an oil, use that one oil hole to make a candle for us, we’re mixing our own. So one candle could have 20 different oils in it that we’re mixing in millimeter percentages to get it to the center we want. So sometimes you have two great smells, but you put them together and they don’t react well together, but it does not make it smell as great in the end. So it’s a lot of tweaking and fine tuning.

Speaker 1: That’s amazing. So this could, I mean, could it take you literally months to come up with a new candle

Speaker 3: And even, and another part of the educational of the process, I guess, is, when we make a candle, it’s not like we make it wait for it to solidify and we can burn it because we’re using organic materials of soy wax and, and you know, non-toxic oils, there’s a cure. Time is what it’s called. Typically it takes at least 10 days for a candle to fully cure until we can burn it after we’ve made it. And that’s because of the materials we use. Now, if you use back, like we were saying, the sorts of companies that mass produce things, and they’re using a paraffin wax, those after they solidify, it takes about like an hour or two for a candle solidify. You can burn it immediately because that’s all those chemicals in that that are just solidifying it. And it’s good to go with us because it’s an organic material. They take time to bind together or cure, which takes about 10 days so we can make testers, but we can’t really test them until 10 days. So then we see those, smell them, what tweaks we want to make, make a new batch and wait another 10 days. So you can see how long of a process it may take till we finally get to the round. We like,

Speaker 2: Normally it takes us a few months, at least.

Speaker 1: Wow, that’s fascinating. But I think, I don’t know. I think there’s a renewed interest in craftsmanship. I could be wrong, but I, I think people are searching for something that’s authentic, I guess is the word that I’m looking for. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong, but I’m sure. Sure. Not everybody is. I mean, cause Christmas tree shops and you know, ocean state job lot, you know, there’s plenty of market for that. My dad says this about the Christmas tree shop where the inconceivable is commonplace, like frog shaped toilet brush holder. But you know, we’re not doing that. That’s interesting. So you, you do this whole thing. You must have to take a lot of notes and tracking and spreadsheets.

Speaker 2: We got recipe spreadsheets. We have, you know, one kind of 1 cent could have 20 recipes with treat. Then we also have like the, do not ever use again, recipe spreadsheets.

Speaker 1: Well, yeah. I mean, cause if you didn’t know that you’d go, oh yeah. And then that would cost you money. Absolutely.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Material. And then the T absolutely. Right. Just to try and get the right. Interesting.

Speaker 1: I’ll share a little inside baseball, working at the radio station. You, you familiar with the band journey Yeah. Steve Perry, I had the opportunity to meet him at an event a few years ago, pre pandemic. And then everything gets referenced before or after all this stuff happened. At any rate he was talking about, he did a solo album, I think in 2018, he released it. And he was talking about how they were coming up with the track order and the order that they were going to put the songs on. And he said, I think it was number 62 B finally came up with the way we wanted to organize the songs. And it was like a 10 or 12 song CD. And I went to a friend of mine. Who’s also a music buff. And we were like, can you imagine they sat down

Speaker 1: Or he did with the people, he was co-producing that album and came up with at least 62 different versions of it. And, but I mean that, there’s a reason why he was in that band and became part of a band that became mega stars and in the rock and roll hall of fame and worldwide fans loved their music. I mean, there’s a reason why when you take the effort and your painstaking in your process that you come up with a product or service that people want. And it’s what people don’t know that goes into creating. Like if I hadn’t had this conversation with you, I figure, okay, they melt some soy wax, put a little peppermint oil and stir it up and wait for it to harden and, and put in a box. Yeah. But it’s so much more than that. Absolutely. So that’s, that’s the cool thing about my job is I get to talk to folks like you and learn all this stuff and hopefully share with people that are interested in learning more about candles and now you don’t just make candles. What else does Otoko do

Speaker 3: Yeah. So we also make room sprays. And so we do have those in all of the scents that are on the site. Now, basically our main line sends, we currently have five main line sense that are always available, but we also do what we call reserve runs. So we’ll make a smaller batch of a new scent and we’ll release that set. And once they’re sold out, they’re gone. And so we started since this past fall, actually. So October, all right, October was the first time we released them and we put those out with some of the reserve runs as well. But as of now, those are the two sort of things you can find on our site. You never know. Yeah. We’re always thinking and dreaming and creating things to expand,

Speaker 1: But it’ll be months down the road or maybe not,

Speaker 3: Who knows that’s part of it.

