A Candle Company That Doesn't Need a Spokesman Just Hired Michael Ian Black

Candle companies don't have spokesmen — Michael Ian Black says so himself, in the very post where he becomes one. On Friday morning the comedian announced on his Substack that he's the spokesman for Sinscents, a tiny tongue-in-cheek candle company run by his friend Steve Sprague — and he framed the post as the venture's unofficial launch, for a business whose sales he puts at, in his words, "exactly zero."

"Somehow I'm a Candle Spokesman Now?" is the title, and the question is the story. "Think of the great candle spokespersons of days gone by," Black writes. "You can't. Because there aren't any." Spokesmen exist for insurance and beer. Candles sell on scent and shelf appeal, and nobody has ever closed a candle sale with a famous face. As of Friday morning, a candle company has one anyway.

It started a couple of months ago with a text from Sprague: "I want to make you a candle." The ask escalated — from being a candle to speaking for the company that makes it — and Black said yes to a job that has never existed, in an industry that has never once advertised for it.

The company makes what he calls funny candles — "pithy, risqué, and downright silly" — sold at sinscents.com, premium candles under joke names. The ones he names in the post: a Christmas candle called "Santa's Fat Ass," one for family gatherings called "We're Not Yelling. This Is How We Talk!," and one for the office kitchen called "Fish in the Microwave." The mascot is Jynx, and Black files his own identification papers: "the mascot's an adorable little devil, just like me."

The arithmetic

None of this is a money play, and Black does the arithmetic himself so nobody else has to. Sales at the moment are, he believes, "exactly zero." If the thing works, he stands to make — his capitals, his emphasis — "SEVERAL HUNDRED dollars." It's the most honest compensation disclosure the endorsement business has ever produced, and it doubles as the pitch: the spokesman isn't in it for the money, because there isn't any.

There is one artefact with a straight face. Black hand-signs JUST MICHAEL, the company's limited candle — 666 numbered pieces, which is either a print run or a punchline and, at this company, isn't required to choose.

"It's among the stupidest things I've ever done," Black writes — and among comedians, stupid worn proudly is high praise. "Sinscents makes me laugh" is the whole endorsement strategy in four words. His one creative contribution so far is a name for the unscented line, should the company ever make one: "Silent but Deadly." Every spokesman should leave the client one good idea. His is an unscented candle called Silent but Deadly — and it may yet outsell the scented ones.