San Francisco · Est. 2014
Candles poured slowly, in a room that smells like cedar.
Hale & Wick is a small workshop on Vallejo Street. We pour soy and beeswax into reusable glass, scent them with oils we actually like to live with, and sell them from the front room. We have done it this way for twelve years, mostly because nobody has told us to stop.
New release · Autumn 2026
Brownies & Ice Cream
Dark cocoa, Madagascar vanilla, and a little brown butter, poured into cocoa glass. Our first new house scent since 2019, fourteen months in development, and the first candle we have had to label not food on three separate surfaces.
The development team reports an average gain of four pounds per person, which we have recorded as a cost of goods.
$48 50 hours Limit four per household
The house collection
Three glasses we keep in stock.
Everything else is seasonal and lives on the shelf until it is gone. These three we pour year-round, and have since before we had a shelf.
Our mission
To make rooms smell like somebody cares about them, one glass at a time. Forty glasses per batch, which is still one glass at a time, only faster.
Our story“A candle is the only thing in a house that gets better by being used up. We just try to make the using-up take a long time.”
June Hale, co-founder
In the home
Where our glasses end up.
Customers, designers, and a few very patient friends send us photographs of the rooms our candles live in. We keep the best ones on the wall behind the counter, and the rest here.
Tables & events
Long tables, lit properly.
Barn suppers, weddings, restaurant openings, and the occasional very large birthday. We pour unscented votives for tables with food and lend the glass, which we would like back.
Our longest table to date was 212 feet, in a barn above Petaluma. We walked it twice to check the wicks, and Martin has submitted this as mileage.
Plan a table with us
Ethical sourcing
We know where all of it comes from.
Soy from one family farm outside Ames, Iowa. Beeswax cappings from three apiaries within ninety minutes of the shop. Organic cotton wick from a North Carolina mill that has braided it since 1946. Every supplier is paid fairly, visited in person, and named on a list at the counter.
In 2024 we audited our beeswax supply chain. The bees did not participate. This has been noted in the report.
How we sourceKind words
Left on index cards at the counter.
★★★★★
“Burned for 48 hours, exactly as advertised. I timed it over three weekends with a kitchen timer. A very consistent product.”
★★★★★
“Lit it during a dinner party and two guests asked when dessert was coming. There was no dessert. Still five stars.”
★★★★★
“My cat sits beside this candle every evening. She has never shown interest in anything else I've bought.”
The workshop
A storefront with a pour room behind the linen curtain.
June Hale started scenting the ceramic cups she sold to a restaurant on Russian Hill. The cups kept walking out with the candles still in them, so in 2014 she rented the ground floor at 628 Vallejo and kept the pour where people could watch it.
Martin Wick came in a year later to look at the books and has been looking at them since. He is frequently asked whether Wick is his real name. It is. He checked again in 2019.
We still work the way June started. Mornings are for melting. Afternoons the door is open, the snuffer is on the counter, and if a wick is misbehaving you can say so.
Meet the workshop
From the journal
Notes from the bench.
Brownies & Ice Cream: the research report
Thirty-one pours, a closed Civic, one biscuit, and a jar on the high shelf. The times, the weights, and the thirty-seven cents.
Introducing Brownies & Ice Cream
Fourteen months, thirty-one test pours, and one very clear label. Our first new house scent since 2019.
Our first Young Pourers birthday party
Seven guests, fourteen candles, one cake, and a full post-mortem. A press release from the pour room.
Visit
628 Vallejo Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
Russian Hill, half a block up from Grant.
- Hours
- Tuesday–Saturday, 11–6
- Sunday & Monday
- Pouring. The door is locked.
- Workshop
- Leave a note at the counter
- Telephone
- (415) 555-0148
Shipping
Glasses leave the shop on Tuesdays and Fridays, wrapped and boxed by hand. Bay Area deliveries usually arrive in two days. We don’t ship in July, when the van is hotter than the wax.
Shipping detailsCandle care
Trim the wick to a quarter inch before each lighting. Let the first burn reach the edge of the glass so the wax doesn’t tunnel. Keep the vessel away from a draft, and never leave it lit in an empty room.
The first burnIngredients
Hydrogenated soy, local beeswax when the season allows, cotton wicks, and phthalate-free fragrance oils. The glass is meant to be washed and reused. We take empties back at the counter.
Where it comes from