Breaking the Mold: The Business of Candles
Candles have gone a long way - from a mere lighting device during the medieval times, they are now a basic part of home design and ornament of the good life.
Leah Puyat (Leah pronounced as Li-ya, like in the bible), one of the managing partners of Cereo, first-rate retailers of one-of-a-kind candles and scents is a walking vogue statement. “I come from a background of fashion and lifestyle magazines, that’s why I have a strong fashion background,” she said, thus the candles modishly displayed in their Glorietta shop, which all look stunning and stylish even if they were all just silently shelved.
Now that Cereo is on its sixth year, Leah can’t help but smile. She blushes a bit after subconsciously doing the Math. She concludes that even at this hour, the competition in the industry continues to become more gung-ho and cutthroat, but at the same time, it remains a good avenue for staggering ideas and enhancing the mold.
“The industry is very competitive and very much alive. But I can recall that the welcome of the consumers when we first started was very overwhelming,” explained Leah, “After all, when I first told my family about the business, they asked how a store of all candles can survive.”
The answer, a few years later: three branches-in Alabang Town Center, a small store that owns a hidden nook concept that gives shoppers a sense of discovery; in Trinoma, an English library-inspired alcove complete with ladders, shelves and books; and in Glorietta 4, deliberately industrial and minimalist, relevantly making the candles the real stars of the show, so to speak. And in Greenbelt 5, early next year.
But it’s not the stores that play sovereign to their success, of course.
The idea of establishing a candle store started one Christmas, when Anton Barreto (one of the four partners of Cereo, along with Angela Calero and Atty. Anna Katigbak Lim) and his friends all gave each other candles. He then realized that candles-both for their function and aesthetics-are a growing sector of home design and decor. He studied at the Technology Livelihood and Resource Center (TLRC) where he learned to experiment with dyes, designs and molds. A few months later, he started selling out of his house-making the candles in his backyard and selling them to friends and neighbors.
And one morning, one of his clients invited him to have a retail store in an Ayala-owned mall. Still in between jobs then, Anna, Angela and Leah jumped at the chance and the rest, as we all know, is history. At present, Anton is responsible for the designs and product development, Angela and Leah manage the stores and Anna is their legal and finance specialist.
From Anton’s backyard, their production division has now become a livelihood program. Leah continued, “We set up a factory in a sitio in Muntinlupa and all of our employees are from that sitio so they all don’t incur transportation expenses and everything we make in the store goes back to that livelihood program. When people ask us why we charge what we charge for the candles, it’s because each layer in every candle is hand-shaped and hand-poured. The scents are specially formulated to work with wax and they’re all made by hand.”
The large candles made up of at least lo layers shaded differently-take three to five days to make and at any given time, each store’s stock room is crammed with 500 candles-of all shapes and size-at most.
Ultimately, Cereo’s candles are divided into two categories: the basic and the intense. Their average sized basic candles (packed with unbasic scents) have a lifespan of 200 hours. In principle, double the size, double the lifespan. The intense candles, which are placed in transparent glasses, bear that name because of their strong and powerful aromas, which in turn would equal to faster charring. In principle, the more intense the scent, the faster it burns. The big intense candles last for 100 hours.
Their existing lines include the Sunset (combination of dark and light browns, caramels and other dark pantones), Rainbow (made up of the essential ROYGBIV mishmash), the pinks and the yellow, among others. Nowadays, they’re extensively promoting through word-of-mouth their room and linen sprays and body scents further expanding their success to extreme heights.
The scents, according to Leah, have also evolved from simple to intricate. She continued, “Consumers used to be happy with the unfussy whiff, but now, we have anise, jasmine and lotus to complement their tastes. We also customize candles according to their preference. Some shoppers like to be unique and look for their signature smell and color.”
And this is where Leah rubs on her expertise on all of fashion’s glitters and gold. She said, “Every process in the business is collaborative-from the design to the scent. From our existing inventories, we study what colors are strong and we make variation on the color combination. A few years back, when the oriental trend was strong, we did a lot of oriental. We had Chinese dragons, Chinese coins and monks embedded in the candle. But now, minimalism is becoming highly-flavored. People are moving towards the simpler designs.”
Cereo’s clientele is as varied as their shelve displays. This includes celebrity Lucy Torres, who has their biggest candle-the Giant which has nine wicks; and other celebrities like Boy Abunda; Kris Aquino and Cacai Velasquez. But their first client, she gushes with pride, was socialite and philanthropist Lizzie Zobel, who Leah remembers, knocked on their door when they were still sweeping the floors and gearing up to open officially.
Her keen eye on consumer trends construe that candles are not as trend driven as some people mistake them to be. Because the products cater to households and homes, the demand is straightforward. Housewives and housekeepers are simply on the lookout for what’s new and what’s home friendly.
She added, “I’ve noticed that before, most of them say that it’s just for decoration, but now they go, ‘Oh, I’m going to put this in the bathroom so I can use it, or I’m going to place this on the bedside’, all of them looking for their own spa moment. It’s more of a private thing now. The candles are moving from living rooms and parties to bath and bed rooms. I hear that from clients a lot. It’s becoming more of a private pleasure than a public statement.”
