We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tiffanie Cole. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tiffanie below.

Tiffanie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

I started my business initially because I have always wanted to work for myself, in order to have full control of my time and how much money I made. During covid, my job offered time off with a % of your salary so i decided to take them up on the offer. As I sat at home, I decided it was time for me to embark on my entrepreneurial journey. I began looking online for different businesses to start and came across candle making. I decided that sounded like fun, and went straight to YouTube University as I call it, and started researching. The more I learned, the more excited I got about starting. I found groups on Facebook, along with Google, that helped me learn the steps to starting my business, and all the technical parts of candle.

As I started my company, life took me down some pretty dark roads, and it helped me find direction and purpose in my business. Pampering my customers in luxury and self care is my top priority. Life has taught me that self care should definitely be our number 1 priority. In the hustle and bustle of life, it has become so easy to lose ourselves in our family, being a parent, at work, and so many other things. Making time for ourselves and knowing that we are worthy of that time is very important to living a healthy life. Finding ways we can fit in self care in our daily routines can be tricky, so I aim to provide you with ways to conveniently, and effectively give yourself that “me time” that we all deserve.

Tiffanie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I started my business initially because I have always wanted to work for myself, in order to have full control of my time and how much money I made. During covid, my job offered time off with a % of your salary so i decided to take them up on the offer. As I sat at home, I decided it was time for me to embark on my entrepreneurial journey. I began looking online for different businesses to start and came across candle making. I decided that sounded like fun, and went straight to YouTube University as I call it, and started researching. The more I learned, the more excited I got about starting. I found groups on Facebook, along with Google, that helped me learn the steps to starting my business, and all the technical parts of candle making.

During my learning process over the years, I had 2 children. This brought my husband and I a total of 5 children. 1 lives out of state with her mother and comes to visit, so we have 4 that live with us year round. Our last 3 children are all very close together in age. We had a newborn, 1 year old, and 2 year old. Our son Legend, the 2 year old at the time, has autism and is currentlynon verbal. I say currently non verbal because we believe that he will speak. Our life working with him and caring for two smaller children was, and is, extremely challenging. Legend is our only child with special needs, and learning to navigate around his challenges, and parent other children, while trying not to neglect anyone’s needs was extremely difficult. Legend has aba therapy 4 days a week, speech therapy 2 days a week, and he attends the local public school where he is in pre k. My life began spiraling out of control. I was pulled in so many directions with trying to get my business started, working with a child with special needs, tending to infants, and being a wife. I found myself falling into depression and heightened anxiety. To make things even worse, I found out I had thyroid cancer and would have to undergo surgery.

I had never found myself at such a low point, and I didn’t know how I would get myself out of it. During surgery, the ENT made the decision that my entire thyroid had to removed due to the severity of the cancer. I had to put my business on hold as I tried to figure out how to live life with no thyroid. I found myself in the hospital due to my calcium dropping too low, to the urologist because all the calcium they had me on began affecting bladder, to doctor appointments about extreme anxiety, dangerous thoughts, and so much fatigue I could barely take care of my family.

I did my best to work on my business as much as I could here and there as I tried to balance family and health. After 3 endocrinologist changes over the course of 2 years, I had finally found some relief in my thyroid hormone balance. I started feeling a bit better and had more energy to press into my business. I am a creative and find solace in creating beautiful things. I began looking at my business differently. I was struggling mentally and found that as I tapped more and more into my creative side, I began to find that “calm” in my mind that I so desperately needed. When my world is crazy, which is almost all the time having 3 toddlers at home and being a stay at home mom, working on my business is my peace. I found a group on FB called Bubble Babez University, that has been pouring into me mentally as a woman, as well as guiding, assisting me, and holding me accountable to my personal and business goals. I realized that I had lost myself and the only way to get my life back on track was to start pouring into myself 1st and making my wellbeing my top priority.

I started getting back to self by finding ways to fit self care into each day. Prayer, meditation, lighting a candle and just closing my eyes for a few minutes, taking a hot shower, and any little thing I could find to give myself small breaks throughout the day. I didn’t think taking time for myself was beneficial. If I was taking time for myself, then it would mean i am taking time away from other things that I deemed important. I had to change my mindset. The more I ventured on this self care journey, I knew exactly what I was supposed to do in my business. I needed to help others find ways to provide self care conveniently and in luxury because we all deserve it! We all derserve a break, we all deserve nice things that make us feel good, and we all deserve to be pampered in our love language, and the products i create allow us do so. With this in mind, I started to expand my candle line into soaps and fragrances, and poured more intention into the direction I wanted my company to go in. I rebranded my business and changed the name to 4th & Parc Candles and Home Fragrances, which is inspired by my children. PARC, is the 1st letter of their middle initials.

I hand-pour wood wick candles that give you the soothing crackling sounds of a fireplace, bubble massage exfoliation bars that provide you with a mini massage and exfoliation with each shower to help relax tired muscles and exfoliates dead skin to reveal radiant skin, oatmeal and honey soap for skin the tends to be a bit dry, luxurious body fragrance roll ons to give you a boost of self confidence with lavish aroma, car diffusers to make your chariot the center of discussion, room and linen spray to enhance the aroma, and mood of any sized space, and foe those that prefer the scent of a candle, but not the flame, I also create wax melts for your wax warmer. I’m also in the final stages of providing you with brown sugar body scrubs that will be available by next week.

I am continuing to pour into myself in learning how to better my brand, effectively market my brand, and creating innovative products to assist others on their self care journey.

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

I hand make all of the products I make. When I 1st encountered the idea of making candles, I thought, I can do that. Just pour some wax, fragrance, and stick a wick in it and be done! Boy was I WRONG! Lol Candle making is a science, and not an exact one. There are hundreds of different sizes and series of candle wicks. They are made from everything from wood, to cotton, to zinc, and even hemp. And there are even more types of waxes. There is everything from soy, to coconut apricot, paraffin, hemp, virgin coconut soy, beeswax and so many more. I was overwhelmed at first trying to figure out where to start. Once I decided on a wax, and that I wanted to try my hand at wooden wicks, it took me over a year to create a candle that burned safely and had good scent. Candle making is not an exact science so it takes time to find out what works for you. You can do the exact same thing that someone else says works for them, and it won’t work for you, that’s how finicky candle making is.

The biggest lesson I learned is there is no black and white way to make a candle. I had to rune everything out and just find out what would work for me. Once I found what worked for me, I gave to friends and family to get feedback and they love them. If I would have kept listening to all the things in the variety of groups I am in, I would probably still be testing over 2 years later.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

The FB group Bubble Babez University has been invaluable to me. Nikkie has given us so many books to read that has helped me and my business immensely. A few of my favorites are: Eat That Frog Brian Tracy, Atomic Habits by James Clear, Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller, War of Art by Steven Pressfield, and 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Stepen R. Covey

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.4thandparc.com
• Instagram: Www.instagram.com/4thandparc
• Facebook: Www.facebook.com/4thandparc

Image Credits
Marcus Kendall Fitts