Last remaining stock • In 4 active carts right now • Only 10 left

Marilyn's Handmade Candles

Marilyn's Handmade Candles

check_circle Ships within 2–3 days

check_circle 90-day return policy

check_circle Insured & free shipping with tracking

Marilyn Crandall
Handcrafted by Marilyn Crandall — Millersburg, Ohio
★★★★★ 4.8 (342)
Marilyn's Handmade Candles

Marilyn's Handmade Candles

$35.00
$35.00 $70.00
SAVE $35 Sold out
Marilyn Crandall — Hand-Poured Candles · Product Information
✦ ✦ ✦

Poured by Hand in One Shop in Millersburg, Ohio

Marilyn Crandall, 68. She has poured candles at the same bench since 1987 — one room on Jackson Street, one pair of hands, somewhere past 66,000 jars. Eight scents, numbered in the order she got them right. This is the last of them. Her landlord of thirty-nine years died in February, the new owner renovated the front of the building and tripled the rent, and she hands the keys back on September 30th. There is no second workshop.

"My mother wore the same drugstore cologne from 1961 until she died. They discontinued it in '85 and she was gone in March of '86, and what was left in the bottle was about half an inch. I couldn't bring myself to wear it. So I tried to rebuild it instead — a year of evenings, a scale and a spiral notebook. Formula No. 1 went into a jar in the spring of 1987. Seven more came out of the same notebook. These are the last of them."

— Marilyn Crandall, Crandall Candle Works · Millersburg, Ohio

What You Receive

Everything That Ships With Your Jar

✦ THE CANDLE ✦

Your Hand-Poured Jar

9 oz, roughly 55 hours. Coconut-soy blend, cotton wick, amber apothecary glass with a screw-on metal lid.

✦ YOUR SCENT ✦

Eight Formulas Available

Rose, Lavender, Black Vanilla Truffle, Gardenia, Bamboo Green Tea, Misty Forest, White Tea & Ginger Flower and Line-Dried Linen.

✦ THE MARK ✦

Numbered in Pencil

A batch number and pour date written on the base of the glass in Marilyn's hand — plus a short note from her.

✦ GUARANTEE ✦

90 Days + One Year

90 days money back, burn half of it if you like. Plus a full year against tunnelling, sinkholes and a dead wick.

✦ ✦ ✦

The Eight

Which One, and What It Is For

People have burned scent for effect for a very long time — incense in temples, herbs in sickrooms, lavender folded into a linen press. That is what aromatherapy meant long before it had the name, and these eight were built inside that tradition rather than around a fragrance chart. As Marilyn puts it: "A house doesn't want the same thing at seven in the morning that it wants at ten at night. That's the whole reason there are eight. It was never a range. It was a day."

✦ The Comfort One

No. 1 — Rose

The oldest scent in the book, and the one she was trying to rebuild from her mother's bottle. Not the soap-aisle rose — closer to cut stems in water than to perfume. Rose has been the comfort note in aromatherapy for a thousand years: the one kept for grief, for homesickness, for the days that need softening.

Burn it whenYou want the room to feel kind. Anniversaries, hard weeks, the evening after a long day you'd rather not talk about.

✦ The Evening One

No. 2 — Lavender

The wind-down scent, and the most used in aromatherapy anywhere in the world. Hers is dried lavender rather than fresh — closer to a linen press than to a garden in June, which is what makes it settle a room instead of filling it. The signal that the day is being put away.

Burn it whenThe last hour before bed. On the kitchen table or the side table by the sofa — never on a nightstand, and never left unattended.

✦ The Warm One

No. 3 — Black Vanilla Truffle

Warmth without a bakery. Dark, slightly resinous vanilla rather than the sugary kind — vanilla is the comfort note of the whole range, the one that makes a room feel occupied and settled rather than merely scented. It is also the least likely of the eight to be actively disliked by anybody.

Burn it whenThe house is cold and the evening is long. Sunday afternoons, and the half hour before guests arrive.

✦ The Lift

No. 4 — Gardenia

The big white flower, and the lift in the range. Gardenia is the one used where the mood wants raising rather than lowering — it is generous, unmistakably floral, and it fills a room faster than any of the other seven. If you want people to notice from the hallway, this is the one.

Burn it whenGrey afternoons, February, and any room that has been shut up too long.

✦ The Clear One

No. 5 — Bamboo Green Tea

Green, dry and clean — the clarity end of the range. The tea-house register: no sweetness, no powder, nothing that sits heavy in the air. Where the others soothe, this one clears. It is the scent most people are surprised to find they use most.

