Ambush Candle Co. | Our beginnings

We are a husband and wife team with a passion for creating quality, eco-friendly products that are designed and made in America. We pull inspiration from nature, traveling, early American branding and most of all, each other. Cat is a second generation candle maker with a background in luxury retail. This provided us the necessary skills to make quality apothecary products and provide supreme customer service. I (Brad) am a 7 year bladesmith with a background in graphic design. Putting our heads together has allowed us to create a brand that we love and cherish. 

Ambush Candle Co. was founded in a time of creative uncertainty. Our jobs were back and forth, Cat had just moved home to Chicago from San Francisco and we were newly dating, though we had known each other for quite some time before. After being unhappy with work and juggling small businesses that were not really working for us, we did something that ended up changing everything for the better. We dropped everything, packed the car and drove from Chicago to the Grand Canyon. This trip offered us a chance to breathe, step back and get our priorities straight. It was about a 24hr drive both ways, this gave us about 4 full days of drive time to talk and discuss options. We knew 2 things: we needed a creative outlet and we wanted to share it with each other. Up to this point we had each run our own small businesses but had never collaborated. This was a chance to bring our skill sets together and allow the greatest chance for success. 

We decided to create a home goods and candle company that we named Heartlander Supply. This quickly evolved into mostly apothecary products and shortly after we rebranded under the name Ambush Apothecary. Just as we were ready to file this new name with the state, we found out that the state of Michigan prohibits the use of the word “apothecary” unless you are a registered pharmacy. A law that was put into place in the early 1900’s and was never updated. Back in the day, the word apothecary referred to a place of medicine but it has since become popularized by home fragrance as well as bath and body products. So once again we had to change our name, I wish we new that before spending a small fortune on product labels and marketing supplies. Anyway, we landed on Ambush Candle Co. and this new name kept things simple and straight forward. An “Ambush” is a group of tigers; hence our tiger logo and our Tiger Club.

Cat and I have been making candles as a team since 2018. After a year of hard work we decided to move our business north to Traverse City, MI. Our first goal was to talk to some of the local shops in an attempt to wholesale or consign our candles. After months of meet and greets, hand written notes and failing to make connections, we were running out of options. This lead to us opening our own store, teaming up with over 150 local artists and becoming very well connected with our new community. Our store, West Bay Handmade has now been in business for over 3 years. Running our own store front was never a plan for us, but it has taught us many important lessons. We use our store to test new Ambush products and being in a high foot traffic area, we are able to quickly see which products get engagement and which do not. This has allowed us to channel the best possible catalog of products.

We’ve since used the connections made with WBH to help grow Ambush. We have collaborated with several local artists and brands to create custom candles and apothecary products. We also became good friends with many other store owners and in some cases have been able to sell our products through them. By continuing to hustle and make new connections as often as possible, we have broadened the horizon for Ambush.

Cat started making candles in her garage, then moved to a corner in my bladesmithing shop. After moving to Michigan, Ambush has been operated out of many different places. We started off in a shared pole barn that acted as a bladesmithing shop as well as an Ambush shop. We found that making knives and candles in the same space is nearly impossible because running a forge all day pretty much melts all of the candle wax in the vicinity. We eventually moved Ambush into the back room of West Bay Handmade. This worked out for quite a while but as the store grew, we needed that back room to stay organized. It was around this time that the neighboring yoga studio was moving out, we were granted permission to use one of the studio rooms for Ambush while the landlord waited to renovate the building. For a few months we had a large, well lit space to run our business out of. While we were here we were able to start opening our business to wholesale and began collaborating with companies such as M22. 

We knew that the studio space would be short lived but it was great while it lasted. When the time came, we moved Ambush back into West Bay Handmade. But this time to the basement, not the back room. The basement was much larger and though creepy, we thought it would at least work until we could figure out a more permanent work space. The basement has low ceilings but a lot of square footage. Unfortunately it was nearly impossible to regulate the temperature due to the size of the basement. When pouring candles in colder temperatures we got very poor results in the form of air pockets and pits that formed in the wax. We immediately moved upstairs and returned to the back room once again. This time we shared the backroom with WBH as it had become a much need storage room in our absence.

With the new year comes some exciting and much needed news. We are proud to announce that we have finally secured a building for Ambush Candle Co. After years of working out of shared spaces, backrooms, yoga studios and basements we finally have 1,600sqft of creative space to call our own. It worked out that our new Ambush facility is just down the road from our store. The markets are crazy in Traverse City and just finding a commercial rental has been nearly impossible but connections again paid off and we were able to lock in on this space before it was even listed. With each move came all of our shelving, work benches, wax melters and multiple pallets worth of supplies. Being a newer small business, Ambush Candle Co. is just the two of us right now. We alone have done all of the shop moves, product design, production, shipping, social media, photography, blog posts, art markets, outreach and much more on top of owning and operating WBH. Yet we continue to work hard because we see the results of our efforts every day. We owe a big thank you to all of our friends, supporters and customers for being the best group of people on the planet. Thanks to you, companies like ours are able to grow and reach new heights continuously. 

We have a lot in store going into 2022. We have recently released our first subscription box and have new products in the works to be released this year. If you’d like be notified of new blog posts you can sign up for our mailing list on the home page. We don’t like to get spammed so we don’t spam other people, and your information is safe with us. Thanks for following along with what we are doing, your support is much appreciated!