So…who exactly is behind The Herberowe Candle Co?
I LOVE and I mean actually LOVE small local businesses! I have spent most of my career as a journalist writing about brilliant and inspiring entrepreneurs, and for many years I also helped small, boutique business with their PR. But now it’s MY turn to run my own small enterprise and it is more exciting than I thought possible!
I say MY turn but actually Herberowe is a brand that has only been created because of my rather wonderful husband, Colin. As a confirmed local history addict, Colin poured over some local maps to discover that an area in a field behind our home was called Herberowe. Realising that the word was hardly in use and in danger of disappearing, we decided to name our house Herberowe as a nod to our ancient settlers and a way to preserve it for future generations.
When the world changed in 2020 I decided to rethink the way I was working after losing much of my freelance work due to the pandemic. I have always had an interest in plants, flowers and gardening and ran a small herb-growing business years ago. This passion has never really left me, and I knew I wanted to do something creative that was connected to the power of fragrant plants but that had its home here - in the village where we live. I wanted to join our thriving local business community.
Combined with a strong interest in wellbeing and a complete addiction to candles, the seed of a business idea had started to germinate! In 2019 I wrote a book about how we can all use journaling and writing as a self development tool. Whenever I write I light a candle to get my creative juices flowing and I encouraged all my readers to do the same so it seemed a perfect fit really!
Research began in earnest (candle making is complicated, scientific and takes ages to perfect!) and by the end of last year we had a small range of perfumed candles ready to release to the world that were all safety compliant and met the rigorous CLP (Classification, Labelling and Packaging) regulations. Friends and family helped with the endless but essential testing process, and the kitchen began to resemble a laboratory but we got there!
The branding process was almost as complex as the actual chandling (the official name for candle making) and after a few false starts we settled on our simple brown paper labels. We knew we wanted our core collection to have an apothecary-inspired look and feel so chose to use just two candle vessels to start with. We will be introducing different ones in due course.
The natural world, seasons and equinoxes are Colin’s absolute obsession so our plan is also to create limited edition candles that mark the different seasons and times of year.
The Herberowe Candle Co was launched in the autumn and we sold out over Christmas! Since then we have increased our production, added a few new essential oil fragrances and started to offer an ‘unlabelled’ bespoke service to customers who require a certain colour or type of glass to fit with their specific decor and don’t require our brand labels to be visible.
We are loving running our small business from our home in Oxfordshire, and feel proud to be part of such a supportive and innovative community of entrepreneurs. But the Herberowe brand does not stop at candles! This year we plan to launch a curated collection of vintage, apothecary and botanical - inspired home decor objects starting with maps… which is where the idea all began so watch this space!
We have made a conscious decision to run our business in a way that is as ethical as possible with a low environmental impact. We feel that something as simple as a scented candle made from natural wax should be an affordable luxury that can really make a big difference to our wellbeing. For every candle we sell we make a donation to the mental health charity MIND.