Burn it whenMornings in the kitchen, or at a desk when the head wants to be clear rather than soothed.

✦ The Grounding One

No. 6 — Misty Forest

Pine and wet earth. This is the forest-bathing note — the scent that makes an indoor room feel like it has weather in it. Cool rather than cosy, and the only one of the eight that reads as outdoors. October in a jar.

Burn it whenAutumn, rain against the window, and any time the house feels too closed in.

✦ The Light One

No. 7 — White Tea & Ginger Flower

The lightest of the eight, and the gentlest lift. Built deliberately restrained — for people who find most scented candles too much, and for rooms where the air should feel fresh rather than perfumed. One of the three Marilyn recommends to anyone sensitive to scent.

Burn it whenSmall rooms, bathrooms, guest rooms — anywhere a full-strength candle would be overpowering.

✦ The Clean One

No. 8 — Line-Dried Linen

Sheets off the line. Not a mood scent at all — an order scent. It doesn't smell like a candle, it smells like a house that has been dealt with, which is a different thing and the reason people who dislike scented candles tend to keep one of these anyway.

Burn it whenAfter cleaning, after cooking, and on the morning somebody is coming over.

✦ ✦ ✦

Why This One

Six Things You Won't Find on a $12 Jar

The loudest complaint in this entire category is that a candle smells of nothing once it is lit. Everything below exists to answer that one sentence.

✦ The Number

10% Fragrance Oil — Printed on the Label

In the United States a candle carries no ingredient-disclosure requirement at all. Nobody has to tell you how much fragrance is in the jar, so essentially nobody does — and fragrance oil is the most expensive thing in a candle, which makes it the first line anyone cuts. Marilyn has printed hers since 1994. Go and look at the candles in your cupboard: not one will have a number on it.

✦ The Ceiling

10% Is the Maximum, Not a Midpoint

It sounds small only if you read it against perfume. Perfume evaporates off skin; a candle has to hold the oil inside solid wax and give it up slowly for hours. Container wax will not carry more than about 10% — push past it and the oil weeps to the surface, the wax softens and tunnels, and it gathers at the flame. More oil past that point gives you less scent, not more. The number cannot be beaten. Only undercut.

✦ The Wait

Fourteen Days of Curing Before It Ships

Wax has to bind to the oil before it will release it. A jar poured today and shipped tomorrow smells of almost nothing when you light it, no matter what went into it — and fourteen days is the cure the wax makers themselves specify. It costs nothing except time nobody wants to spend, which is exactly why almost nobody spends it.

✦ The Blend

Coconut-Soy, Not Straight Soy

Straight soy holds fragrance well enough sitting on a shelf and gives it up poorly once it is lit — which is why so many "natural" candles disappoint. The coconut in the blend is what carries the scent across a room. Cotton wick, no dye, and nothing else in the jar: the wax, the wick, the oil. That is the entire contents.

✦ The Vessel

Amber Glass and a Lid That Screws Down

Fragrance oils degrade in light — apothecaries used amber glass for exactly that reason, a century before anybody wrote a design brief. And the lid screws down and seals, so between burns the scent stays in the jar instead of evaporating off the wax on a shelf for three weeks. That is the second-quietest way a candle dies, and almost no one guards against it.

✦ The Burn

Burns Flat, Right to the Glass

It reaches the edge on the first light and keeps a flat pool after that — no crater down the middle, no ring of wax welded to the side that you end up digging out with a spoon. Correctly sized wick, correctly cured wax. And it is underwritten: one full year against tunnelling, sinkholes and a wick that will not stay lit.

✦ Chandler's Note

"Ask any candlemaker why a jar smells of nothing and they will tell you the same two things: not enough oil, and not enough time. Both are cost decisions. Fragrance oil is the single most expensive input in a candle, and a fourteen-day cure is fourteen days of stock sitting in a room instead of on a shelf earning. A maker who does both — and prints the load where a customer can check it — is doing the two things the industry has quietly agreed not to do. You can smell the difference from the doorway, and that is not a figure of speech."

