Scentileigh – candlemaking for the senses

Operating out of her home in Maraval with tools that her husband Adriel Salandy bought for her, Tonya-Leigh Salandy created Scentileigh – a scented-candle line.

Salandy said her husband, who is a photographer, is the reason she began making candles for sale.

“While he’s editing his pictures, he likes to light a candle. So, we were grocery shopping a day together and he went to the aisle with candles and picked up a prayer candle. So I asked, ‘What are you going to do with that?’ and he said, ‘Well, I just light these when I’m editing so it’ll make me feel relaxed.’”

She said the bright colour of the candle threw her off and so she promised him that she’d make one for him with no knowledge of candlemaking. After doing some research, she came across a fall-themed candle-making kit that produced 12 candles.

Salandy then gave her husband one of the candles and the remainder to her mother and aunts. After they told her how much they loved it, she decided to make this a part-time hobby.

“Into the pandemic with nothing much to do, I ordered more things and played around with candle-making. Then my husband asked, ‘Why not try making this into a business since you’re enjoying it so much and people are liking it?’ That’s how it started.”

As for the locally themed names of her candles, Salandy said she wanted something that people of TT can relate to and can connect with.

Some of her candles have names such as Tobago Love, Mango Season, Granny’s Grapefruit, Coffee Peong, and Doux Doux Darlin’.

“Some people think Tobago Love represents the meaning of the term, where you like someone, but there’s a pull-and-tug kind of vibe and you’re not sure if they like you or not. For me, it just embodies my love for Tobago, so it has a dual meaning.”

Tobago Love has a tropical smell, and this is because when Salandy thinks of her love for Tobago, she immediately thinks of the beaches, the sun and the sand. She said she wanted the smell to encompass all those aspects as well as make people feel calm like she does when she goes on her Tobago trips.

As for Doux Doux Darlin’, while she was experimenting with her essential oils, she found a scent that reminded her of a baby hence the name. And there's Coffee Peong.

“In Trinidad, when you’re obsessed with something like fellas who like to game a lot, we’d call them a gaming peong. So I said there are so many obsessed with coffee like can’t start their day without coffee, so I created Coffee Peong.”

On to Mango Season, which is Salandy’s favourite season of the year and of course, favourite scent.

“I am obsessed with mangoes, my grandmother Shirley, when I was very little had a Julie mango tree in her front yard and every mango season we would just go. Sometimes we didn’t even have lunch, we would just eat the mangoes all day.”

She said every single scent has a story behind it that stemmed from her personal life or an experience she had making each candle more valuable and meaningful.

Salandy added that her scent Granny’s Grapefruit also comes from her grandmother who passed away a few years ago. She said she wanted a scent to remember her and thought of the grapefruit juice she’d get from her grandmother.

She has many more locally inspired candle scents and bottled essential oils with reed diffusers for those who may be adamant to have candles burning in their homes. These bottled scents come with the reed diffusers.

Salandy gave Business Day an insight into how much it costs to produce one candle. She said the jar she uses costs US$25 and since it holds eight ounces of wax which is estimated to be around US$26. As for the essential oils, she said it costs around US$28 while the label is TT$3 and the box customers get their candle in is TT$5.

She added that she also uses a US$80 pot to melt her wax and uses a US$45 scale to weigh the wax. She also uses a US$6 wick cutter and her scented candles retail at TT$160.

As for the future of Scentileigh, Salandy plans to expand into even more scents and refine the existing scents in the process. She explained that in candle-making, over time a person’s palette may become refined and scents that they would’ve liked before would become basic and the drive to make it extraordinary kicks in.

“What I plan to do every year is refine each scent, maybe add a different note in, and try to add something to change it a bit.”

She hopes to see this expansion in 2023 and when she isn’t carrying out her duties as a human resources and administrative assistant, she is ordering and experimenting with other essential oils to make new scents.

Her products can be purchased on her website at https://scentileigh.company.site/products/.