Skip to content

Free shipping over €60 within Ireland

Essential truths about Essential Oils - Wizard & Grace

Essential truths about Essential Oils

One of the questions many people ask is – why essentials oils and what’s so different about an essential oil candle

When I first began making candles and learning about the manufacturing process I was always very sure – they had to be 100pc natural and essential oils only. This was the reason I created them to begin with.

I have been making my own skincare lotions and potions for many years and three years ago began to step it up a notch, learning about the wonders of essential oils in the process.

I have always loved candles and always ensured I bought what I believed to be the most ‘natural’ out there – after all it did say that on the packet. I really genuinely thought that the scent was essential oil and natural – I mean, why wouldn’t it be?

A nose for the business

As my nose became more.. eh.. ‘honed’ and I grew more accustomed to working with essential oils I began to be able to spot a fake smell a mile off (or a few metres away). I began looking for a straight-up no-nonsense essential oil candle to burn and gift and honestly struggled. A few times I thought I found the holy grail of candles – taking in with the authentic natural marketing and packaging - even gifting as a corporate gift a candle set to the TV legend Bibi Baskin (who had given a full day of her time for free to a charity I was involved with).

A few days later I burned the same candle I had gifted (it looked so alluring I bought one for myself) and as the chemical fake cloying fragrance smell filled my home I was mortified. Bibi who ran an Indian wellness retreat for many years would surely know the difference between fake fragrance and essential oil. There I had been prattling on to her about yoga and Ayurveda and then gifted her a glass full of chemical. I felt conned by the greenwashing.


And so I began to make my own.

Natural or nothing

The reason I have chosen essential oils is because they are genuinely natural and derived from plants. There is no chemical fragrance or perfume added.

The majority of candles out there are chemically fragranced, some include a small portion of essential oils but the majority of the scent comes from perfume or chemical fragrance. This is even the case with candles that claim to be fully natural.

To me chemically fragrancing a candle is akin to going on a nature walk, delighting in the flora and fauna, bending down to smell a beautiful flower, deciding ‘nah - way too subtle’ and spraying an air freshener in the poor flower’s face. Okay maybe a tad overdramatic – but the crux is the same – why, when we have the amazing beauty and plant scents from essential oils would you even consider a chemical fragrance?

There are of course reasons many candlemakers do this which began to be made abundantly clear to me once I started making my own candles. To create an essential oil candle is expensive – one candle contains 12.5gms of essential oil – one and half of your standard essential oil bottles.

Plus they are sensitive to work with, they are potent and need careful handling – just like plants themselves. In addition they are photo-sensitive which is why Wizard & Grace essential oil candles now come in amber containers only.

The smell from an Essential Oil candle can also be a little more subtle than the overpowering chemical scents but that to me – and hopefully to you – is a good thing. In the same way the fragrance of a summer garden can be subtle but still fragrant, still beautiful – that is the sense of natural balance I instill in each Wizard & Grace candle.

All of the above can be worked around and that's what we do on the daily to create a beautiful and 100pc natural sustainable candle for you to burn and enjoy.

For me, for Wizard & Grace, there was simply no option but to only use Essential Oils.

We hope you love burning them as much as we loved creating them for you.

 

 

Back to blog