Ruth Beckwith — Chandler, 24 years · Formerly of the Great Lakes Chandlers' Circle

Where It Goes

Made For These Corners of the Day

✦The Hour Before Bed ✦Mornings in the Kitchen ✦The Desk or Home Office ✦Before Guests Arrive ✦After Cooking ✦Living Room & Side Table ✦A Gift for Mom or a Friend ✦Housewarming ✦Refillable Jar Afterwards
✦ ✦ ✦

Quality Promise

Five Things You Get With Every Jar

✓
Poured by Marilyn, Thirty Jars at a Time Measured, poured, capped and labelled by Marilyn herself in the same room she has worked in since 1987. No production line, no second pair of hands, no contract pourer. Somewhere past 66,000 jars, and the same two hands in every one of them.
✓
The Fragrance Load Printed Where You Can Check It 10% — the ceiling for this wax, not a midpoint. It is on the outside of the jar because it is the one number that decides whether a candle works, and it is the one number the category never prints.
✓
Fourteen Days on the Rack Before It Leaves the Room Poured, racked, dated in pencil on the base, and not touched until day fourteen. There is no way to hurry it, buy past it, or explain it to somebody who wants stock by Friday.
✓
Numbered by Hand — and Sold in One Place Only A batch number and pour date in pencil on the base of the glass, in Marilyn's handwriting, on every jar since 1987. Look-alikes have turned up on the big marketplaces and are hard to tell apart in a listing photo. Two things are not faked: the pencil on the base, and a printed fragrance load. A seller cutting the oil will not print the number.
✓
430 Left — Final Run, No Reorders Roughly 430 jars remain on the shelves, uneven by scent because she poured to order for thirty-nine years and never once poured to a plan. Gardenia and the vanilla are the shortest. When the keys go back on September 30th there is no second workshop and no restock.
✦ ✦ ✦

90 Days Money Back · One Year on Performance

If it isn't right when it arrives — the throw, the scent, anything at all — send back what's left within 90 days for a full refund. Burn half of it first if you like. No questions, no forms, one email is enough. The deadline on the workshop does not change this.

And the performance guarantee runs a full year: if it tunnels, sinks, or the wick will not stay lit, it is replaced or refunded. Both are honoured by Marlow Market Co., which stays open after the 30th — Owen holds money back against the guarantee for exactly that reason. The shop outlives the workshop by a year, on purpose.

✦ A Note From the Workshop

Marilyn pours in batches of thirty and signs off on every jar before it ships. Small variations between batches are normal in work done by hand — a pour a degree warmer, a cure day longer, a scent a shade deeper than the last one. That is not a fault; it is how you know a person stood there and did it.

If you are the one who has to leave the room when somebody lights a candle, say so when you order. Three of the eight are noticeably lighter than the rest, and Marilyn will tell you which. Nothing in the jar but the coconut-soy blend, a cotton wick and the fragrance oil — no dye, which is why the wax is the colour wax is.

First burn matters. Let it run two to three hours the first time, until the melted pool reaches the edge of the glass. Wax has a memory: if the first burn stops short, every burn after it will tunnel down the middle. Trim the wick to about a quarter inch before each light, and screw the lid back on when it has cooled — that is what keeps the scent in the jar between burns.

The Details

Product Specifications

Wax Coconut-soy blend, hand-poured in batches of thirty
Wick Cotton, single, sized to the vessel for an edge-to-edge melt pool
Fragrance Load 10% by weight — the maximum this wax will carry — printed on every label since 1994
Cure Fourteen days on the rack before the jar leaves the workshop
Contents Coconut-soy blend, cotton wick, fragrance oil. No dye, nothing else
Available Scents No. 1 Rose · No. 2 Lavender · No. 3 Black Vanilla Truffle · No. 4 Gardenia · No. 5 Bamboo Green Tea · No. 6 Misty Forest · No. 7 White Tea & Ginger Flower · No. 8 Line-Dried Linen
Size 9 oz (approx. 255 g)
Burn Time Roughly 55 hours
Vessel Amber apothecary glass — amber because fragrance oils degrade in light
Lid Screw-on metal lid, seals between burns to keep the scent in the jar
Marking Batch number and pour date written in pencil on the base, in Marilyn's hand
First Burn Two to three hours, until the pool reaches the glass. Trim the wick to ¼ inch before each light. Never leave a burning candle unattended
Afterwards Wash the empty jar in warm soapy water; the glass and lid are meant to be kept and reused
Use Evening wind-down · Mornings and the desk · Before guests · After cooking · Gifting
Maker Marilyn Crandall — Crandall Candle Works, Jackson Street, Millersburg, Ohio. Pouring since 1987
Final Run About 430 jars remain — no reorders; the keys go back September 30th
Sold By Marlow Market Co. — the only place Marilyn's candles are sold
Guarantee 90-day full refund, no questions · one-year performance guarantee against tunnelling, sinkholes and a dead wick
check_box

The Final Sale

Message from the Artist:

After years of making things by hand, our workshop is closing. These are the last pieces we'll ever ship. Every item on this page was made slowly, carefully, and with more love than any factory could replicate. Nothing rushed. Nothing outsourced. Just real craft from real hands.

