• Mahaica entrepreneur transforms home business into export-ready brand

 SCENTED candles made in the quiet farming community of Mahaica are now poised to enter the international market, thanks to the creativity and determination of 62-year-old Debbie Argyle owner of the small business ‘Magnificent Enterprise.’

 A proud member of the Mahaica Women’s Group which consists of 40 women cash crop farmers Argyle has expanded her role from cultivator to Agro-processor, using her home as the base of operations for a growing line of value-added products.

These include organic soaps, green seasonings, achars, jams, pepper sauce, and most notably, hand-poured scented candles.

Using the “melt and pour” method, she creates three candle sizes in calming, richly scented options like peppermint, lavender, lemon, jasmine, cherry, citronella, lime, chocolate, and vanilla.

The candles are neatly packaged in locally sourced glass jars and sold for $800, $1500, and $3000, depending on size.

Argyle told the Guyana Chronicle that she launched her small business five years ago after registering with the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC), a decision that opened doors to training opportunities and expos—both local and overseas.

Her products have since been showcased across the region, most recently during her third visit to Barbados for a major trade expo.

She related that they would sell their produce to the markets, walk and sell in the community and to all retail buyers.

The agro-processor added that she also makes organic soaps in turmeric, aloe, papaya, neem and ninwah, ideal for all skin types.

The mother of 10, grandmother of 13 and great grandmother of one pointed out that she would make achars in tamarind, mango and bling, bling (sourie) which is also packaged and sold.

Argyle will soon embark on a new project where she will create her floral line of scented candles for the market and it was her third time in Barbados for the expo and she was able to network and market her products. She will soon be exporting her products overseas.

She said her personal small business is named ‘Magnificent Enterprise’ and as a farmer and agro-processor she also makes pepper sauce and gooseberry jam.

Customers can find her products at the Guyana Shop on Robb and Alexander Streets, Georgetown, or order directly from her home.

She handles most of the production herself, with help from her husband and son, while still tending to household chores and her kitchen garden.

Argyle sources wax, molds, and essential oils internationally, but purchases her jars locally. Despite rising material costs, she strives to keep her prices fair, with her peppermint-scented candles being a top seller for their calming, soothing effect.

Beyond entrepreneurship, Argyle is a practicing herbalist—a legacy she inherited from her grandmother, Rose Bookey, a revered healer from Mahaica.

Argyle said her granny was a true herbalist who had many clients and on Sundays, people came from far and wide to benefit from her services which included rubs, massages, belly fixing of women, who yearned to become a mother, bathing of babies for various illnesses among others.

She added that she remembered the house was crowded and men, women and children waited for the services offered at a meagre fee and it was passed onto her when her granny passed away in 1992.

“I haven’t been able to master certain traditions handed down to me through generations to the women in the family, but my mom is also an herbalist, and I am getting there,” she said.

Now a mother of 10, grandmother of 13, and great-grandmother of one, she’s proud to be passing down her herbal knowledge to future generations.

She pointed out that her granny was good at baking and made the best local cakes which included cassava pone, salara, buns and local home-made mauby.

Argyle also celebrates the journey of the Mahaica Women’s Group, noting that the members now operate large-scale shade houses and have received formal training from the Ministry of Agriculture.

Today, they are managing large scale shade houses in farming and are dependent as contributors to the home against their male counterparts.