TYSONS, Va. — Alejandro Buxton is just like any other 12-year-old. He likes to play with Legos, take family vacations and just started 7th grade.
According to his mom, Patricia Buxton, he also has a "very expensive comic book habit."
But, unlike most kids his age — or for that matter — most adults, he also runs his own kiosk in Tysons, at one of the nation's largest malls.
"[Everywhere] candles. Candles here," he gestures, showing off the now empty space between Victoria's Secret and the Banana Republic on the second floor of the mall. The space the currently online store, Smells Like Love, will soon occupy.
His business first started during the pandemic. At just 9 years old, he wanted to help out his mother.
"We love candles and she got headaches and she really didn't know where they're coming from. So, you know, after a while burning the candles, we found out it was from the candles," he told WUSA9. "So I created a candle for her called drastic orange if she really enjoyed it."
Soon, he wanted to share his homemade, natural candles with more people by selling them.
"I’ve been an entrepreneur in the past like, you know, mowing the lawn, shoveling snow or lemonade, because my grandma taught me how to make lemonade," he explains.
For his mom, who had to sacrifice her kitchen at the start, she said it was just like her son.
"Oh, I was not surprised at all. So at the time, he already had a lemonade stand he sold out of my mom's salon. He was like, the neighborhood landscaper. When it snowed, he would go around asking neighbors if they needed their car shoveled out or their paths in front of their house," she said.
What did surprise her, however, was how well his business did.
"We didn't think too much of it...make a little money for your college fund," she said adding he'd make normally four to six candles at a time.
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Now he has a production space inside the mall, as well. And-- they are hiring more staff to allow the kiosk to operate at full speed, while still taking the candles to local markets, where he first started selling them.
Taking the money, not just for his college fund, but for local charities.
"We give back to a local charity based out of Annandale that provides toiletries for the homeless...(and another) provides care packages for parents who have lost their child prematurely," Patricia explains. "And then we are fulfilling a teacher wish list, you know, this September, so we try to do as much as we can. And now that we're gonna be in Tysons, I feel like we'll be able to do even more."
For Alejandro, his goal: "I want to see all of our candles in every single household like everyone was burning the candles and love and joy coming into the houses."
Their kiosk will open Sept. 1 through Sept. 5 and Alejandro plans to be there as often as he can, outside of school hours.