A woman has shared her story of how she used her last £300 to start a business making candles in the shape of bottoms. Now, two years later she has earned £422,000 by selling them to celebrities and high-end stores.
Gaby Jones, 26, had lost her job in the hospitality industry during the pandemic and was thinking long and hard about what direction her career would take next. And there was a eureka moment while in Wagamama with her boyfriend, My London reports.
The Chiswick woman said: "I had £300 in my account and said to him, 'I want to make candles'. But not basic candles, I wanted to make a statement. He said he will give me £300 and help me figure out what needs to be done."
Gaby set up her new business in the kitchen of her boyfriend's aunt and it was there they created the first Caïa Candle mould. Caïa, named after the Roman goddess of fire and women, celebrates the female form and all its glory.
She continued: "We wanted to make a massive candle that no one's done. Arguably, people would really say you should start smaller as that would be cheaper to make but we wanted to make a statement. We got our first mould made which took all of the £600, it was really expensive.
"It was a big risk. After we sent them out, the reaction was amazing. Within three days we made our money back and were actually profitable.
"Then, two weeks later, we got an email from Selfridges. I remember telling my boyfriend 'oh my goodness!'. We did our first order from my boyfriend's aunt's kitchen, it was chaos."
Gaby started the business in June 2020. Within three months, she was taking boxes down to the warehouse to send off to Selfridges worth around £7,000.
The iconic 'big bum' candles as Gaby describes them have popped up all over the world. They are stocked in 14 department stores around the world such as Selfridges, Harrods, Flannels and many more.
Look at celebrity's Instagram posts such as Chrissy Teigen, Ferne McCann and Rochelle Humes to name a few and you'll see them with their own Caïa candles on their mantles.
After getting an even bigger order from Farfetch, Gaby decided that making the candles in the aunt's kitchen had gone on for too long. Four months after launching, they opened up their own studio and have gone on to become a household name
Gaby said: "I was broke. It was such a big risk setting this up and taking these big risks right at the beginning is quite a big deal but it paid off. Opening our own studio here was a proud accomplishment after seeing where we started. After a year we wanted to get into the US market and my boyfriend has a green card, so we just went for it again.
"When I lost my job I thought it was the end of the world. It sounds philosophical but it's knowing that there is something better out there for you. Life is crazy like that. Never in a million years did I think I would make a living selling bum candles", she chuckles.
In two years, Gaby has made nearly $500,000 (£422,000) with the business. They've recently raised a seed investment of £220,000 to redesign their website and improve the relationship with the customer.
"Everything that has happened was in my wildest dreams," she said. "When we started we would be happy to make our money back and worst case give them to relatives as Christmas presents. To be in these stores (Nordstorm, Harrods, Saks to name a few) is crazy and to be honest, we thought the candles were cool more than anything.
"Making big bum candles is a statement piece every time someone walks into my flat they always ask "what's that?" We wanted to o something we hadn't seen before and I'm proud we did. I think there's something timeless about body shapes and we are constantly evolving which I think is important.
"I'm thankful we never needed to take out any loans. We constantly emptied our accounts at the start to do something different and luckily it paid off. it was scary having to do that especially as you never learn to run a business at school, you have to learn on the job."
