Red Hill Candle Co. founder Ebony Flett worked in tourism for her local council on the Mornington Peninsula and, while she found the place to be a haven of activities and experiences, she noticed something missing.
“There wasn’t anything that focused on the sense of smell,” Ebony, 37, tells WHO for our WHO’s The Boss spotlight on business owners and entrepreneurs. “It’s such an important sense and it was something being forgotten.”
She started thinking about how she could service that gap and settled on creating a candle-making experience like no other.
“I started by learning how to make candles, but I had a 10-year plan of what I would build up to with a space for workshops and then multiple spaces,” she explains.
Nine years in and she’s already hit so many of those goals with her company Red Hill Candle Co. So much so, she was able to quit her full-time job a few years ago, and her husband, John, 41, as well as 15 staff are now also on board.
“It started small, pouring candles in my spare time and selling them at the market but we quickly built up a name for ourselves with big wineries and stockists picking us up,” she says. “In March 2020, we signed the lease on our bricks-and-mortar store.”
As it turned out, the start of lockdown was not an ideal time for this, but Ebony rightly says if they could survive COVID, they could survive anything. And, incredibly, they came out fighting.
“We fitted out the space for retail and workshops, and we did $10,000 the first day,” she says. “Then, when the workshops started selling out in advance, I knew we were OK.”
The workshops run for 45 or 90 minutes, and give participants the chance to create their own uniquely scented candle. They have expanded to include reed diffusers, room spray and car freshener creations, too.
Kids can come for a school holiday camp or people can hire out the space for a private candle-making party, and Ebony says that’s been an overwhelming success.
“We’ve seen over 15,000 people through our doors,” she says. “I love it when we see repeat customers. One lady has been four times. It brings such a level of joy!”
Being featured on the Nine Network travel show Postcards brought an influx of customers and Ebony says making a candle on Channel 7’s Sunrise was another highlight. But, even as the candle side of her business grew, there was one area Ebony still wanted to explore.
“I wanted to do perfume but we were always too busy, until I decided to rip the bandaid off. I thought, ‘When will we do it if we don’t do it now?’” she says. “It was the natural progression and we knew it was what people were looking for.”
Despite all their experience, it was still a 12-month project, which is only now coming to fruition. “We sold out on pre-order and we got 50 stockists straight away, including four international airports,” Ebony says, explaining they have developed a completely different set of scents to the ones used in the candles.
As well as selling their pre-made scents, Red Hill Candle Co. will also have workshops where people can create their own perfume. “We’re proud to bring the first destination perfumery to the Mornington Peninsula,” Ebony says.
Of course, this doesn’t mean the end of her plans, and she’s looking at lots of ways to keep the business growing.
“Next year we’ll develop a new collection of perfume and refine the candle collection,” she says. “We haven’t taken the business international yet, but I’d never say never.”
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