Who Makes White Barn Candles? The Slatkin Story and How to Find a 100% Beeswax Candle
If you searched who makes White Barn candles, you probably saw the barn on a jar and wondered whether a small country candle maker was behind it. White Barn candles are made and sold by Bath & Body Works, Inc., the company that owns the brand and runs the stores where you find it.
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The Slatkin name on older labels belongs to Harry Slatkin, a home fragrance developer who led the line for the parent company starting in 2005. He left in the early 2010s and has had no tie to White Barn since. White Barn uses the same kind of wax as the main Bath & Body Works candles, a blend that typically includes paraffin with vegetable or soy wax. If pure beeswax is what you hoped to find, that is the one wax we use in every scent in our collection of 100% beeswax candles hand poured in New York City.
Where the White Barn name came from, and where Slatkin fits
White Barn started in the late 1990s as a home fragrance shop from the same corporate family that owned Bath & Body Works. That family was later known as L Brands. The idea was a quieter, decor-friendly shelf for people who wanted a candle that looked at home on a mantel.
In 2005 the parent company brought in Slatkin & Co., the business Harry Slatkin built with his wife, Laura. Harry became president of home design, and for several years White Barn stores carried the Slatkin & Co. name. Plenty of people still have those jars, which is why the question of who makes the candles keeps coming up.
After Harry Slatkin left, he went on to build separate lines such as HomeWorx, sold through TV shopping and big retail chains. White Barn went back to being a home fragrance label inside Bath & Body Works. If you own a newer White Barn candle, the Slatkin family had nothing to do with it.
Today the two brands share a parent company and the same wax formulas. White Barn's difference is mostly the jar, with neutral labels and softer colors meant to blend into a room. That leaves the question most readers are really asking underneath the first one: what is the candle actually made of?
The wax, which sets the floor for everything else
Every candle starts as wax, and the wax decides how it burns before the scent or the jar come into play. Most mass-market candles, White Barn included, use a blend that contains paraffin. To understand paraffin, it helps to follow it back to where it is made.
Crude oil goes into a refinery, where it is heated and split into parts. The light parts become gasoline and jet fuel. The heavy, waxy part left near the bottom is filtered, often bleached, and sold as paraffin wax. Put simply, paraffin is petroleum waste, a leftover from making fuel.
When paraffin burns, it can leave soot, the gray film you see on the rim of an old jar. Research has shown that burning paraffin can also release compounds such as benzene and toluene into the air. Blending paraffin with soy softens the wax, but the paraffin in that blend still burns the way paraffin burns.
Beeswax starts in a hive. Honeybees make it to build their comb, and beekeepers collect it as a byproduct when they harvest honey. It needs no refining from oil, and it is the single ingredient in every candle we pour. So the useful comparison is about what that one ingredient does once it is lit.
What goes into Room Service, the candle we are proudest of
Think about the last time you walked into a good hotel lobby and noticed the air before you noticed the furniture. Luxury hotels plan that moment. They build a signature scent, often around white tea, and run it through the lobby and halls so guests remember the place by its smell.
When friends come over, you want that same first impression at your own front door. That is the room our Room Service beeswax candle was made for. It is our number one bestseller, and its notes are Saffron, White Tea, Purple Peonies, Orchid, Tobacco, Vanilla, Almond Milk, Tonka Bean.
In the room, the saffron and white tea read clean with a little spice. The peony and orchid keep it soft and floral. Tobacco, vanilla, almond milk, and tonka bean give it a warm finish that stays in the air after your guests sit down.
Under the scent is a short ingredient list. The wax is 100% beeswax, with no paraffin and no soy in the blend. The fragrance is phthalate-free. Phthalates are chemicals some fragrance makers add to help a scent cling and last, and many candles use toxic fragrances containing phthalates and parabens without saying so on the label.
There is also no chemical dye. The color you see is the natural gold of the beeswax itself. Each candle is hand poured in New York City, which means a person fills every jar and sets every wick by hand.
Two wooden wicks, and the sound they make
The first thing most people notice when they light Room Service is the sound. Wooden wicks crackle softly as they burn, like a small fire across the room. That happens because wood holds tiny pockets of moisture and air that pop as the flame reaches them.
The 12 oz size has two wooden wicks. Two flames spread heat across the whole surface of the jar, so the melted wax reaches the edges instead of sinking down the middle. An even melt pool means the scent leaves the whole surface of the candle at once, which is what fills a living room.
Beeswax also has the highest melting point of any common candle wax. Here is why that matters: wax that needs more heat to melt gets used up more slowly, so the candle lasts longer. The 12 oz Room Service burns 80+ hours, and the 5 oz size burns 40 hours.
Then there is the light itself. A beeswax flame gives off light closer to natural sunlight than other waxes, a warm gold that flatters a room at night. When you host, that glow does as much for the mood as the scent does.
What customers notice once it is burning
The specs tell you how the candle is built. Customers tell you how it lives in a real apartment. These are their own words, unedited.
Absolutely obsessed with M Bur Candle Co my roommate and I own 6/8 of the scents! They smell up a WHOLE room during the burn & even a while after blowing them out. I won't buy other candles anymore, they're just that good
Paige
That point about the scent staying after the flame is out matters most when you host. You can blow out Room Service before dinner, and the room still smells like you planned it when guests walk in. Burn times hold up, too.