Speaker 1: No, that’s good. I appreciate that. So what kind of a room sense do you folks create Yeah, so there sure. It’s not like Chile

Speaker 2: But our candles are in, so it’s all the same sense just in a different product. So it kind of, again, I’m a forgetful person. So after I left the house too many times with a candle burning in the living room, you know, said, sensory sounds great. So I can make the house smell nice and not burn anything down.

Speaker 3: And you know, most people don’t have candles burning in the cup holder of their car. So this is a great way to freshen up your car. If you want to do that.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Now I’m going to ask a question it’s kind of weird. Are they all like flowery sense or are they, you know, kind of like bourbon bacon kind of sense that they are, but you know what I’m saying, got a more masculine versus feminine sense. I guess I’ll just

Speaker 2: Nick’s of the main five. There’s the citrus mint from elemental. There’s one that is a plant of a white tea, which might not mean much unless you’re like a solid tea person. It’s very light too hairy. It smells to me feels just like a spa. Like I kind of found the script, clean, fresh scent. We have one called Monaco, which my, my sub kind of description is like a really rich guy who lives near the beach.

Speaker 3: That one’s a little more on the masculine side. However, that is also, I’ve had people call it the sleeper candle where they’re like, you know, I bought the bundle and I wasn’t expecting to like Monaco as much, but then it becomes their favorite. And it does have what some may call a masculine scent, but it’s nice. And we have,

Speaker 2: It’s just really fresh outside,

Speaker 3: Really clean outdoorsy smell.

Speaker 1: That sounds cool. Yeah.

Speaker 2: One of my favorites that’s, what’s on our car, it’s our car smell. And then last one we themed, it was a really named after actually Newport at the city Newport or the street themes. And it’s really Amber heavy. So was ever again a masculine sense,

Speaker 1: Amber heavy. What do you mean by that?

Speaker 2: Amber is a, an element like the mineral as well as a stone that has a very round smooth sentence often found like men’s colognes. It didn’t sound alcohols. Like a whiskey sentence can have an Amber undertone. it’s a weird sense to describe unless you know what it is. It’s a little sweet and round is how the scent world would

Speaker 1: Describe it.

Speaker 2: It’s you know, we have weird

Speaker 1: That’s okay. I mean, how do you describe a smell as either bad or why like that

Speaker 2: I bring someone, you can smell it and see if you smell the roundness.

Speaker 1: Very cool. So where, if, if people want, obviously it’s OT home code.com, that’s O a T E S home C o.com. But are there retail locations where people can find your product

Speaker 2: We’re mostly online. You can find us on Instagram and Facebook. we’ve been in a few different boutique stores around Rhode Island and Massachusetts. I think both of them are, I know at least one of them is currently not open to the public because the covenants all online. Sorry. No, I think most of our retailer partners are all kind of focusing on online trying to sell foot traffic with some of the changes lately, but you can always find them on our website for sure.

Speaker 1: And you’re right here in Quincy. How did you folks wind up in Quincy

Speaker 3: Yeah, I was going to say, so I actually grew up in Pennsylvania. She was like born in Georgia, raised in Florida, but had family in Newport. She lived all over, but we both attended college in Quincy. We went to a small school called Eastern Nazarene college and that’s where we met. And then when we got married, we stayed up here and as they say, the rest is history

Speaker 1: And here you are in quizzy. Well, this is the all about Quincy podcast. And when I found out you have a local business here, that’s what this show is about, is to talk about the history and businesses in a Quincy and highlight them. And just, I mean, I think it’s cool to hear the story behind the process that you both go through to create your products for people. You told me that the co what, what is a Comella Menta is the pomelo

Speaker 2: Menta.

Speaker 1: That’s the PA that’s the, that’s your top seller right now

Speaker 3: Yeah, probably our top seller. Yeah. So that’s Spanish for grapefruit mint, Pomella, Menta.

Speaker 1: Very cool. And, they can order online if they want to. Is there anything that you want to share before we say goodbye

Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, we’re also pretty active on Instagram. A lot of times you can find educational resources there. A lot of times, a lot of the stuff we shared today is usually things that we like to highlight or feature on our Instagram page as reminders, how to maintain candle care. You know what to look for the education of what goes into candles, things like that. And a bunch of really nice photos.

Speaker 2: The rest is just helping me, helping people make better choices. That’s what it’s all about, right? We want to enjoy our life and like our candles that choose better things to help us live healthier, better lives.

