If you love crafting and candles, then I have the perfect activity for you. This past weekend, I got the chance to go to The Candle Lab in Lawrenceville. What is The Candle Lab? It is a Do-It-Yourself Candle store that lets you create your very own scent for a candle the size of your choosing. You can either book ahead if you have a large party or just walk on in. Right as you walk through the door, a wave of fragrance hits you. The smell is a little overwhelming (in a good way, if that’s possible), but you quickly get used to it.
Once you’re inside, you get handed a clipboard by one of the employees. They instruct you to pick out a size jar for you candle, but I skipped that step because the group I came in had already pre-purchased a certain size. However, there are a variety to choose from at the store. After that, you’re off to smell all the different scents offered by The Candle Lab. The scents are all displayed along a wall, each scent having a different set of candles for you to sniff. The clipboard has a piece of paper on it that helps you keep track of which scents you like, and would potentially want to use in your candle. That’s when the whole experience really becomes fun. They had over a hundred scents, all organized alphabetically, and some scents I have never even heard of before. Anjou Pear? Wassail? Yuzu? I wrote down the ones I liked, quickly slammed the lids back on the ones I didn’t, and managed to come up with a list of about ten scents that I liked.
Once I finished sniffing the different scents, I sat down at a table in the middle of the store. A employees came over, and started asking me about what type of scent I wanted. I had no idea, so she helped me piece together a scent by picking a combination of three on my list that would go well together. It was really neat watching them explain what went well together, and how certain smells would go better with one another than others. Finally, I managed to make a decision and got down to work. I got handed the oils of each scent, and was instructed to squeeze as much of each oil into a little bowl in front of me. You kind of get to feel a bit like a mad scientist during this part.
When I filled my bowl to the top with my oils, after going back and forth on which one I wanted to be my dominant scent, one of the employees brought over my candle jar full of hot wax. She had added a wick, so my little jar was starting to resemble the candle of my dreams (an exaggeration, but I was still pretty excited). I got to dump in my oil mixture, and watch it swirl around in the hot wax. This is when I really started to feel like a mad scientist. Then, it was all over. My candle had to cool, so I walked around Lawrenceville (which has some really cool shop and eateries) before getting to take my candle home. So, if you do ever make the trip, account for the wait time from finishing your candle to it cooling.
All in all, it was a really fun experience. It was unlike anything else I had done before, and I got a customized candle out of it (mine actually turned out pretty decent). It’s not the cheapest activity in the world, the smallest candle costing a number in the mid-teens, but a fun experience that I would recommend for any DIY or candle aficionado.
Photo Credit: Author’s own