We're proud of every single one. We hope they find good homes.

When they're gone, they're gone — and so are we.

check_box

Shipping with UPS / USPS

Free shipping across the United States

- Delivery time: 7–14 business days
- Insured: Every package is fully insured

🌳 Carbon-neutral shipping with UPS / USPS

View full details

800+ Happy Customers

Excellent 4.9

What Marilyn's customers are saying

I ordered on a Tuesday and it was on my porch Friday morning, which honestly
surprised me because I expected the usual two weeks from a small shop. Everything
was wrapped in paper, no plastic, and nothing was broken. I lit the Rose in the
kitchen that afternoon and could smell it in the front room within about ten
minutes. My daughter walked in an hour later and asked what I was baking, which
is not what rose smells like but I understood what she meant.

Verified

Roberta M., Sioux Falls, SD

I was hesitant because I had never heard of them and the shop is brand new, so I
ordered one instead of the four I wanted. That was a mistake and now the vanilla
is nearly gone. It burns about five hours at a stretch, the flame stays put, and
there is no black mark on the glass at all, which every candle I bought at the
store last winter had by the second week. I sent a message asking about the
guarantee and a real person answered me the same day.

Verified

Deneen R., Ocala, FL

I ordered four and these two live on the coffee table now because I go back and
forth between them depending on the evening. The Gardenia is lit in the photo and
it had the whole downstairs going within about fifteen minutes, which I did not
expect from something sitting that low in the room. The Misty Forest next to it
has had the lid screwed on for eleven days and when I opened it this morning it
was every bit as strong as the day it arrived, so whatever that seal is doing, it
works. You can see the wax on the burning one is completely flat out to the glass
with no crater and no ring left on the sides.

Verified

Bonita K., Lawrence, KS

This is my hallway about four minutes after I got home, I did not even put my keys
down first. I ordered four on a Sunday night and they were here Thursday, all of
them wrapped in paper with nothing rattling around and not a chip on any of them.
The one I unscrewed right there on the floor was the White Tea and Ginger Flower
and I could smell it before I had the lid all the way off, unlit, standing up.
Four is the limit they let you buy and now I understand why people are annoyed
about that.

Verified

Roxann H., Youngstown, OH

I ordered on a Tuesday and it was on my porch Friday morning, which honestly
surprised me because I expected the usual two weeks from a small shop. Everything
was wrapped in paper, no plastic, and nothing was broken. I lit the Rose in the
kitchen that afternoon and could smell it in the front room within about ten
minutes. My daughter walked in an hour later and asked what I was baking, which
is not what rose smells like but I understood what she meant.

Verified

Roberta M., Sioux Falls, SD

I was hesitant because I had never heard of them and the shop is brand new, so I
ordered one instead of the four I wanted. That was a mistake and now the vanilla
is nearly gone. It burns about five hours at a stretch, the flame stays put, and
there is no black mark on the glass at all, which every candle I bought at the
store last winter had by the second week. I sent a message asking about the
guarantee and a real person answered me the same day.

Verified

Deneen R., Ocala, FL

I ordered four and these two live on the coffee table now because I go back and
forth between them depending on the evening. The Gardenia is lit in the photo and
it had the whole downstairs going within about fifteen minutes, which I did not
expect from something sitting that low in the room. The Misty Forest next to it
has had the lid screwed on for eleven days and when I opened it this morning it
was every bit as strong as the day it arrived, so whatever that seal is doing, it
works. You can see the wax on the burning one is completely flat out to the glass
with no crater and no ring left on the sides.

Verified

Bonita K., Lawrence, KS

This is my hallway about four minutes after I got home, I did not even put my keys
down first. I ordered four on a Sunday night and they were here Thursday, all of
them wrapped in paper with nothing rattling around and not a chip on any of them.
The one I unscrewed right there on the floor was the White Tea and Ginger Flower
and I could smell it before I had the lid all the way off, unlit, standing up.
Four is the limit they let you buy and now I understand why people are annoyed
about that.

