Dorothy “Dot” Swogger was endlessly inventive, often making gifts out of throwaway items. At Christmastime, it was always a thrill to see that year’s snowman, which she would give away to the members of her large family.
That craftiness was passed down to her daughter, Janie Besser, and Besser’s daughter, Lenisa Scutillo, who has turned it into a business.
On Aug. 12, Scutillo opens the doors on Dot Lou’s Wings of Time Part 2, a store at 850 S. Irvine Ave., Masury, next to Penn-Ohio Lottery and Deli. She will sell natural and earth-based candles, bath salts, creams, salves, essential oil sprays, soaps and related items.
Scutillo said she learned how to make things by watching her grandmother and mother, and the first product she made related to her business was a pain cream, which is now “one of my number-one sellers.”
“After that, I think we got into some candles and then the wax melts came,” she said. “And then we just started doing all the cosmetics and everything in between.”
She tries to put her stamp on each of her products.
“Our candles are different from everybody else’s because they bubble glitter when they’re burning,” Scutillo said. “They all have crystals or gemstones or some sort of something on the top of them.”
She makes wax melts – essentially “fireless candles” – for people who can’t have open flames at home, creams to treat any number of skin conditions, hand sanitizer and “pretty, girly things.”
Items she will sell but does not make include salt lamps, wax warmers, tapestries, incense burners and water fountains. Local vendors also will get space.
For about two years, Scutillo has been selling items online and at Brookfield Drive In, but hadn’t considered a storefront until Cash Land moved out of the space she now occupies.
“With the drive-through being next door, I kept seeing the ‘for rent’ sign over here,” Scutillo said. “Mike (Rasoul), the landlord of the plaza, is a good friend of mine. With the location, so many of our customers are over here anyways, and they’re coming here through the drive-through, and a lot of them want to smell the candles and sample the products. The drive-through’s so busy they don’t always get the opportunity. It was one of those things where it was like, ‘You know what, let’s talk to him,’ and it just happened. I know it’s crazy to do in the middle of a pandemic.”
The business name comes from a poem her grandmother wrote when Besser was pregnant with Scutillo, and the return poem Scutillo wrote when her grandmother was ill.
Swogger died in 2012.
“We try to keep her spirit through this a lot,” Scutillo said of Swogger. “She was a woman of rules and ethics, and that’s something that’s very important to us here. She helped the community; we try to help the community. Basically, everything is trying to honor her.”
Store hours will be 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.
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