How did you find the first time making wax melts?
It’s really satisfying! Just watching the pouring as you’re doing it and watching it set is weirdly satisfying. We’re obsessed with wax melts in our house.
Did you start out making wax melts as a hobby or did you know you wanted to get into the business?
It was generally just as a hobby to keep myself busy and to find something to do. I was talking to my friend one night and she asked me to make her some and I said okay, then more and more people were asking for them. It grew from friends saying ‘I’d like some’ and it sort of grew from there!
From making your first wax melt, how long did it take you to turn your hobby into a business?
It was about 4 or 5 weeks! I started making them for myself and wasn’t happy with the result. So I said right back to the drawing board! So I started researching more about wax melts and it sort of went from there and got bigger. When we were finally happy with them and people were saying I’d like you to make me some that’s when we started looking at putting them on Etsy just as a little something to do and it just snowballed basically.
What made you decide to take the step of making social media pages and a website?
The Instagram side of it was more of a place to post pretty pictures and to show off what we made so that’s where that came from. Then it started gaining followers and we were using Etsy more and more alongside it, but I didn’t really like the layout and how you couldn’t change it so I looked into the website side of things to be able to put on what we wanted, where we wanted it.
So this was all during lockdown, so how long were you furloughed for?
I was furloughed for about 5 weeks all in all, and that’s all it really took to get my business up and running!
You mentioned that you were struggling with health problems and used wax melt making to take your mind off things, could you tell us a little more about this?
Yes, around 2 years ago I got diagnosed with cervical cancer. It was a big shock to use but we went through that which was a rough couple of months and it was over Christmas. I was 25 at the time, it was really hard it did put quite a divide in the family as well, we were all struggling and dealt with it different in different ways it was really hard, it was all very quick I was diagnosed in October 2018 and by February 2019 I was in London having an operation that took around 6 hours, I then got the all-clear a few weeks later, it was all really fast.
So tell me about The Pouring House, how did you come up with the name?
We were in the house one day and thought about making it into a little business and it really was only meant to be a little business, just something that we could do a few days a week or a couple of hours where we could make a few melts and sell them, nothing massive and we didn’t know what to call it. My partner and I kept throwing ideas back and forth and we weren’t really happy with anything, I can’t remember where I was in the house but I remember saying ‘The Pouring House’ that’s what it’s going to be, we’re in the house and making these melts, The Pouring House!
How does it currently work, is it just yourself or are other people involved?
It’s myself and my partner mainly, obviously when we came out of the first lockdown and we could come out and mingle a bit my best friend came in and she did her little part and helped, all of my friends, colleagues and family are sharing it so they’re all part of it too!
How many customers would you roughly say you have at the minute?
I believe on our email subscriptions were just short of 200 now!
On an average week, how many orders do you get out the door?
It’s really up and down one week we’ll be really busy, at one point we had about 60 orders due out and I was having a meltdown thinking how’re we going to do this and then like this week it went quite quiet until yesterday. Since winning the competition, Instagram was full of new followers, the phones are going crazy and a lot of traffic is going through the website as well!
What are your aspirations and goals for The Pouring House, where do you see it going in say 12 months time?
We’re really always throwing ideas back and forth, me and my partner, of what we can do next and new ideas and we want to be a company and a brand that’s out there something different, you get all these snap bars and clamshells but we want to bring something different to the table.