The decision to switch to plastic lids

2020 was such a unique time to start a small business. Everyone was stuck at home, looking for a side hustle or hobby. Turns out, we weren't the only ones that thought of candle making. A LOT of people opened new small candle shops all over the place. Candle making supplies have been so in demand and in such short supply since last Summer. Jars, lids, wax, wicks, all of it. If I could do it all over again, I might've just opened a candle supply shop :P

As many of you know, when we first opened last year, we started with mason jars. They were easy to find at any store. Going into fall, the canners started canning and the jars disappeared from the shelves and became extremely expensive and hard to find online. This was a real struggle at the time but I'm really grateful for that because it forced us to evolve. We ended up going with the straight sided jars that we currently use. We have 3 backup suppliers in case 1 falls through so we never have to deal with that again. 

Now, for the lids. My candle vision for our brand, has a black metal lid. The jars we currently order come with plastic black lids and they don't sell the metal. So, we had to source those from a different supplier. Besides the fact that now, I'm recycling 100s of plastic lids a month for no reason and adding $ onto the cost of the finished product, the metal lids also have stock issues. During the Summer months all we can do is order any black lid we can find. Never matching. Never the same. In the Winter, we can't find ANY because ALL chandlers are ramping up production. We ended up trying to spray paint gold lids and that was a total failure. Lids are the only iffy item that I need to settle before winter.

To keep costs down, as the price of everything candle related is shooting up, and so I can stop chucking these things into the recycling bin, and stop stressing about them being out of stock, we've decided to stick with the plastic. They look good. They serve their purpose. They can (and should) be recycled along with the jars and the clamshell containers. So, that's why we made that decision. Please let me know if you have any questions or any input at all. I'd love to hear it!