April 6, 2001

Fashion with a wick

Business Report Correspondent

BOULDER — There are probably as many cliches, aphorisms and reflections on candles and the light they provide as there are candles at Twilight Candles, the new North Boulder manufacturer of wax wicks.

Opened in February by brothers Benjamin and Eli Buren, the small shop, which will probably expand, wants to appeal to high-end galleries and individuals, but the big push is to the wholesale market.

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Says Ben Buren, “We don’t want to sell just around Boulder. There’s a huge wholesale market. We attend two to three trade shows a year — the big ones are San Francisco, New York, Atlanta and Chicago — and we frequently go on selling trips. At the American Crafts Council meeting in Baltimore, we wrote more than $25,000 in sales, found 15 new customers and got 50 leads.”

Since Boulder already is home to several candle makers, the brothers’ decision to base here came only after considerable thought as well as Internet research. Combining a desire to take advantage of what Boulder offers with the need to make a living, the two realized that the special lathelike process, which Eli Buren developed as a candle maker in Milan, could make a product local people would find appealing.

Ben Buren, who has a master’s degree in Industrial Engineering and has been in Boulder four years, recognized the marketability that Eli Buren’s process for “cleaning” candles presented. He had been in a Rochester, N.Y., partnership consulting firm when he first came to Boulder. He liked what he saw and was looking for a reason to settle here.

Eli Buren followed a girlfriend to Italy and had subsequently done a lot of traveling, to Mongolia, India and South America; he also wanted to put down roots.

Ben Buren’s knowledge of business processes and Eli Buren’s interest in the design and production end of candle making overlapped in the artistic area, and Twilight Candles was born. It has grown from just the two of them to now employ three part-time candle makers, whom they had to teach from scratch. They have a 2001 sales goal of $200,000.

Ben Buren credits HW Home, with stores on the Pearl Street Mall and in FlatIrons Crossing, as having been “paramount to our success. Our candles, each of which is handcrafted, have enormous attention to detail, a fact that is recognized and promoted by HW Home.”

Twilight Candles, which start at $10 and go up to $100 for artistic sculpture, include stone-carved columns and brushed crescent globes. The Burens buy supplies from local providers whenever possible, and want to deal with people who are as passionate about what they do as they are. To that end, their Web site, www.TwCandles.com, advertises the efforts, for example, of musician friends as well as their own products.

“We want to offer the most unique candles,” emphasizes Eli Buren. “We pay attention to fashion trends and colors and study all the high-end fashion magazines. The process I developed allows us to produce candles that feature very precise angles, similar to those that show up in fine furniture or ceramics.”

Twilight Candles, 4593 N. Broadway, holds sales during the holidays –not just Christmas and New Year’s but also ones such as Valentine’s Day — and hosts parties to draw people to its retail site. Call (720) 564-0992 if you’d like to be invited.

Business Report Correspondent

BOULDER — There are probably as many cliches, aphorisms and reflections on candles and the light they provide as there are candles at Twilight Candles, the new North Boulder manufacturer of wax wicks.

Opened in February by brothers Benjamin and Eli Buren, the small shop, which will probably expand, wants to appeal to high-end galleries and individuals, but the big push is to the wholesale market.

Says Ben Buren, “We don’t want to sell just around Boulder. There’s a huge wholesale market. We attend two to three trade shows a year — the big ones are San Francisco,…

Christopher Wood
Christopher Wood is editor and publisher of BizWest, a regional business journal covering Boulder, Broomfield, Larimer and Weld counties. Wood co-founded the Northern Colorado Business Report in 1995 and served as publisher of the Boulder County Business Report until the two publications were merged to form BizWest in 2014. From 1990 to 1995, Wood served as reporter and managing editor of the Denver Business Journal. He is a Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder. He has won numerous awards from the Colorado Press Association, Society of Professional Journalists and the Alliance of Area Business Publishers.
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