CITRON

Lemongrass and litsea cubeba reach you first, with citronella sharpening the edge. Litsea is the small fruit of a tree grown mostly in southern China, sometimes called mountain pepper, and its oil smells brighter and cleaner than lemon itself. This is the candle for the start of something: the first hours at a desk, a kitchen table cleared for work, a room that needs waking up.

As the wax pools, geranium rose softens the citrus, green and leafy rather than sweet, and cedarwood and clove settle underneath. The brightness stays, but now it has a floor to stand on, so the scent keeps its clarity through the whole burn instead of spending it in the first hour.

The word organic is easy to put on a candle and hard to earn. Unless an independent body has certified the whole candle, the word usually describes one ingredient at most, and nobody examines the rest of the jar.

These candles are made by Skär Organics in Meanwood, Yorkshire. They were the first candles in the UK to be certified organic by the Soil Association. Every part is assessed every year: the wax, the essential oils, the wick, and the way each ingredient is bought. Skär is Old Norse for pure, a nod to the Viking history of the part of the North where they are made.

We stock them because they meet the standard we hold our own incense to. That means pure plant oils, nothing synthetic, and small batches made by hand by people who can tell you where every ingredient came from.

Each candle is poured by hand in small batches at Skär's studio in Meanwood, from certified organic beeswax. The beeswax is left unrefined, filtered only to remove traces of the hive, with no bleaching or processing.

The scent comes entirely from certified organic essential oils, carried in organic coconut oil, and each description lists them in full. There are no fragrance oils and no synthetic boosters, so what you smell is the plant itself. The wick is wood rather than cotton, and it is certified like everything else in the jar.

Each 200g candle burns for 40 hours or more, except Ylang Ylang, which burns for around 30. For the cleanest burn, trim the wick to about 5mm before each lighting, and let the first burn run until the melted wax reaches the edge of the jar. Never leave a lit candle unattended.

Soil Association certification means more than a clean ingredients list. It requires no pesticides anywhere in the chain, no synthetic additives, and a full audit of how every ingredient is sourced. The audit is repeated every year, not granted once.

For these candles, Ahimsa, the principle of non-harm behind everything we make, begins at the hive. Skär's bees are kept on organic land and forage where no pesticides are used, and the hives themselves are built from natural, certified organic materials.

Your candle reaches you in the same packaging as our incense: a compostable shipping box and a mailer made from potato and corn starch, with no plastic anywhere. As with everything you buy from us, part of every purchase goes to the Bhakti Centre in Bath, to Sea Shepherd, and to charities in Vrindavan that feed sadhus and educate children from less privileged families.