How I Moved Out of Crisis and Tripled my Revenue

It is so great to be back in the Handmade Seller magazine again! To my new friends, makers, and fellow warriors, my name is Mary Kate Dixon and I am the owner and operator of Wicked Calm Candles. I am also an individual, like many others, living with mental illness that privately struggled with the will to live. Over the past 5 years, I have helped thousands like myself build confidence in their ability to care for themselves with natural products that support both healthy and daily habits of self-care. Through transparency in collected controlled study research, burn test data, and custom blended essential oil profiles, Wicked Calm Candles gives customers the opportunity to feel empowered and select products that resonate with their unique journey.

Wicked Calm Candles started by accident in late 2016. After researching holistic approaches to addressing my newly diagnosed Generalized Anxiety Disorder, I began recreationally studying aromatherapy and training under a herbalist. I listed my first custom-blended soy candle on Etsy for a friend to purchase with no intention of further monetizing this new found passion. To my disbelief, the candle was purchased by a complete stranger just minutes later. The whirlwind of emotions that followed that infamous first “Cha-Ching” is something that to this day I cannot properly articulate into words: fear, excitement, uncertainty, joy beyond measure. The start of what inevitably saved my life, that whirlwind of emotion, is something I am still learning to navigate years later. 

Fast forward to a few more listings, a few more reviews, a few more “Cha-Chings,” the pace of my new business and my personal life were both fighting for the upper hand. Within the first six months of business I was selling out collections quicker than I could list them, receiving high demand from brick and mortar opportunities, and even had reality television celebrities sharing my products. As the business grew and blossomed, I found myself shrinking behind the shadow of what was quickly becoming an unshakeable powerhouse in the mental illness community. In 2018, that shadow had completely consumed me and the website of my thriving, well-known business went dark.

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