Speaker 1: You know, one question I did want to ask is, so you use a soy-based wax. How do we know that that is safe and healthy

Speaker 2: So all waxes, the FDA has done a bunch of tests on waxes. I’ll have as have most universities at this point. So the wax that we use is certified organic, which helps us know how the wax was grown, how the soil specifically was grown. And so itself is a product that if you have a severe soy allergy, maybe you choose a different wax, but for most of the population, it’s the same. When soil is burned, it doesn’t produce the same level of sickness. There’s lots of research studies. We’re happy to link some, if anybody has any questions yet trust, happy to share the links to those. But when you do a burn test at like a chemistry lab, whatever it’s called, when you can literally see the released, if anyone, you can do a kind of a test at your own home, if you have a paraffin candle, as I used to have, once upon a time, I noticed that if I’d burn it somewhere, you know, maybe on a table next, not touching a wall, but near wall. When I moved it, I could literally see sweat on the wall. I could literally what was coming off of my candle.

Speaker 1: I figured that’s what happened. It

Speaker 2: Shouldn’t be. So that is a little bit normal, right Anything that’s burned, produces carbon. That’s how Adam work, but so racks, it’s not going to do that because the wax itself, isn’t creating soot. It’s just a natural soot, released from the pure cotton being burned, which that’s normal. But the story in the wick, right Soy, wax itself, doesn’t actually produce it.

Speaker 1: Interesting. See another nugatory nugget for the treasure trove of trivia

Speaker 2: Hours of studying.

Speaker 1: See, but that’s the thing. That’s what people don’t know. They just say, oh, look at these candles. They smell amazing. I want three, but they don’t have the backstory, but I always liked the backstory. So I want to thank you for sharing that story with me today. I appreciate that.

Speaker 2: We can talk about candles.

Speaker 1: Really. What’s one more thing that you want to share

Speaker 2: Once upon a time used as currency in the Roman empire, a few thousand years ago, it’s your light to tell you heat your food. It’s how you do everything. They were commonly traded good and could be used as currency with different countries trading. Cause they made out of different things. You could have made them out of whale tallow. If you lived up in Alaska and were, you know, a native person there and the things you make them out of from different places became kind of a trainable. Good. I want to see what other countries make their candles out of. So it became a trading option for country.

Speaker 1: It used to be made from like animals, hats and things like that. Where a lot of times Really Yeah. That’s yeah. You know that I have beehives and you do anything with bees wax in your candles.

Speaker 2: I’m dead before beeswax is actually the most sustainable option for wax. It’s very hard to get and it’s pretty expensive. And it’s a little bit harder to solidify because the wax molecules itself and these blocks are really tight. So it’s harder for the oil molecules to settle in and amongst them. so for us, we chose our wax because the price point readily available, it’s a cheap organic product and we wanted it to be made sure that was organic and grown in America. The wax were uses all grown here in America from American soybeans. But beeswax is a great option. Definitely something someday, nobody maybe we’ll get into other kinds of wax come or come looking for your bees.

Speaker 1: Now it was the cotton and the wicks grown in the U S too.

Speaker 2: It is. Yep. It’s organic cotton. There’s no lead. There’s no metal lining to the Wick. Sometimes that can be a concern. Wicks made in other countries might have a very thin, like a hair of led lining to help support it. But lead is obviously

Speaker 1: Poisonous to people

Speaker 2: In America. Candle wicks can’t have led, but wicks made in other countries shipped into America can. So our cotton wicks are made here in America. There’s no metal lining. There’s no lead and there’s no zinc in them. Like it’s a hundred percent only cotton braided into a wick.

Speaker 1: You know, I bet most folks listening would have no idea that there is possibly a little sliver of lead in the wick and their candles that they have in their homes. And so if you’re listening and you want a healthy candle and you’re into candles, I would invite you to go to Oates home co.com. That’s O a T E S Home C o.com. Again, thank you so much for taking time to be here today. Thank you so much, John. Appreciate it. All right. Well, that’s it for this episode of the all about Quincy podcast. I want to thank you for listening. Hey, if you know of someone, maybe it’s yourself. That is a business owner, a historian, something neat going on in the community, an unsung hero in the city of Quincy. We want to hear about it. If you think you should be on the show, or if you think of someone who should be on the show, we want to know, just go to all about Quincy podcast.com, click on the contact button in the upper right-hand corner and fill out your name, email address, and a short paragraph of why this person should be on the show.

Speaker 1: We would love your suggestions anyway, until next time. Thanks for listening. And I’ll talk to you real soon. Take care.

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