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Candle business started a side gig, now a full-time job for local entrepreneur
By Kalea Hall
BOARDMAN
Kristin Biggs became an entrepreneur and didn’t even know it.
In fact, she didn’t know until someone told her she was.
Biggs started her soy-candle business, Gifts from a Virgo, in 2012 as a way to make extra money.
In two years, Biggs went from making extra money to making a living off of her candles.
“It’s still kind of surreal,” she said.
She initially made the candles in her kitchen and then in her basement. As she ran the business, she had a full-time job and was a single mother.
Today, she ships candles all over the world, but her lab is in her hometown at 6913 Market St. Here, she pours, melts and mixes. Bottles of scents, buckets of wax and boxes of candle holders fill the aromatic lab.
Biggs, a 2004 Woodrow Wilson High School graduate, wasn’t even into candles when she started the business.
She was living in Columbus and working as a home caretaker, but was doing more cleaning than caretaking. She wanted a new job and randomly the thought of candles popped into her head.
Biggs gave her friend India Cooper a call and told her she wanted to start a candle-making business.
“She’s really self-reliant, but she had reservations and had no idea how to make candles,” Cooper said.
Cooper actually knew a candle maker who could help Biggs. She also helped her think of the name “Gifts from a Virgo.” The goal was to make the name personal, but not too personal, so they decided Biggs’ zodiac sign was better to use than her name.
“I am very proud of how far she has come,” Cooper said. “She knows her product really well now.”
Her success, though, was not made with just her product. Biggs’ personality played a large part in getting her customers: She’s inviting, warm and friendly, much like a candle.
“People love her candles because they love her,” Cooper said.
Biggs’ candles come in glass jars, tin jars and soy melts for candle warmers. She also sells the candle warmers for the soy melts. In total, she has 20 scents including “Cake Cake Cake” and “Sweet Love” – two top sellers. The hints of sweet vanilla in “Cake Cake Cake” make the room smell like freshly baked cake. “Sweet Love” blends together scents of melons, strawberries, pears and fresh green apples.
The wax in the candles and soy melts doubles as massage oil.
“That’s the only candle I buy,” said Hannah Ferguson of Youngstown. “I like the fact that I can light one in one room and you can smell it throughout the whole apartment.”
Ferguson, who has used the Gifts from a Virgo products for three years, was also drawn to Biggs and her story.
“I love the fact that it is local and how she started and where she is now,” Ferguson said.
Biggs admits that there’s been a lot of trial and error in making her candles what they are today, and she still works to perfect them.
“I gave up plenty of times,” she said.
But she’s always worked to make the candle burn better and smell better.
“It’s like everything, once in a while I will get a candle that’s defective,” she said. “It’s still trial and error. I have progressed so much.”
Biggs wants her candles to help her customers feel good and to bring them peace of mind.
“When you give this gift, you are giving something special and unique to someone,” Biggs said.
Her gift-giving work has earned some recognition from bloggers and publications including xoNecole, which covers entertainment, beauty and fashion and business. The story has 9,000 shares on social media.
This month, Gifts from a Virgo was featured on rollingout.com as one of seven black-owned businesses to watch this year. Rolling Out writes black celebrity news, entertainment, business and politics.
“She has done this all on her own,” Cooper said. “I am excited for what’s coming.”
Biggs hopes to get her candles in salons next and eventually in stores.
“In my family, I am the only entrepreneur,” she said. “I am the only person who graduated college. I wasn’t built in a family of entrepreneurs.”
But Biggs was taught how to work with people and how to never give up.
“I am a people person,” she said. “It’s just me.”