We were lucky to catch up with Mehwish S. recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Mehwish, thanks for joining us today. Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job?

As a regular person I think we all end up working for regular jobs, working for someone, specially because we don’t know what else could be done. I was the same. Since having kids, I always wanted to use my time to grow as a professional & all I could think of was to work for someone, as a school teacher (which in my opinion is the most convenient job as a mother), as a sales person or to go back to school to learn something else that I could pursue. It was a very depressing phase I remember, & I have also tried getting my hands into multiple things while I was doing my job as a home maker.

2020 I had my third child, my daughter, the soul of my soul (Alhamdolillah) & the next year I was learning a new hobby of making candles. A lot of people suggested that I turn this into a business after 6+ months of my trial & error with different products and a lot of self learning. My husband was the one ordering equipment & encouraging me to take it seriously. I have a lot to learn yet & there’s so much work that requires more of my time & attention but with all the baby steps, we’ll get there insha’Allah.

I feel very privileged to have found something that I love, find value in & truly inspires me with each candle light because a regular 9-5 might have never fit into my lifestyle anyways. We homeschool our kids, we eat home made meals & we are pretty basic people. If I did not make candles, I would have done something else in the genre of art definitely, & it requires a heart that has the desire & will to create not just a deadline. Our candles are made the same way, consciously.

Mehwish, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am Mehwish, candle maker at Naba & Co. Candles. I am a full time home maker, a home schooling mom & a part time small business owner. I started this business January of 2022 after pursuing candle making as a hobby & got a lot of attention as one of the first few Muslim candle makers in North America, whose focus is faith based candles. We launched at our local mosque & were instantly loved & appreciated for the kind of labels & the variety of scents we offer. Soon after we got to participate at a Muslim Market where we launched our Ramadan & Eid Candles & that was life changing. We sold a lot & it felt like there was a void in our market & we fit in the right spot. Most of our candle lovers are returning customers who come back for their favorite scents time & again.

Our candles are consciously made with the right intentions, as I truly believe in the power of intention, words & their manifestation through what we surround ourselves with. These candles are hand poured, made in small batches, are highly inspected for quality of raw material & are clean & safe to burn. I think I take pride that the choice of material is never compromised regardless of other cheaper options. We purchase most of our stuff from certified companies in the US. We would always want to encourage zero waste, no plastic & environmental friendly approach with our brand.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

It dates back to the year 2021, the year followed by the pandemic when we were experiencing lock downs & less public interactions. As a new mom & a home maker I was blessed enough to spend a lot of time at home with my family & fortunately had time on hand to pursue a hobby. I was just experimenting with waxes & wicks to refill my empty candle jars. I felt pretty intrigued by the process of melting the wax, adding a fragrance of my liking & having a control on what I put into it, how it looks & how it smells. The ability to have access to a variety of fragrance oils was so fascinating to me that I kept making a new candle every now & then. In fact I ran out of the few jars I had with my experiments & had to invest into buying those supplies. Next biggest experiment was with waxes & I knew I wanted to keep it clean. It took a while & a few bucks to finally land on the outcome that looked smooth, felt clean & ticked all the qualities I was looking for in my final product.

Candle making like any other creative task involves a lot of learning, experimenting & testing & that is a cycle. I have self learned the process & it is no rocket science. Anybody who puts a few hours into learning such a skill can definitely do it but we are diverse as people, our likes are different & not everybody enjoys the same taste of coffee or same scent of a candle. So I thought I could do it for the people who like the kind of candles I prepare, with the intention I want to incorporate in, with the finest raw material that I want to be very conscious about & the vibes that I want my product to carry. I make my candles at home, in my candle studio, they are mostly made in small batches & there is absolutely no compromise on the quality. Finding accredited companies for all the supplies & raw material took some devoted research & I feel like I have finally landed on a few that I can count on.

Practice is what makes a person improve & there is a lesson learnt at each step of the process.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I think besides being a clean & environmental friendly product, it would be the fact that we are a faith-based business & our products are totally aligned with our values, is our distinguishing feature. Our candles are labelled with duas (prayers), adhkar (sacred phrases), names of holy personalities & words from arabic, urdu & persian languages that are heard & spoken often & also hold a lot of association with our religious beliefs.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://nabacandleco.etsy.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/naba.and.co?igsh=MWdrbXFxdm03eHVwbg%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

Image Credits
All pictures are captured by my husband or myself