Verified

Roxann H., Youngstown, OH

I ordered on a Tuesday and it was on my porch Friday morning, which honestly
surprised me because I expected the usual two weeks from a small shop. Everything
was wrapped in paper, no plastic, and nothing was broken. I lit the Rose in the
kitchen that afternoon and could smell it in the front room within about ten
minutes. My daughter walked in an hour later and asked what I was baking, which
is not what rose smells like but I understood what she meant.

Verified

Roberta M., Sioux Falls, SD

I was hesitant because I had never heard of them and the shop is brand new, so I
ordered one instead of the four I wanted. That was a mistake and now the vanilla
is nearly gone. It burns about five hours at a stretch, the flame stays put, and
there is no black mark on the glass at all, which every candle I bought at the
store last winter had by the second week. I sent a message asking about the
guarantee and a real person answered me the same day.

Verified

Deneen R., Ocala, FL

I ordered four and these two live on the coffee table now because I go back and
forth between them depending on the evening. The Gardenia is lit in the photo and
it had the whole downstairs going within about fifteen minutes, which I did not
expect from something sitting that low in the room. The Misty Forest next to it
has had the lid screwed on for eleven days and when I opened it this morning it
was every bit as strong as the day it arrived, so whatever that seal is doing, it
works. You can see the wax on the burning one is completely flat out to the glass
with no crater and no ring left on the sides.

Verified

Bonita K., Lawrence, KS

This is my hallway about four minutes after I got home, I did not even put my keys
down first. I ordered four on a Sunday night and they were here Thursday, all of
them wrapped in paper with nothing rattling around and not a chip on any of them.
The one I unscrewed right there on the floor was the White Tea and Ginger Flower
and I could smell it before I had the lid all the way off, unlit, standing up.
Four is the limit they let you buy and now I understand why people are annoyed
about that.

Verified

Roxann H., Youngstown, OH

I ordered on a Tuesday and it was on my porch Friday morning, which honestly
surprised me because I expected the usual two weeks from a small shop. Everything
was wrapped in paper, no plastic, and nothing was broken. I lit the Rose in the
kitchen that afternoon and could smell it in the front room within about ten
minutes. My daughter walked in an hour later and asked what I was baking, which
is not what rose smells like but I understood what she meant.

Verified

Roberta M., Sioux Falls, SD

I was hesitant because I had never heard of them and the shop is brand new, so I
ordered one instead of the four I wanted. That was a mistake and now the vanilla
is nearly gone. It burns about five hours at a stretch, the flame stays put, and
there is no black mark on the glass at all, which every candle I bought at the
store last winter had by the second week. I sent a message asking about the
guarantee and a real person answered me the same day.

Verified

Deneen R., Ocala, FL

I ordered four and these two live on the coffee table now because I go back and
forth between them depending on the evening. The Gardenia is lit in the photo and
it had the whole downstairs going within about fifteen minutes, which I did not
expect from something sitting that low in the room. The Misty Forest next to it
has had the lid screwed on for eleven days and when I opened it this morning it
was every bit as strong as the day it arrived, so whatever that seal is doing, it
works. You can see the wax on the burning one is completely flat out to the glass
with no crater and no ring left on the sides.

Verified

Bonita K., Lawrence, KS

This is my hallway about four minutes after I got home, I did not even put my keys
down first. I ordered four on a Sunday night and they were here Thursday, all of
them wrapped in paper with nothing rattling around and not a chip on any of them.
The one I unscrewed right there on the floor was the White Tea and Ginger Flower
and I could smell it before I had the lid all the way off, unlit, standing up.
Four is the limit they let you buy and now I understand why people are annoyed
about that.

Verified

Roxann H., Youngstown, OH

Freqquently Asked Questions

check_box

Got a question? Here's how to reach us.

My wife and I personally respond to every single email — as fast as we possibly can. Whether you have a question about your order or just want to talk craft, we're here.

You can reach us:

  • Mon – Fri: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM (CT)
  • Saturday: 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM (CT)

Email: info@craftfolk.com

check_box

Can I return my order if I don't like it?

Of course. We stand behind everything on CraftFolk 100%. If you're not happy, neither are we. Just shoot us an email within 90 days and we'll make it right — no hassle, no headaches.

check_box

How are your products made?

Every single product on CraftFolk is 100% handmade — crafted by hand, using only premium quality materials. We're proud to carry on a tradition of craftsmanship that has been passed down through generations.

  • local_shipping

    Free Shipping

  • diamond

    Long-lasting & High-Quality Materials

  • favorite

    90 Days Guarantee

  • handyman

    Echte Handwerkskunst