The Studio
Orange County, California · Founded 2022
Every candle is poured by hand at 1401 North Batavia Street.
Not sourced. Not white-labelled. Not drop-shipped from a catalogue somebody else prints. Poured, cured, labelled, boxed and shipped from one building in Orange, California — the same building that answers the email.
That matters more than it sounds. A candle is a simple object, which means the only places it can go wrong are the wax, the wick, the pour and the person who checked it. We kept all four in one room so there is nobody to blame but us.
- Studio
- 1401 N Batavia St, Orange, CA
- Wax
- 100% California soy
- Wick
- Single cotton, 40-hour burn
- Fragrance
- Phthalate- and paraben-free
- Ships
- Next business day, free
How one gets made
The wax goes in warm. California soy, melted and held at temperature, then scented and poured into a nine-ounce jar with the wick already centred. Pour too hot and the surface cracks as it sets; pour too cool and it never bonds to the glass. There is a narrow window and we hit it by hand, jar by jar.
Then it sits. A soy candle needs to cure before it will throw scent properly. Ours rest flat until the top is even and the fragrance has settled into the wax rather than sitting on it.
Then it gets its sentence. The label is printed with the phrase, the scent number and the design code, and applied straight. That last part is not automated either.
Then somebody looks at it. Every jar is checked before it is boxed — for the pour, the label, the lid. The ones that do not pass do not ship.
What never changes
Why there is a code on the label
Look at the bottom corner of any James Wax label and you will find something like F861, G033 or L033. That is the design code, and it is the most useful thing on the jar.
It is how we keep hundreds of designs straight in a studio where forty of them might be on the bench at once. It is how a wholesale buyer reorders the exact one that sold out. And it is how you find the same candle again next year, when the person you bought it for has finished it and would quite like another.
The number beside it is the scent. 01 Rose + Patchouli, 02 Mimosa + Pineapple, 03 White Tea + Jasmine, 04 Coconut + Orange, and 00 for unscented — just the joke, no fragrance.
By the numbers
As much as we like a good joke, we are here because a candle is the only gift that gets used up and remembered anyway.