How to smell presidential -- buy this candle
Eager to fill your house with the thrilling smell of political triumph?
Kate Dobson, who runs humor website JDandKateIndustries with her husband, has just the thing: a Donald Trump-scented candle, complete with the president-elect’s signature orange-ish combover. The item’s unique product claim: It will “Make America Smell Great Again.”
Vendors say demand for the candle and other Trump-themed merchandise has been strong in the weeks leading up to Friday’s inauguration, with fans and foes alike snapping up similar products at a brisk pace. Another big seller are Trump Socks featuring the likeness of the former reality TV star.
“We have sold about 60 of these socks since his election,” said Mike Weeks, who sells the $11.99 socks through his TokiTees store on Etsy, by email. “They almost never sold before he was elected.”
Thousands of Trump items are listed for sale on Etsy and eBay, which is also auctioning off the real estate tycoon’s childhood home.
Dobson said she was caught off guard by the interest in their Trump-scented candle.
“My husband and I have mixed feeling about this, in part because making the hair for the candles is a pain, and there are always clumps of orange hair all over our house,” she said by email. “We might not continue making them for long after the inauguration. We had actually planned to stop selling them after the election, but we received so many requests that we eventually caved.”
Not surprisingly, given the country’s polarizing next president, demand for products bashing Mr. Trump is also strong.
“Since the election, the anti-Trump decals have gone through the roof,” Joey Horne, owner of Etsy store NetHut Decal, said. “People are having anti-Trump parties and paying huge expedited shipping to make sure they have everything by [January 20]. Every day, when the orders come in, I still shake my head at the amount of anything anti-Trump that is selling.”
Some Trump goods are pricey. The top seller for Washington, D.C. jeweler Ann Hand is a $75 commemorative pin with “Donald Trump, President of the United States,” written in gold letters against a blue background.
“We didn’t have a lot of time, so our factory in Rhode Island has been rushing to get them out,” she said. “Since then, we have developed two others. One model arrived the day before yesterday, and some more are coming in tomorrow.”
For Trump fans for whom money is no object, Hand is offering a diamond-encrusted 18-carat gold pin for a cool $25,000. “The sales are running really high for Trump,” she said. “He’s got a very loyal following out there.”
But what does a Trump-scented candle, which retails for $18.50, smell like? Dobson described the scent as a combination of steak and suntan lotion, with “hints of something tropical/coconut-y.”