Integrity

Why it's hard for brands trying to break the mould

When I started Kyrra, it was borne of frustration. As a kid, I was always excited when we got to light candles around Christmastime. As I grew up, I loved spending as much time outdoors as possible- enjoying the smells of nature, the way scents evoke a memory or remind you of a place or time.

As work kicked in, life became busy and those opportunities to enjoy the outdoors became fewer. Fragranced candles would help us relax in the evening, transport us to happy places for a moment of escape. Yet most of the candles on the market had problems when it came to sustainability and lack of transparency. Synthetic fragrances are cheap and give brands consistency and are easy to work with- yet they lack that "realness" and connection with nature. And then there's the packaging- lots of stuff that's designed to look good and jump off the shelves is either not sustainable to make, or difficult to recycle.

I thought we could do better. And after lots of work and research, launching our first all-natural candles with our own custom fragrances seemed like a great achievement. But I thought I could do even better- leading to the launch of Freyr, our 100% organic candle, designed to be the most environmentally and socially conscious fragranced candle there is.

We started advertising and slowly building followers on social media. But sales were pretty slow. We got lots of great comments and encouragement about the branding and the ideas, but when it comes to buying- not so much. The thing is, these candles are expensive. When you don't compromise, things tend to cost.

But as we learned, the biggest kick in the teeth is other brands trying to "greenwash" and make claims about their products that just don't stack up. If you Google "organic candles", chances are you'll get a whole range of candles showing up in the sponsored search- but when you click on the products, you'll soon find that they aren't organic at all. Some of them aren't even all natural. This practice is the same from the big players as well as some of the smaller ones.

So there's the lesson- people are happy to lie to you if they think they can get your money and you won't look closely enough to notice.

So I thought I'd write a little claims guide for those of you (like me) that might be interested in looking out for "greenwashing"

Organic

The vast majority of candles on the market are not “organic” in the sense that they would meet the standards you would expect from organic food etc. Organic candles do exist (including our Freyr candle). Truly organic candle ingredients are certified to similar standards you’d expect for food- and with that comes cost. Our organic wax, for example, costs 5 times as much as our non-organic (and up to 10 times more than paraffin blends). The essential oils are also multiples more expensive than their non-organic counterparts. So if you see a 200g candle being marketed as “organic” and the price is too good to be true- that’s because it is. One well known candle brand was successfully sued for calling their candles “organic” when they weren’t- but that doesn’t seem to have stopped others trying. The easiest way to see if a candle is truly organic are to check for certification (such as the Soil Association)- but unfortunately very few brands have this, partly because the costs for certification are high and partly because some of the rules and hoops for certification are very restrictive (limiting ingredients certified by one body for example). For Kyrra, we’re clear and transparent about our claims. All of the ingredients in our organic candles are independently certified organic (yes, by those big organisations you’ll have heard of) and we’re happy to provide details of where our ingredients come from. We also don’t claim any of our products are organic when they’re not.

Non-Toxic

There’s a bit of a trend going on at the moment for claiming candles are “non-toxic”. Well, I’ve got news for those brands- if you’re selling a fragranced candle, it’s technically toxic. All fragranced candles have to be tested and assessed under UK and EU chemical safety regulations, and have to be labelled appropriately. Nearly every essential or fragrance oil is at the very least a skin irritant or dangerous to aquatic life, and needs to be labelled as such. Anyone claiming a fragranced candle is non-toxic is either trying to pull the wool over your eyes, or isn’t selling their candles safely and legally. All of the fragrances in our candles are pure natural essential oils (and we go the extra mile to make sure they are sustainable and extracted in environmentally friendly ways), but they all undergo a safety assessment by a certified cosmetic chemist. Our candles are then labelled in accordance with the law, and also have a 16 digit UFI code which means that a doctor can look up the safety data online. Of course, all the oils in our candles are included in concentrations that makes them safe to breath and not too flammable- but watch out for candles that aren’t properly labelled, as there’s a chance they aren’t safe.

Sustainable Soy Wax

Soy wax is bad and we don’t use it. The reason people use soy wax is because it’s cheap and easy to work with, and sounds “natural”. However, it’s far from environmentally friendly. While you might be able to get organic European soy for your latte, the same is not true for candle wax. The vast majority comes from vast monoculture GM fields in South America, where biodiversity and soil quality have been destroyed (not to mention the rainforests cut down to plant the fields in the first place). That’s why we avoid soy in all of our products.

Naturally Derived Fragrance Oils

Fragrance oils are synthetic chemicals, processed in a number of ways (often with various natural materials as a starting point). While they often provide great scents and lots of versatility, they are far from natural and the chemical processes used to create them are often not environmentally friendly. We avoid all fragrance oils in our products. “Fragrance oils” and “Essential oils” are very different things. Essential oils are simply extracted from a plant via various means (cold pressing and steam distilling being some of the most environmentally friendly methods). Fragrance oils will have undergone a number of chemical processes in their creation.

Made with Essential Oils

This can be a bit of a catch. “Made with” could mean a tiny percentage of essential oil and a lot of synthetic fragrance additive. Always read the smallprint- and if it isn’t in the smallprint, that’s probably because they don’t want you to know. All of our candles are made only with 100% pure essential oil fragrance, no shortcuts and nothing else added

Fancy packaging

Packaging does sell- especially if you’re buying a luxury item or a gift. We get that- you want things to look great, to feel special. But when it comes to ribbons, plasticised cardboard with various coatings, novelty ceramics- all of this is difficult or impossible to recycle. We look through the lifecycle of all of our packaging from start to full circle. Everything is designed to have the lowest impact when it’s made, and a happy end- whether that’s recycling, or turning into a flower garden. So when you’re looking at packaging, check the manufacturer provides recycling information and tells you what their packaging is made from. If the website doesn’t say, chances are it’s not fully recyclable, or the company hasn’t thought too hard about the packaging. And be wary of any trinkets or mixed materials, as they are almost certain not to be suitable for recycling.