We recently connected with Lauren Yarina and have shared our conversation below.

Lauren , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How do you think about vacations as a business owner? Do you take them and if so, how? If you don’t, why not?

My vacations are technically work vacations. I usually like traveling to fun shows to sell my candles. To make it more enjoyable, I try to either arrive a day early or stay a day or two after so I have time to see a new city, check out an acclaimed restaurant, or just go sightseeing. It doesn’t always go as planned, but I have met some incredible friends along the way. Of course an added bonus is getting into a storefront to have a presence in several cities along the East Coast. Oh and the tax write off. Let’s not forget about that!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I come from humble beginnings like most small, local businesses. I simply made a great smelling candle for a friend going through a rough time. A mutual friend owned a restaurant and loved the candle so much he asked if he could start selling it there. The Raleigh Convention Center somehow got wind of my candle and invited me to produce them for musicians who would perform at Red Hat Amphitheater. Never in my wildest dreams did I think a “pick me up” would turn into a business!

After testing, testing, and more testing I decided to strictly sell 100% soy candles with fragrance that I designed myself. Before I was a Chandler (candle maker) I was a candle connoisseur. I wanted something that seemed to be missing from the industry. So once I narrowed down my unique fragrance collection, I focused on the aesthetic.

We all love a great candle scent, but what about when the only color of wax it came in was not our home decor color palette ? I decided to hand paint my candle jars and allow for custom colors so you can proudly display your candle. I also decided to use crackling wooden wicks for the added ambiance. Wooden wicks can be tricky for new users so friendly reminder, just as you should trim a cotton wick before each burn, you should do the same for wooden wicks.

The candles used to come with these beautiful hand carved and hand burned lids but the price of wood absolutely skyrocketed. Reluctantly, I had to pivot and now I proudly include really pretty (and really convenient) velvet pouches that can be reused to carry anything you can fit in it.

Certainly my attention to detail sets me apart from the masses. I like to keep things new and fresh and exciting. To bring attention to the art of scent, I reached out to some amazing tattoo artists and burlesque dancers for a candle collaboration. This project is called Wicked X Collective and will launch Fall 2023! It’s a provocative take on the sensuality of beautiful aroma.

My social media is a mix of my candles, tattoo art, fun bloopers, and my pup- Zac. You can find me on Instagram under WickedandWoven. Occasionally I’ll drop a little video on Tik Tok also under WickedandWoven.

My hope is that I have piqued your interest and you check out my candles. I accept full responsibility for the love you will have for these AMAZING scents and if you need help picking a few out just let me know! You can find them at Www.WickedandWoven.com
For those who think they will be a good fit for your store, feel free to reach out.

It’s very important for me to end this on an appreciative note. To those who have supported my small business with BIG dreams over the years, THANK YOU! And to those who will be supporters in the near future, Thank You too! I am always so thankful for people who stop to support small and local. It means so much to all of us small business owners!

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

My side hustle has not turned into a full time career just yet. My full time gig is a sex crimes detective. Yes, you read that right. My priority is to bring justice to the survivors of these crimes and they are the only reason I have remained in law enforcement. Over the years, the time it takes for me to make a candle has become kind of therapeutic for me. Sometimes I work in silence and get lost in my thoughts, other times I blast music and get lost in songs. What I have found interesting is the interaction I have with all of you is always positive. At shows it’s common to hear compliments on my candles, compliments on the aesthetics, laughter over my candle names which leads to great conversations, and the list goes on and on. Happiness is not very common in my main line of work, so even hearing giggles and laughter is rewarding to me.

Maybe when I retire I will focus on candle making full time, but until then, I will rally for survivors of sexual assaults and work as hard as I can to bring them justice.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Recently I was working with a HUGELY popular and loved tattoo artist. I was so stoked she had agreed to design a candle for the Wicked X Collective line. The fragrance she had designed was one of the most challenging I have had to facilitate. Over the course of several months and numerous adjustments, the candle scent was born. I thought that was the most difficult part of our relationship but I was wrong. This artist had designed a beautiful label, but as I was receiving designs from other artists I quickly realized the line lacked cohesion.

I ended up designing my own labels and sent her the finished product….. which she strongly disliked…. probably hated if I’m being honest. I had not properly considered how she digested my decision and I believe I lost her as a collaborator.

You must be resilient as a small business owner so I revamped the labels again to include more original artwork from the artists themselves. Hard lesson learned, but consider me schooled.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.wickedandwoven.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wickedandwoven/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wickedandwoven/
• Other: Tik Tok www.tiktok.com/@wickedandwoven