Urban Wick Candle Bar

What Urban Wick Candle Bar does

Urban Wick Candle Bar is a single-location retail and e-commerce business founded in 2020 and based in Birmingham, Michigan. The company operates a custom candle making experience store where customers design and pour personalized candles using a curated library of 80+ premium fragrance oils blended into natural soy wax with organic cotton wicks. Beyond the in-store experience, it sells Signature Blends, Create Your Own kits, single scents, wax melts, reed diffusers, hand soaps, lotions, and room sprays. The retail storefront operates on a limited schedule (Thursday through Sunday), reflecting an appointment-driven, experience-led model rather than a high-volume convenience store.

The business model is hybrid: experiential retail revenue from in-store custom pours and class bookings, paired with direct-to-consumer e-commerce on Shopify. In-store candles are priced at $38-$45+ and secondary products start at $28. Bookings and class reservations are managed through FareHarbor. The candle making class offering has been extended to 16+ Michigan cities, indicating a mobile, capital-light component that monetizes the experience format without requiring additional fixed retail.

The company employs between 11 and 50 people, consistent with a small, founder-led operator running one physical location plus an e-commerce back office. No M&A, funding, patents, or executive team disclosures are available in the input data, so the operating footprint should be interpreted as a single-store craft business with growing ancillary channels rather than a multi-unit retail chain.

Name

Urban Wick Candle Bar

Legal name

Urban Wick Candle Bar

Website

https://urbanwickcandlebar.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2020

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Urban Wick Candle Bar is a Birmingham, Michigan-based retail and e-commerce business founded in 2020 that offers custom candle making experiences, mobile classes in 16+ Michigan cities, and a curated line of home fragrance products built on natural soy wax and 80+ fragrance oils.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Custom Candle Bar Experience

SIC

Soap, Detergents, Cleang Preparations, Perfumes, Cosmetics (2840)

akta.pro primary industry

Home Fragrance (Candles, Diffusers, Room Sprays) (CRABADAE)

akta.pro secondary industries

Candles, Home Fragrance & Diffusers Retail (CRAIACAC), Scented Candles & Wax Melts (Home Fragrance) (CRAJAEAD)

Keywords

• Custom candle making
• Fragrance oil blending
• Soy wax candles
• Candle bar experience
• Home fragrance retail

Headquarters

HQ city

Birmingham

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Supply Chain, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Others

Revenue model

1. Candle Making Experience: In-store candle making experience where customers create custom scented candles. Reservations are required and include a reservation fee that is credited toward final purchase. Session duration is 45-60 minutes with additional 120 minutes for candles to set before pickup.
2. Pre-Made Candle Sales: Sale of signature blend candles and single-scent candles through e-commerce and in-store. Products include UW House Blends, signature scents, and trending seasonal offerings.
3. Custom Product Blends: Custom scent blending for reed diffusers, room sprays, hand soaps, lotions, and wax tarts. Priced starting at $28 for additional items beyond candles.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

Urban Wick Candle Bar operates an in-store, reservation-based candle bar experience in Birmingham, Michigan, where customers blend custom scented candles from 80+ premium fragrance oils using natural soy wax and organic cotton wicks. The business also retails pre-made signature blend candles, single-scent fragrance oils, and custom-scent home products (reed diffusers, room sprays, hand soaps, lotions, wax melts) through a Shopify e-commerce storefront and on-site sales.

