Candle of the Month: Performance Review
š» Old Habits Die Hard
In the corporate world, I lived and died by performance reviews. Everything was measured, analysed and benchmarked against KPIs. So, when I started Scent of Burnout, I promised myself Iād leave that world behind.
Well, mostly.
As we are now starting a new month, I decided to have a retrospective view of the July candle of the month, the hand-poured batch of ten soy candles with the cheeky "Smells Like I Am Not Coming Back From Lunch" label. Each one is designed to have a net weight of 200g of our beautiful soy wax and fragrance blend.
But here is the thing about hand-pouring: it is a human process not automated by a machine that hits the target with robotic precision every single time. And as a founder who believes in transparency, I thought it would be fun to put my own process through a performance review.
July Candle of the Month
So, I took out my notebook and my digital scale.
š¢ The Data:
Here are the final net weights of the 10 candles from the batch:
199g (x2)
200g (x4)
201g (x2)
205g
206g
š The Analysis (The Business Analyst in me couldn't resist):
On Target (200g): 4 candles (a 40% success rate). Not bad, but room for improvement
Underweight (199g): 2 candles. This is a process error. While a single gram is a tiny variance, consistency is a non-negotiable for the premium brand that I aspire to be
Overweight (201g - 206g): 4 candles. My tendency is clearly to be generous! The two outliers at 205g and 206g are where the real story is and that is a significant over-pour
The Bottom Line: Across this small batch, I gave away an extra 13 grams of material for free. It doesn't sound like much, but that is the cost of a whole wax melt. Scale that up over a year and it is a direct hit to the profit margin.
š The Conclusion:
So, what is the takeaway from this performance review?
It is a beautiful, tangible reminder of what "handmade" actually means. It means that each candle has its own tiny story. It means that human hands, not a machine, measured and poured it. While my goal is to get as close to perfection as possible with every single pour, I also embrace the slight, unique variations that make each piece one-of-a-kind.
It is a lesson in letting go of rigid perfectionism, something every burnout legend can appreciate.
(And don't worry, the two underweight candles have already been gifted to two of my friends celebrating their birthdays in July)
Ready for your own perfectly imperfect piece of calm?
You can find our July Candle of the Month in the shop. I promise it smells exactly like a vacation you deserve.
