Two people, a basement and a mottled pillar candle.

Paddywax is now firmly a Nashville brand — its website calls itself “Paddywax | Soy Wax Candles | Nashville, TN” — but it did not start there. The company says it has made candles “since 1996,” and its own earliest website, last updated in September 1998 and preserved by the Internet Archive, introduced the business as “Paddywax Candles of Atlanta.”

That 1998 page told a short founding story: “several years ago, Gretchen and David started pouring wax in their basement,” aiming to create unusual forms and fragrances with the burning qualities of earlier artisans. A 2009 profile by the online retailer Candle Delirium gives their full names as Gretchen Hollingsworth and David Duncan, and says the business grew out of a creative project Hollingsworth began with friends after college.

The early product was the pillar candle. The 1998 site described Paddywax candles by “their trademark mottled finish,” and by 2002 the website listed hand-poured pillars in 19 fragrances and 18 shapes, plus votives, and a striped “Destination” collection inspired by places around the world — with a business address in Decatur, Georgia, just east of Atlanta.

By December 2012 the company’s Our Story page said, “We are proud to call Nashville, TN home,” and listed 17 collections.

The brand’s voice has been steady since then. In January 2019 its About page opened with “Our lives are composed of moments” and closed on three short commands: “Slow down. Light a candle. Set the tone.” The current Our Story page repeats the idea, saying Paddywax has made artisan candles since 1996 that are “designed to set the tone for beautiful memories.” The 2019 menu also shows how the range had grown: collections then included Hygge, Library, Tartan, Apothecary, Parks and Relish.

A story, a vessel, then a scent.

Paddywax describes its design process in three steps. “Every candle starts with a story. A theme, a place, an idea,” its website says; “then that story is translated into a vessel.” It says it designs “every aspect of our candles — from materials, to shapes, to graphics — here in Nashville, Tennessee,” and works with perfumers on a fragrance to complement each vessel.

The vessel is the brand’s signature. The company says its candles are “intentionally crafted to be repurposed” and that each vessel is designed to have a second life once the wax runs out; its FAQ suggests uses such as a succulent planter, a pencil cup or a bathroom canister. Its collections are named as themes rather than scents — the website’s menu in October 2026 included Apothecary, Parks, Relish and Tulip — and fragrances are listed as pairs, such as Tobacco & Patchouli, Fresh Air & Sea Salt and Amber & Smoke, which the company names among its most popular.

Its account of production has been consistent on place. In 2013 the company’s Our Process page said every candle was hand-poured in its factory in Tennessee from soy wax blended with a small amount of paraffin, and that each bow and label was applied by hand; it described its fragrances as made with essential oils and synthetics. In 2020 it said more than 150 candle makers were “mixing, pouring, testing, and packaging our candles in our Nashville factory.” Today it describes a soy wax blend, says all its soy wax comes from US farms, and uses wood or cotton wicks. These are the company’s own statements.

Paddywax also says it supports the National Park Foundation and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Candles and home fragrance.

The seven brands in this group all make scented candles and home fragrance: Yankee Candle, NEOM, Homesick, Paddywax, Voluspa, NEST New York and LAFCO. Candle brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from founder-led companies that still pour under their original name to labels that now belong to much larger consumer-goods groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a supermarket aisle to a department-store counter.

A candle brand’s identity is usually carried less by the wax than by the vessel, the label and the name given to each scent, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its production or grown far beyond the room where it started. A glass jar, a tin or a coloured tumbler often does the work a logo does elsewhere, and the names of the fragrances — places, seasons, memories — become part of the identity in their own right.

That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its candles are actually poured and its vessels made. Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its products are made and how its packaging has changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Stockists, then a Candle Bar of its own.

For most of its history Paddywax reached buyers through other people’s shops. Its 2012 Our Story page listed stockists including West Elm, Urban Outfitters, Whole Foods, Nordstrom, Crate & Barrel and Paper Source, and in 2019 PhillyVoice named Urban Outfitters, Neiman Marcus and Paper Source among the places its products had been sold.

From the late 2010s the company added its own retail format: the Paddywax Candle Bar, a pour-your-own workshop. In September 2019 Reston Now described “Nashville-based candle company Paddywax” bringing its do-it-yourself candle-making workshops to Reston Town Center in Virginia, and reported that it already had locations in Texas, Tennessee and North Carolina. PhillyVoice reported that a Candle Bar, “born in Nashville, Tennessee,” would open on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia that November, with guests choosing from 65 vessels and the brand’s fragrance library before mixing the scent and pouring the wax themselves; the shop also planned to serve beer and wine, and said it offered more than 2,000 combinations of fragrance and vessel. In October 2026 the company’s website listed Candle Bar locations in Nashville, Charlotte, Denver, Durham, Reston, Dallas, Houston and Savannah.

For a design guide, Paddywax shows how a candle brand can be organised around the container rather than the scent, with each collection a theme and each jar meant to outlast the wax. Compare Apotheke, the Brooklyn candle and apothecary brand, and Yankee Candle. For this guide we use amber, cream and a muted park green with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Paddywax’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.