Product overview

Urban Wick Candle Bar operates as a custom candle-making experience business in Birmingham, Michigan. The core offering is an in-store candle bar where customers create personalized candles by blending from 80+ premium fragrance oils. The product portfolio consists of the Custom Candle Making Experience as the primary offering, supplemented by Signature Blends (pre-made candles), Single Scents (individual fragrance oils), and Create Your Own kits. Additional products include wax melts, reed diffusers, hand soaps, lotions, and room sprays—all customizable with custom scent blends. The company also offers candle making classes across Michigan cities and private gathering reservations for groups. Candles are made with natural soy wax, organic cotton wicks, and clean-burning fragrance oils, with standard 8oz vessels offering approximately 60-hour burn times. Pricing ranges from $28 for single scents/add-on products to $45 and up for custom candles depending on vessel size.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Custom Candle Making Experience In-store, reservation-only experience where customers create personalized scented candles by blending from 80+ premium fragrance oils, selecting vessels from 6oz to 20oz, and pouring their own candle. Session runs 45-60 minutes with 120 minutes for the candle to set before pickup.
• Signature Blends Pre-made signature candle collections crafted by Urban Wick, including named blends such as Be Thankful, Not Your Mama's Brownies, Sunday Morning Waffles, Craft Cocktail, UW House Blends, UW Signature Scent, and White Cashmere. Priced at $45 each.
• Create Your Own Custom candle creation kit that lets customers blend a unique scent from available fragrance oils and pour at home or in-store.
• Single Scents Individual fragrance oils sold separately at $28 each, including scents such as Absinthe, Agave, Almond, and Amber Musk, for customers who want a single-scent product.
• Custom-Scented Home Products Custom-blended reed diffusers, room sprays, hand soaps, lotions, and wax melts, each priced starting at $28, allowing customers to extend a custom scent profile to non-candle home and personal care products.
• Candle Making Classes Educational candle making classes offered in Michigan cities including Troy, Royal Oak, Bloomfield Hills, West Bloomfield, Rochester Hills, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Farmington Hills, Southfield, Novi, Sterling Heights, Warren, Livonia, Dearborn, Lansing, Grand Rapids, and Flint.
• Private Gatherings and Larger Groups Reserved private event and larger-group bookings at the candle bar for birthdays, team building, bachelorette parties, and other group celebrations.

Quantifiable outcome

• 60-hour burn time with proper candle care

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration9 records

Feature3 records

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Broad incumbents

• Bath & Body Works: Large specialty retailer of home fragrance, personal care, and scented products, including candles, room sprays, soaps, and lotions. Overlaps with Urban Wick's multi-product scent portfolio (candles, sprays, soaps, lotions) and competes for similar gifting occasions.
• Painting with a Twist: Established franchise in the experiential creative retail space (paint-and-sip). Highly comparable business model to Urban Wick: reservation-based group activities, alcohol-friendly events, and private party bookings for a similar demographic.
• Build-A-Bear Workshop: Experiential retail concept where customers customize and assemble a finished product in-store. Shares the core retail playbook with Urban Wick: an interactive, reservation-friendly in-store experience that ends with a personalized take-home item, often purchased as a gift.
• Diptyque: Premium home fragrance brand known for high-end scented candles, room sprays, and diffusers. Comparable to Urban Wick on the premium-priced, scent-as-luxury end of the home fragrance category, though without the experiential/customization angle.
• Color Me Mine: Franchise pottery-painting studio where customers create custom finished products in-store. Closely mirrors Urban Wick's model of combining a guided creative experience with a take-home custom product, and serves similar group-event occasions like birthdays and team-building.
• Yankee Candle: One of the largest mass-market candle brands, offering a wide range of scented candles across price points. Comparable to Urban Wick as a home fragrance retailer but operates a fundamentally different model (mass-produced, broad retail distribution vs. custom experiential).

Emerging players

• Homesick: DTC brand selling scented candles and home fragrance products tied to specific places, memories, and experiences. Shares Urban Wick's premise that scent is tied to memory and emotion, and competes in the personalized/gift candle category online.

Direct peers

• The Candle Lab: Custom candle-making experience retailer where customers blend their own scents and pour their own candles in-store. Closest direct peer to Urban Wick, with a nearly identical experiential, reservation-based model and product mix.
• Candlefish: Specialty candle store and candle bar offering custom scent-blending sessions, candle-making classes, and a curated library of fragrance oils. Directly comparable to Urban Wick in combining an experiential component with multi-product candle retail.
• Wax & Wix: Custom candle-making studio that lets customers choose vessels, wicks, and scents to build their own candles on-site. Operates a similar reservation-based experiential retail model to Urban Wick in the same product category.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/urbanwickmi
• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCG_tclZpBmDkyAMVCvg22OQ
• Facebookfacebook.com/urbanwickcandlebar
• Instagraminstagram.com/urbanwickcandlebar
• Pinterestpinterest.com/urbanwickcandlebar
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/urban-wick-candle-bar

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Urban Wick Candle Bar