Mother-daughter duo’s candle business is on fire

Some seven years ago, Megan Schweppenheiser and her daughter, Ella, began selling homemade play slime at the farmers market as a hobby. But then, “parents kind of caught on to what a nightmare slime was,” Megan said.

They somewhat randomly chose candles as a replacement. Years later, they’re on track to sell those candles nationwide.

“It was funny because we kind of picked it and I thought to myself, ‘Oh, how hard can it be to make candles?’ Oh my gosh,” Megan said. “Such a learning curve, but it was very interesting … It just kind of snowballed from there.”

The two Schweppenheisers are co-founders of Snoqualmie Valley Candle Co.

Megan runs the business full-time and Ella, who is 17, helps out when she isn’t busy with academics. Since 2020, they have taught themselves candlemaking and now sell 25 scents across 20 stores, Megan said. The Schweppenheisers frequent farmers markets and makers markets to sell their candles, as well as stock them in local stores such as Birches Habitat, The Black Dog Arts Cafe and the Carnation Farms farmstand.

“People throughout the Snoqualmie Valley have been unbelievably supportive,” Megan said. “Everywhere from Salish to Carnation Farms … we’ve just been so lucky to have people just love our product and support us tremendously.”

Several of their early scents are still sold today, like Salish Sea Spray (notes of ozone, sea salt and clean warm sea air), Rattlesnake Sunset (raspberry, ylang-ylang and vanilla) and Damn Fine Coffee.

“People just kind of love the scents as they are, so we really haven’t had to do much tinkering with the fragrances we kind of originally developed,” Megan said.

The Schweppenheisers source all of their ingredients as locally as possible, including their wax. The candles are made 100% of soy wax — as opposed to the traditional paraffin wax — and have cotton wicks. They’re scented with a combination of fragrance oils and safe-to-burn essential oils, and are free of things like phthalates, parabens and petroleum.

Megan noted that her husband has a sensitivity to many scented items, but not Snoqualmie Valley Candle Co. candles.

“We wanted to take our time to come up with a product that was clean burning, essentially, for people and as friendly to the Earth as possible,” Megan said.

So far, Snoqualmie Valley Candle Co. has a Pacific Northwest line and a Snoqualmie Valley line, as well as some seasonal holiday scents, like Harvest Pumpkin, Cascade Winter Forest and Washington Orchards. They also have Dog Mom and Dog Dad for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

Currently, they’re working on a National Parks line and have already released some scents themed after Washington national parks. There’s Mount Rainier Stratovolcano with notes of orange, patchouli and cedar; Olympic Coastal Rainforest with notes of bergamot, mint and moss; and North Cascades Waterfall with notes of citrus, mint and basil. In the new year, the line will expand to add 15 more parks.

Testing is important to the Schweppenheisers, who made lemonade out of lockdown lemons in 2020, and dialed in on their candle making. They test thoroughly for fragrance, performance and safety.

For the most part, Snoqualmie Valley Candle Co. has sold 8-ounce jar candles, but the Schweppenheisers have made limited batches of larger candles for various events, and recently added 13-ounce jars to the permanent lineup. Any time there is a change in candle size, that means a whole other batch of testing, Megan said.

“Every candle that you see … probably has behind it 10, 12, 14 candles before we got to that candle,” Megan said. “You want a candle that burns like it smells, and you also want a candle that burns safe, so we’re always kind of doing testing on our end.”

The testing hasn’t turned out to be a deterrent to Megan, who runs the business out of her home in North Bend. Next year, she is hoping for more business when she gets the Snoqualmie Valley Candle Co. website up and running. That way, they can more easily sell directly to customers and shoot for a worldwide reach.

“I would say, in the last couple years, we’ve really said, ‘OK, this is something that we can do,’” she said. “Now we just have to kind of regroup and figure out exactly how to go about the next step.”

Where to buy Snoqualmie Valley Candle Co.

Snoqualmie Valley Candle Co. can be found at several markets this season. They will be at No Boat Brewing in Snoqualmie on Nov. 30; Pickering Barn in Issaquah on Dec. 1; Si View Community Center in North Bend on Dec. 7; and North Fork Farm in Snoqualmie on Dec. 7-8.

Aside from Valley locations, Snoqualmie Valley Candle Co. can be found in Made in Washington stores, as well as a few local REI Coop locations.

For more information, find @snoqualmievalleycandlecompany on social media.