Candle burned slowly and was exactly the amount of hours the company said it would burn.
Portia Darby
Room Service is the scent people choose for that hosting moment, and the 80+ hours on the 12 oz size cover a long season of dinners and weekend guests. It is the candle you light when you want your place to feel cared for.
Behind the pour in New York City
We started MBur because we wanted a candle we could read the full ingredient list of in one breath. One wax, one wooden wick or two, phthalate-free fragrance, and nothing to color it. Every decision since then has come back to that list.
Working with pure beeswax takes patience. It is harder and denser than blended waxes, and it holds fragrance close until it melts. That is why we pour by hand in New York City, so each jar gets checked before it leaves the studio.
Buying beeswax also means buying from beekeepers. The wax comes off the comb when honey is harvested, so a beeswax candle keeps a little more value in that work. It is also the oldest candle material people have used, going back thousands of years, and it still burns the way it always has.
The people who buy from us tend to stay. Many own several scents and give them as gifts, and that kind of repeat trust is the reason we keep the ingredient list as short as it is.
But what if it smells softer in the jar?
If you are used to candles that smell strong before you light them, a beeswax candle can surprise you at first sniff. One customer said it plainly.
I must say I was apprehensive at first. The size. And I couldn't smell much from the Room Service candle. Once I lit it, however, I fell in love! My only criticism is the size. I could definitely deal with another few ounces, but either way I'm reordering!
Breann B.
Her experience has a simple cause. Beeswax is dense, so it keeps the fragrance locked in while the candle is cold. Once the flame builds a melt pool, the warm wax releases the scent into the room, which is the moment she describes.
Her wish for a few more ounces points straight to a size choice. If you love the scent and want it to last through many evenings, the 12 oz candle with two wooden wicks gives you more wax and a wider melt pool. That turns her one complaint into the reason to pick the larger jar.
But I already know the scents I like from the mall
Then you already know what kind of smell suits each room, which makes picking easy. Match the scent to how you use the space. Room Service belongs in the living room where you host, and the bedroom gets something made for lights-out.
For that, our Do Not Disturb beeswax candle is the bedroom pick. A customer named Dawne wrote, It is lovely not overpowering. It's soothing fragrance more than covers my bedroom and bathroom. A scent that fills the room without crowding it is what you want in the space where you wind down.
Which size goes in which room
Choose by room and by how often you light it. A living room, an open kitchen, or any room you light most nights calls for the 12 oz size. Its two wooden wicks spread the scent across a bigger space, and its 80+ hours last through regular use.
For Room Service, that means the 12 oz candle at $65, the size made for the room where you host. The 5 oz size, with one wooden wick and 40 hours of burn, suits a small room such as a bathroom or a reading corner you use now and then.
Whichever size you choose, give the first burn time. Let it burn about two to three hours, until the melted wax reaches the edge of the jar. Beeswax remembers its first melt pool, so a full first burn keeps it from tunneling down the middle later.
Before each relight, snap or trim off the charred tip of the wooden wick. A clean wick gives a steady flame and an even melt. Those two habits keep the candle burning the full number of hours it was built for.
Questions readers ask about White Barn and beeswax
So who actually makes White Barn candles?
Bath & Body Works, Inc. owns, makes, and sells White Barn candles. The brand shares its parent company and its wax formulas with the main Bath & Body Works line. If you want a candle made by a different hand with a single wax, our pure beeswax candle collection is poured in New York City.
Does Harry Slatkin still make White Barn candles?
No. Harry Slatkin led the home fragrance line starting in 2005 and left in the early 2010s, and he has had no connection to White Barn since. If you loved the hotel-style scents of that era, Room Service was built around the same idea of a lobby you remember.
Are White Barn candles made of beeswax?
White Barn candles are typically made from a blend that includes paraffin with vegetable or soy wax. Every MBur candle is 100% beeswax, with phthalate-free fragrance and no chemical dye. You can see each scent and both sizes in our beeswax candle collection.
How long do beeswax candles actually burn?
Longer than other waxes, because beeswax has the highest melting point and gets used up more slowly. Our 12 oz size burns 80+ hours and our 5 oz size burns 40 hours. A full first burn of two to three hours helps you get every one of them.
Which scent should I pick for my bedroom?
Pick a scent made for winding down. Do Not Disturb is the one customers light at night, and one said its fragrance more than covers her bedroom and bathroom. The 5 oz size suits a small bedroom, and the 12 oz size suits a larger one you light every night.
The short answer, and the candle to pick
White Barn is a Bath & Body Works brand, and the Slatkin name on older jars belongs to a chapter that ended in the early 2010s. Its candles use a paraffin blend. If you want a candle made from one clean ingredient, the answer is 100% beeswax.
For the room where you host, pick the 12 oz Room Service. It gives your living room the feeling of walking into a good hotel, the kind of welcome you are proud to open the door to. It is 100% beeswax with two wooden wicks, burns 80+ hours, and carries notes of saffron and white tea over a warm vanilla and tonka bean base.
It is our number one bestseller, and Breann B. put it best: Once I lit it, however, I fell in love! If you have guests coming in the next few weeks, order now so the candle arrives with time for its first full burn before they do.
Get the 12 oz Room Service beeswax candle for the room where you host
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