FAQ

What is a Black Series Candle?

A Black series candle is our original creation and contains pure soy wax, a lead free cotton wick and pure essential oils. They are easy to tell apart from the other candles because they come in an all black tin with a shiny gold interior. The reason for the color is to evoke the image of a black credit card. Like all things and life and all candles there are pros and cons to using essential oils in candles.

 

Why does my Black Series candle not smell strongly when burning?

So remember when I said that there are pros and cons to using essential oils? One of the main downsides to using essential oils is that they do not always smell the way you expect them to. Essential oils are completely pure and are not specifically desgined to be put in candles. Many essential oils do not bind super well with wax. When they do bind with wax they still may burn up very quickly to the point where they are not emitting much smell from the hot wax. Occasionally they may have a bit of a burnt smell to them for the same reason. The candles that we carry are ones that we like to burn ourselves. We believe they smell great sitting unlit (cold throw) and also while lit (hot throw). They still will not smell as strongly as candles with fragrance oils. 

 

What are the Pros to Essential Oils?

Essential oils are really awesome and are the backbone to the founding of our company. You know exactly what you are getting - which is distilled oil from a plant or flower. As an example Lavender essential oil is made only from steam distilled lavendar plant/flower. Many essential oils are said to have therapeutic qualities and we make our candles with that in mind. Essential oils smell amazing in an unlit candle as well.

 

What are the Cons to Essential Oils?

As I mentioned above, they do not always smell as strongly when burning, or may smell burnt or different from the listed ingredient. Another downside is that the oils are not all great at mixing with wax so they may be uneven in smell from top to bottom and they also may "sweat" which is just the essential oil separating from the wax as little beads on top of the candle. 

The biggest issue with essential oils is a much larger and overarching issue. Essential oils are destructive and wasteful.  As an example, it takes about 3 pounds of lavender flower to make just half an ounce of lavender oil. This is the reason you will not find rare or endangered species of plants in our black series candles. Sandalwood smells amazing but it is endangered and destroying it to make a small amount of oil is something we do not want to do as a company. We have consulted with environmentalists and done a lot of research to use only essential oils that are at least somewhat sustainable and we are continually learning and updating our process as we learn more.

One of the main ramifications of this to you as a customer is that essential oils are MUCH more expensive than fragrance oils. This is why all of our black label candles are more expensive.  They simply cost us more to buy the supplies and make them.

 

Are you using sustainable essential oils?

We are doing the absolute best that we can. You will notice that many of the oils we use are plants that grow in abundance (basil and mint), as well as ones that are made from parts of the plant that will not cause complete destruction. This is why you will see a lot of citrus varieties like lemon and orange- these essential oils are made primarily from the rind and zest of the fruit. Also our lavender is from multiple sources across the world. This means that the oil can be made from leftovers as opposed to a single source. Please feel free to give us you opinion on this and other topics as we are always open to change. To us, having a sustainable future is much more important than having a particular scent of candle.

 

What is a Gold Series Candle?

Gold series candles came to be because of some of the sustainability, mixing, and cost issues related with using essential oils. The soy wax and lead free cotton wicks are the same, however they use high quality, premium, non-toxic fragrance oils instead of essential oils.