New Business Profile: Dry Creek Candle Company

Darci Koch Germann turned necessity into a thriving business.
Germann, the manager of her father's retail store - Farm & Home Supply, in Clyde - had been ordering candles from the state of Washington.
"The candles always sold very well," Germann said. "When Covid hit the shipping prices almost doubled, so I decided to try making my own candles for the store, and it took off from there."
She formed the Dry Creek Candle Company.
Born and raised in Clyde, Germann met her husband in high school. They both attended college in Manhattan, and then moved back to the Clifton-Clyde area in the summer of 2007. She has been the manager of Farm & Home Supply for the past six years.
"Depending on the size of batch I'm making," Germann said, "it can take anywhere from two to three hours to make a batch of candles."
The process involves heating the wax, adding fragrance oils and dyes, and then pouring the concoction into jars.
"I did a lot of research and trial and error to come up with my exact, successful procedure," Germann said. "All of my candles are 100 percent soy wax, and all of my fragrance oils are phthalate free."
Wikipedia defines phthalate as: 'phthalate, or phthalate esters, are esters of phthalic acid. They are mainly used as plasticizers, i.e., substances added to plastics to increase their flexibility, transparency, durability, and longevity. They are used primarily to soften polyvinyl chloride (PVC).'
Germann spends a lot of time on her scent formulations, experimenting and trying different things. She currently has over 80 scents in her repertoire.
Dry Creek Candles are sold on Saturday mornings at Farm & Home Supply, located at 312 Washington Street, in Clyde. "We open at 8 a.m., but a lot of times the line has started forming as early as 6 a.m. I usually have anywhere from 120 to 170 candles every Saturday."
Germann will continue to sell her candles locally, but would eventually like to expand the business. "With hopeful continued success, I would also like to stock some other small, Mom & Pop retail stores that are a certain distance from Clyde. It's been fun to see what other areas of the country my candles have ended up in, and I'd like to continue growing my business in that way as well."
Dry Creek Candles has a group page on Facebook. "This is where I post selling information and debut new scents," Germann said. "It's also where a lot of my customers post reviews of my candles which has really helped my business take off."