Candles are usually in demand at every event. Be it a birthday party, a Christmas party, a festival, or a festival, it is a trend to light candles at every function. We light candles to illuminate and beautify homes. Now the market has all kinds of fragrances from color and shape to candles according to the demand, but do you know that these candles are more harmful to our health than they spread beautifully.
Actually, paraffin wax comes out from the candle, which is of toxic nature. It affects our health to a great extent. This can cause diseases like shortness of breath, headache, asthma. Sometimes it also causes tumors and cancer. The most effective way to avoid this is to use eco-friendly candles. A similar initiative has been taken by Tanushree Jain, a resident of Jaipur. She has been making organic candles with the help of natural beeswax in collaboration with local artisans for almost 3 years. There is a good demand for their products in India as well as abroad. Last year the turnover of his company was Rs 12 lakh.
Tanushree belongs to a middle-class family. His father was in the army while his mother is a teacher. After doing engineering in computer science in the year 2017, Tanushree got job offers from many good companies, but she did not do the job. She says that I have studied engineering, but I have never been particularly interested in this field. I always wanted to work with the local people at the grassroots level. I started working closely with local artisans during my studies.
Tanushree says that all kinds of local artists and artisans live in our area. When she met them and understood their work, she came to know that these artisans have to face a lot of difficulties regarding marketing. After making the best product, these people are not able to market it properly. After that, she started using technical skills to market them. She started marketing the products of local artisans on various e-commerce platforms. It also gave a good understanding of marketing.
Tanushree did her Masters's from the Indian School of Development Management (ISDM) in 2017 after completing her engineering studies. During this, he had to stay in Delhi for a year. The air there was not good for his health and soon his health started deteriorating. He started having trouble breathing. Initially, he did not pay much attention, but later he started doing research on it. After few days, Tanushree realized that burning chemical candles is also a big reason behind her ill health. After this, he started to understand the process of making candles.
Tanushree says that after continuous study and research, I came to know that most people use chemicals to make candles. This causes pollution. If we light such candles in a closed room, it has a negative effect on our health. Instead, if natural beeswax and oil made from aromatic herbs are used in making candles, then there will be no harm to health. After this, at the end of the year 2018, Tanushree talked to the artisans around her.
10 women agreed to work with him. After this, he trained these women to make candles. Then he gathered the raw material for making candles and started working from home. He named his startup Nushaura. Initially, about one and a half lakh rupees were spent in setting up the setup and starting the work.
Tanushree says that the quality of our product is different from the candles available in the market. This is the reason that in the very beginning, we started getting good responses from the people. Gradually our clientele also increased and women working with us also increased. At present we have more than 20 kinds of candles ranging from 60g to 1kg. Whose price ranges from Rs 99 to Rs 1999.
At present, 250 women from Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are associated with Tanushree. They work in their respective homes and hand over the product to Tanushree once the product is ready. The income earned after selling the product is distributed equally among all the artisans. Talking about the candle-making process, Tanushree says that it requires broadly three things – natural wax, essential oil, and cotton sticks.
To prepare the candle, first, the wax is placed in a vessel and heated on the gas or on the stove. After this, the essential oil is added to it. After that, the mixer of both is filled in the dummy container making the candle. The light is already there. After some time the wax solidifies and the candle is ready. After that, the dummy is snatched from him. We use candle-shaped dummies or molds. Similarly, different types of essential oils and dyes are used for different types of candles.
Tanushree says that we are doing marketing both offline and online. Under this, Brand to Customer (B2C) and Brand to Business (B2B) marketing is being done. We have tied up with many big companies. Along with this, we are marketing through social media across the country. Recently we have also started marketing our product from Amazon and India Mart. It is getting a very good response. Now we have started sending our products outside India to many countries including Canada, America.
Talking about the marketing strategy, Tanushree says that we gift candles to influencers and celebrities on social media. In return, they post pictures or videos of our products from their accounts. This helps a lot in marketing and our product reaches more people in less time.
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