There’s a point every year when it officially starts to feel like fall at Jack Be Nimble.
It usually has very little to do with the weather. Here in Atlanta, September can still feel suspiciously like July. But inside the studio, the pumpkins start showing up, the fall fragrances come back out, and suddenly I’m pouring candles that smell like warm spices, woods, citrus, cranberry and everything I love about the season.
This year, fall arrived a little early.
For the past few weeks, orders for our autumn candles have already been coming in, and I’ve been back in the studio pouring two of my favorite limited-edition pieces of the season: our Harvest Ceramic Pumpkin Candle and Amber Heirloom Pumpkin Candle.
They’re very different candles, but they came from the same idea: I wanted to make something that feels special enough to become part of your fall home—not just something you burn and put away when the candle is finished.
The Harvest Ceramic Pumpkin
The Harvest Ceramic Pumpkin is the showpiece of this year’s autumn collection.
It’s a substantial orange ceramic pumpkin topped with a gold lid and filled with nearly 19 ounces of soy wax. Each one is hand-poured and double-wicked in our Atlanta studio, with an estimated burn time of 70–80 hours.
And because there’s no Jack Be Nimble branding permanently printed on the ceramic, once the candle is finished, the vessel can stay out as part of your fall décor.
For this one, I wanted to give people several different ways to experience fall rather than deciding that autumn has to smell like one particular thing.
There are four fragrances to choose from:
Mahogany Pumpkin is warm, rich and woodsy—a more sophisticated take on pumpkin for someone who doesn't necessarily want a traditional pumpkin-spice candle.
Autumn Glow brings together apple, cinnamon and clove with eucalyptus, pine, juniper, cranberry and cedarwood. It has the familiar warmth you expect from a fall fragrance, but with enough freshness and woods to keep it interesting.
Cranberry Orange Scones is brighter and a little more playful, pairing tart cranberry and citrus with the warmth of something just pulled from the oven.
And then there is Fallelujah.
Fallelujah combines citrus, clove, nutmeg, bay leaf, lemon zest and musk, but a list of fragrance notes doesn't really explain why this particular candle means so much to me.
The fragrance actually goes all the way back to my childhood. Years after I started making candles myself, I tracked down the fragrance supplier used by the candle maker whose candles my family had when I was growing up—and found the exact fragrance I remembered.
I first tried selling it in the early days of Jack Be Nimble under the rather grand name Autumn Splendor.
Let's just say the world wasn't quite ready for Autumn Splendor.
I, however, never stopped loving it.
Sixteen years later, it has a new name, another chance at finding its people, and a story that's much too long to squeeze into this post. I'll tell you that one next.
A Different Kind of Pumpkin
If the Harvest Pumpkin is the more traditional side of fall, the Amber Heirloom Pumpkin is its moodier counterpart.
The amber glass catches the light beautifully, especially once the candle is burning, and gives the familiar pumpkin shape a warmer, more understated look.
For this candle, I chose one fragrance: Golden Hour.
Golden Hour blends ambered vanilla, toasted pumpkin spice, gilded mandarin and smoked wood. It's warm without being overly sweet, with citrus and woods giving the fragrance a little more depth than a traditional pumpkin candle.
It's exactly the kind of fall fragrance I love—recognizably seasonal, but not obvious.
Each Amber Heirloom Pumpkin is also hand-poured in small batches in our Atlanta studio. And just like the ceramic pumpkin, the glass vessel is beautiful enough to keep long after the candle has burned.
What Does Fall Have to Smell Like?
One of the things I've learned after more than 15 years of making candles is that fragrance is incredibly personal.
There really isn't one “best” fall candle scent.
For some people, fall will always mean pumpkin and baking spices. Someone else wants apple and cranberry. Someone wants woods, smoke and amber. And someone will smell a citrus-and-clove candle called Fallelujah and immediately understand why I've been trying to make this fragrance happen since 2010.
At Jack Be Nimble, I don't think every fragrance has to appeal to everybody.
I'd actually rather it didn't.
The fun part is finding the fragrance that makes you stop, smell it again and say, “That's the one.”
Hand-Poured in Atlanta, One Batch at a Time
Jack Be Nimble started in 2010, and even as the company has grown, the way we make our candles has remained deliberately small.
Our candles are hand-poured in our studio in Atlanta, Georgia, using soy wax and fine fragrance oils. We pour in small batches rather than mass-producing them, which means fall around here really does look like rows of pumpkins waiting to be filled, pitchers of wax on the pouring table and a studio that smells slightly different every day.
There is still something I love about seeing a finished batch lined up after the last candle has been poured—especially these pumpkins.
They're candles, certainly.
But they're also little markers of the season.
And despite what the temperature outside may be telling us, fall has officially arrived at Jack Be Nimble.