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New Vendor Spotlight: Queer Candle Company

Now that the rush of spring is in the rearview mirror, and summer is upon us, Seguin Gardens is able to slow down and look forward to the rest of the year. We are going to do a shout out to some of our suppliers, and tell a bit of their stories. As a small business that provides jobs for individuals with various disabilities, and is a part of a larger social service agency providing services and housing to people with developmental disabilities, we are naturally drawn to small, unique and perhaps less well-known vendors. We try to be a fun, welcoming resource to our communities who support us. In addition to trying to source locally, we also look to people who reach out to support others.

 


Right now we would like to introduce one of our newest vendors, Queer Candle Company. Each of their candles uses soy wax, which burns cleaner and longer than paraffin. Each candle is topped with a visual representation of the scent---be it herbs, fruits or salt rocks. Their fragrances are fresh and non-toxic.


As a member of the LBGTQ+ community, Ab and El donate 10% of their monthly earnings to the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a NYC organization working to "guarantee that all people are free to self-determine gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race." (Find out more at www.srlp.org).


Every candle you purchase from us not only helps us provide jobs to the individuals we serve, it also helps us create a welcoming and inclusive environment for our community, and helps another small business, as well as a non-profit organization that helps other communities in need.


Here is the rest of their story, in their own words:

We're Ab (they/them) and Al (she/her), and we started Queer Candle Co. as a passion project in the summer of 2018. The previous holiday season, Ab had given Al a candle making kit because they thought she was spending “too much money on candles from Target” (they were correct). We started making candles together as a hobby, and a few months later, we decided to start selling the candles to friends and family on Instagram via DMs.

After selling out of our initial inventory in less than 24 hours we realized that our side hustle might actually have legs! Since then, we have continued to handcraft our soy wax candles in unique and botanical fragrances, learning lots about running a business along the way.

For the first two years, we ran QCC out of our tiny Washington Heights kitchen. By the time the business had taken over our entire space (we were storing supplies in every room of the apartment, bedroom and bathroom included…), we decided it was finally time to move into our first dedicated workspace. We moved our lives and candles to Brooklyn just as the pandemic hit in March of 2020. In June of 2021, we expanded again and added a second production space in Philadelphia.

Cheers!
Ab & Al

image of two people, owners of queer candle company, sitting in front of a window with samples of their candles on the surface next to them

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