Daily Inspiration: Meet Samantha Casale

Today we’d like to introduce you to Samantha Casale

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
The idea for my candle shop The Merry Wick started in the summer of 2020. I think the need for distraction and connection during the isolating months of the pandemic fueled a lot small businesses, mine of course being one of them.

Music and creativity have always been a steady source of comfort for me during the most difficult times in my life and I had felt very connected to Taylor Swift’s album, Folklore, that she wrote and released during the first few months of quarantine.

When I really love something, I always want to incorporate it into my life in as many ways as I can. So one night while I was listening to Taylor sing about parties in gardens and smokey forests, I started to wonder, if the stories in these songs could be turned into a scent, what would they smell like?

It was only a few hours later that I had dropped a couple hundred dollars on beginner candle supplies and started learning how to make candles in my kitchen. Since then I have created what must be well over 60 custom scent blends for different songs.

It has always been incredibly important to me that the scent blends truly represent the songs that they are inspired by, at least from my perspective, because one fun things about music is that it can feel different to anyone who listens to it!

I take the lyrics, imagery, and even how the instruments “feel” into consideration when creating scents and will play the songs on repeat while sampling different scents to test out of I think they are the correct fit, which sometimes happens very quickly or it can take several days before I find a blend I think works just right.

What started as a fun passion project turned into being able to share my creations with hundreds of other like minded individuals and i’m so grateful that it is a hobby and business that has brought me not only happiness and purpose, but also an amazing and supportive community.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
While at the heart of it, I love that I get to run my own business, there are absolutely moments that I do not love haha, some of them out of my control and some of them completely my own doing.

I think that there was a special pocket of time over the past decade or so where social media made it seem like having your own online small business had endless potential for success if you were willing to put in the work. From what I have seen and experienced, that magical pocket of time has felt like it has come to a close, and the ability to market your business for free on social media has become a much more difficult endeavor.

While things like algorithms, market saturation, and the economy are completely out of my control, how I chose to react to that realization was in my control and unfortunately I let it beat me down.

It’s incredibly difficult in any aspect of life to keep picking yourself up every time you fail, especially when you feel like your potential for success is completely out of your hands. I really let this feeling eat away at me for the better part of this year, truly feeling and believing that it didn’t matter how much effort I put in, the odds were stacked against me and I would inevitably fail.

Only recently was I able to reframe the way I thought about everything and really hit myself over the head with the knowledge that yes, it IS scary that I can put in effort every day and not know if that effort with “pay off”, BUT I can be 100% sure that if I don’t put in any effort it most definitely won’t pay off.

I think in 2025 I really want to try to focus on this thought process and stop ruminating on what I believe to not be in my control and only focus on the things I know I have control over even if I don’t know what the outcome will be.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I don’t know that everyone does, but I consider what I do, making candles, to be an art form, because I use it as a means of creative expression.

Throughout my life I have taken up many more “traditional” forms of art like drawing, painting, sewing, crochet (I kind of have a craft obsession haha), and when starting this business immediately started noticing the mindset similarities.

I think a huge part of being an artists, that has especially been highlighted this year with the growing popularity of AI in the art and creative industry, is personal values and integrity.

I really never expected running my own small candle business to be a constant exercise of my personal morals and integrity but it is actually something that I always come back to feeling very proud of. I have worked for several companies where money was put above all else, especially people, and I completely understand that money is the foundation of business, but I always knew I didn’t want that to be the heart of my own business.

It would be really easy to do a little market research and make products that I know would be trendy and appeal to the masses. It would be really easy to find a scent I thought was decent and slap a popular label on it, but it also wouldn’t mean anything to me, or anyone else for that matter.

I only ever want to make things that I believe in and that I know I put my all into and find pride in knowing that that care and effort is obvious to anyone who buys my candles. Of course I love when someone smells one of my scents and raves about it, but nothing beats getting a message from someone saying that they could tell how much care I put into making a scent that I felt accurately represents a song.

Especially at the high pace that we are used to living in now, there will always be that push to make more and do it at an unsustainable pace. I feel that pressure often, but cutting corners and making things just to make them while they are relevant will never feel right to me and I do take pride in listening to that instinct every time.

What’s next?
My big plan for 2025 is to try to create without fear of failure. Statistically, most ideas fail and I think it is difficult to remind myself that that is natural and should be expected rather than feared.

In that same realm, I also need to focus on trying to find a way to separate myself from my business, which in a creative field is really difficult. When you are doing something creative, it is easy to feel like you are giving a little part of yourself away each time you create something new and that the response to that creation is therefore a reflection of yourself.

I think feelings such as that are natural and shouldn’t be viewed as “bad” or a “flaw” but I also need to recognize that they aren’t accurate and are not helpful. If I viewed every person who walked by my booth at a event and didn’t stop by as a personal failure (which I have most definitely done), I would likely never get out of bed (which has also happened).

If I can actually manage to creative without fear and not take things personally in 2025, I’m incredibly interested to see how the year plays out with a new mindset.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.themerrywick.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themerrywick/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@themerrywick