Having candles around my home is one of my great pleasures in life. Delicious smells can lift my spirits easily, bringing peace to my sometimes very hectic life. After finding out that conventional candles are filled with harmful chemicals, releasing toxins into the air, I made it my mission to find more sustainable alternatives. While I had talked about one of my findings back in Britain, moving to California meant searching for other sustainable candle brands. The goal? Locating ethical brands making great products in the most natural way possible, while also sharing my love for filling spaces with the peaceful smells of aromatherapy. I found my first choice quickly enough: Gold Hill Candle Co.
Located in Napa Valley, Gold Hill Candle Co. specialises in pure soy candles, without any added synthetics. An artisan brand through and through, each candle is hand-poured, and the scents are made in small batches. There’s no industrialisation behind this little enterprise, and that’s what’s made them stand out in the crowd. Made through traditional craftsmanship, the Gold Hill candles have wooden wicks to exponentiate the flavour. What’s more, these candles will burn for a really long time!
This eco-conscious and non-toxic brand has quickly become a darling among US-based celebrities, with Oprah Winfrey’s O Magazine adding it to its list of favourite soy candles of 2020. It’s hardly any wonder – their products are amazing, with very unique scents that linger in your home for quite some time.
The Gold Hill scents vary quite often, as their entire output is made in small batches for an in-depth sense of exclusivity. Some of their more traditional aromas include Orange Blossom, Lavender Field, and Cucumber Mint, but I love seeing more exotic aromas thrown into the mix, like Tomato Leaf and Leather and Fig. Owner Jessica is always experimenting with new scents, adding delicious new aromas to her growing line, including a few scents based on baked goods, such as Snickerdoodles and Lemon Cookies. These uniquely scented soy candles will transport you to another place, with sweet concepts like the smell of falling leaves filling your home. Other wildly different past offerings have included Belgian linen and Toasted Pumpkin Spice.
Another thing I love about this brand is that it offers a fantastic subscription service and quite an affordable one at that. Through it, you can receive two large soy candles with varying scents every month, allowing you to keep your home fresh with a myriad of satisfying aromas. Each candle has a size of 6 ounces, designed to burn for over 30 hours. As these candles are made to last, there’s also a good chance you won’t be using both every month, which in turn translates to having a beautiful and organic last-minute present for a loved one.
Gold Hill Candle Co. is one of those lovely instances of pastimes that turn into careers. Napa-based photographer Jessica Christine Johnson had a deep love for candles and began making them for herself and her family. After some time, seeing how she kept improving her own processes and continued to enjoy them, she decided to turn her hobby into a business. On the brand’s Instagram account, you can usually see Jessica’s latest experiments with different aromas based on different times of the year, including autumny smells and flower-filled spring ones.
As a society, we’ve grown used to industrialised and fast versions of old products, losing touch to the proper care of traditional things. With that in mind, Gold Hill’s website has a section on How to Burn their candles, specifying the best practices to make the most out of their candles, particularly in regards to the wood wicks.
Scented candles create a soothing ambiance, and you may even feel like they help you concentrate or put you in a better mood. But it’s too easy to fall into big and paraffin wax-based brands, which stem directly from petroleum, coal or shale oil. Consuming these candles means helping to perpetuate the cycle of oil dependency, for one, but it’s also a way to poison our spaces. Paraffin wax candles release toluene and benzene fumes into the air, both of which are linked to lung cancer and asthma. It’s not a risk worth taking for anyone, and I am certainly not about to poison the air of the home where my toddler is taking his first steps. Aromatherapy is an important part of what makes me relax on my downtimes, and deliciously organic candles are one of the things that make my house feel like a home. I look forward to experiencing more of Gold Hill’s exotic smells! Visit the official website here.