Starter Kit. Idea 55 of 500. Cluster 3
Candles, incense and resin products in local wax and fragrance, made in view of the customer
The mechanism, from the book
The Zermatt water bottle. Sigiriya has not got a stone with its own name on it.
The first step
Make 30 candles or bundles of incense with local wax and fragrance in front of visitors at a weekend market, pouring and rolling while people watch. Price them, sell them, and note which scent goes first. Then ask a guesthouse owner whether you may make and sell there one evening a week. That yes is the proof.
- Who pays first
- Visitors who stop to watch something being made and buy what they smelled, and guesthouses that want an evening stall.
- What leaves today
- A candle sold to a visitor could come from anywhere; making it in view sells the local scent and the craft together.
Ask first
- the local council (Municipal Council, Urban Council or Pradeshiya Sabha). Ask whether making candles on the premises needs any fire safety approval.
- Sri Lanka Standards Institution. Ask what labelling standard candles and incense sold to visitors should meet.
Check before you spend
That the workshop is safe from fire, that fragrances and resins are safe to burn indoors, and that labels are honest about what is in them.
Find out these three numbers
- What will visitors pay for a candle made in front of them?
- What do wax, wicks and fragrance cost per candle?
- Which hotels would stock your candles in their rooms?
A comparison from the book
Sigiriya. Chapter Five
"made locally, by people whose names could be on the label"
Make it locally, with the maker's name on the label, as the book asks.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.