03-05-2025
A family hobby grows into a passion and business
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Summer and Frederick Adams are the owners of The Candle Shop in Tupelo, Miss.
TUPELO – During the summer, the children of Frederick and Summer Adams spent about an hour every Saturday visiting local barbershops.
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The Candle Shop has expanded its assortment. It also sells body oils, burner oils, waxes, dough bowls, body butters and more.
The store is open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday. They'll also ship: a flat rate of $9.99 takes their scents anywhere.
For more information, visit the store's Facebook page at Adams CandleShop.
Their pitch: selling candles to the shops so they could earn some money to buy games for their PlayStation.
Mom and dad had already been selling candles as a side gig, so the kids decided to give it a try themselves.
"They were able to work it up to 17 barbershops," Frederick Adams said. "Then one day, we were walking in the mall, and my daughter said, 'I want something like that, Bath and Body Works.'"
But rather than opening a store in the mall, his daughter found a small space in the West Main Shopping Center that looked promising. They even went as far as getting the glass cut for shelving for the candles.
"I said we needed to talk about it; who were your employees going to be? At the time she was doing track with the high school and the boys were doing travel baseball," Frederick said.
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The Candle Shop is located in the West Main Shopping Center in Tupelo, Miss.
As it turned out, it became a family business, and after eight years, The Candle Shop has expanded its customer base.
"It all started out part-time and a bit of a hobby, but now it's our passion and part of our family," Frederick said.
They were selling candles wholesale, then they decided to buy the rights from a company to pour the candles.
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The Candle Shop has a variety of scents.
"They actually came to our house and taught us how," Frederick said. "That was about four years ago when we started pouring the candles ourselves.'
Their candle pouring facility is their garage. All told, the shop has 23 scents and is working to add more.
The candles come in 3-ounce and 11-ounce glass jars.
"It's a lot of work," Summer said. "We have to heat the wax, and that takes about an hour, then after it gets to a certain temperature, we're able to pour. Then depending on the customer's needs, the scents are what we'll pour."
During the pouring process, the wicks are set into the candles.
Once that's done, the candles are left to set and dry.
"Pouring candles is a lot harder than people think," Frederick said. "There's a lot of precise measurements. She does the measuring, and I do the pouring."
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The Adamses make the candles they sell themselves.
"We're usually up until 1 in the morning or later," Summer said.
The pouring process now takes about three late nights each week. With the spring and summer festival season, The Candle Shop takes part in as many events as possible to sell their candles. They also set up monthly at the Tupelo Flea Market.
Holidays also mean ramping up production: Christmas, Valentine's Day and Mother's Day are the busiest.
Among all the scents, Kudzu is the most popular. It mimics the sweet, grape-light scent of the real vine.
"And kudzu just grows on the side of the road, serving no purpose," Frederick said. "But the candle does."
The Adams family would like to expand The Candle Shop into other locations. In some aspects, they have laid the foundation for expansion: The Candle Shop uses a van to service some of the barber shops the children reached out to years ago.
"Our daughter is graduating next year with a business degree, so we'd like to look at franchising to other cities,' Frederick said.
