My Shop
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Name? Steve & Pauline Thomas
Shop name? Candles & Soaps of Dartmouth
What do you sell? Soaps, candles of all kinds, bath bombs
and soaps with over 60 different fragrances, hand-blown
glass, light up acrylic figures, and all sorts of Christmas
decorations. us enough time to plan the look of the display and to get all
Who shops here? We really have a wide range of the stock in ready to create it. This year we were up until 4am
customers; young, old, male, and female as we have prices fininshing it and in total it took us 16 hours to finish. This is
to suit all budgets ranging from £2.99 to £100. now our 11th Christmas window display and we seem to
How long have you had the shop here on Foss St? have made a rod for our own back as we struggle to better it
We have been trading here for ten and half years. each year. * see front cover
What did you do before running the shop? When is your busiest time? All the time really; we have
Pauline is a Dartmouthian and I have lived here for the last people who come in regularly but, as with most traders,
30 years. I was originally from Lancashire and moved to Christmas is an exceptionally busy time for us. We are open
Devon when I was 11. When I was 17, I was drafted in the EVERY day except Christmas Day as Pauline says I have to
Navy here in Dartmouth in which I served for 23 years. I cook the Christmas lunch!
met my beautiful wife, Pauline, when I was 21. Pauline was Where do you source your products? We have at least 60
then an ‘artist brush’ maker, we soon married, and decided different suppliers from around the world but we try to source
to run our own business together in candles and soaps. We locally as much as we can. As an independant shop, we get
were influneced by a friend who did something similar in to choose what’s best for our customers. Every year we go to
Torquay. I left the Navy in 1998 and we opened the shop in the main trade show at the NEC for five days to identify new
1999. We had a lovely daughter who has now given us two suppliers that offer something a bit different. People often say
wonderful grandchildren! they spend so much time looking around our shop because
Your window display* is fantastic, did you have some there are so many different things to look at!
sort of training? No, neither of us have. We do a lot of Do you make your own candles here? We are trained to
preparation though to make them; we start our planning make them and we do have the equipment but it’s difficult to
from February to be ready for the following year. This gives find the time and space to do it.
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20a Foss Street, Dartmouth,
TQ6 9DR. Tel 01803 833237
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