What tariffs have meant for holiday candle sales

This is a busy time of year for any store that sells candles, especially scented ones. The global candle market is huge, worth billions of dollars, according to the National Candle Association. The group also says that more than a third of all yearly candle sales happen over the holidays. But the industry's peak season is burning a little differently this year because of tariffs. NPR's Henry Larson reports.

HENRY LARSON, BYLINE: Ferzan Jaeger is a former NASA physicist who now runs the District Candle Lab...

FERZAN JAEGER: We have, like, a wall of fragrances here. That's, like, 64 fragrances.

LARSON: ...A shop where people can make their own scented candles for about 50 bucks a pop.

JAEGER: So there's the woody family, there's the fruity family, there's citrus.

LARSON: If you want to get into the scented candle game, you need three things - jars, wax and fragrance. All three have been affected by tariffs this year, and Jaeger says that's made things harder for her business.

JAEGER: Going into November and December, a lot of our raw material was out of stock, and for many candle businesses like mine, holiday season is the peak of what we're going to sell.

LARSON: The first thing in her candle operation to be hit by extra duties? - jars, the things that hold the candle wax and the fragrances. Jaeger gets hers from overseas because they're cheaper, but they cost more now.

JAEGER: Candle jars are probably the most expensive component of the whole process because they're heavy, because shipping costs a lot.

LARSON: In February, the Trump administration placed tariffs on Canadian and Mexican products, including candle containers. Chinese containers got stuck with a tariff as well, but those duties later changed and then changed again, meaning the price for retailers kept changing, too.

JAEGER: Imagine you as a consumer coming to a candle store, and one day your candle is $50. The next day, it's $65. The next day, it's $52. That is also not sustainable, and you wouldn't want to go to that business anymore.

LARSON: And small businesses aren't the only ones affected by the president's trade policies. Kathy LaVanier is CEO of Renegade Candles, a company that manufactures candles for retailers across the country. She says duties on fragrances have proven to be the most burdensome.

KATHY LAVANIER: They're not just something that we can get in the United States. We don't grow all the various crops that are required for all these beautiful scent components. We've had to do a little bit of cost increasing and retail increasing in candles to make up for that. So that has been the toughest thing, I think, we've managed this year.

LARSON: Jaeger, the local business owner, buys her fragrances from U.S.-based laboratories.

JAEGER: Cuban tobacco is a really nice one. I do like the smoked vanilla whiskey. This is one of our best sellers.

LARSON: But she says U.S. labs still use foreign plants and chemicals, so their prices are up too. Another tariff casualty this year is soybeans. Jaeger uses American-grown soy in her candle wax.

LARSON: And the price of that commodity has fluctuated a lot this year as well, as the trade war between the U.S. and China ramped up. Even the most devoted consumers are feeling the heat. Ashley Wellbrock (ph) practices law in Boston during working hours, but she's also something of a candle fanatic.

ASHLEY WELLBROCK: All in all in this apartment, there's maybe, like, 120 candles in total. It sounds insane when I say it. I know it is.

LARSON: Wellbrock says she's noticed prices are on the rise. That means she's thinking about tapering off her candle purchases in the new year.

WELLBROCK: Even somewhere like Canada now, where it was, like, a buying from Etsy shops or whatever it may be out of the country now, I'm like, oh, do I want to do this - because am I going to get hit with a tariff bill when it comes in?

LARSON: LaVanier, the national manufacturing CEO, says luxury candles and budget candlemakers have been able to absorb some of the cost increases. Demand is still high in those areas, but products in the middle of the spectrum aren't doing as well.

LAVANIER: I think people have shifted around their buying behavior and what they're selecting to buy a bit.

LARSON: And in Washington, D.C., candle store owner Ferzan Jaeger is feeling the economic uncertainty, but she's also not letting it get the better of her.

JAEGER: It is a decent holiday season. It's hard to explain. It feels a little bit uneasy.

LARSON: Henry Larson, NPR News.

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