IGGY BOX REVEAL | JULY MAKERS
Welcome to your box ‘Summer is the height of being alive’
Meet your July Makers
Husband and wife duo, Karen & Patrick, based in Buckinghamshire, turned a passion into their livelihood back in 2020…
Their mission with Little Karma, was to create a collection that was luxurious, beautiful, yet simple, whilst being better for our planet and ourselves. Little Karma are proud to donate to mental health charities like Mind UK too.
Zero waste and sustainability is at the core, using compostable, recyclable and biodegradable packaging wherever possible.
A zesty candle and gift combine to invigorate your soul and embrace the summer ahead…
Wicks inside my box
July features a return to the well-loved, glowing amber vessel. Housing a candle hand poured using a blend of coconut and rapeseed wax…
The candle
Indulge in the spa-like feeling of this uplifting natural scent. Its pure essential oils are a fusion of delicious Asian cuisine. It smells spicy but fresh, with a citrus undertone.
The wax facts
The Little One | 200ml | 36 hr burn time | RRP £22
The Bigger One | 300ml | 50 hr burn time | RRP £29
The Little Something Extra
This months box features an energising, hand made Lemon Soap, with exfoliating poppy seeds and turmeric powder. Part of a collection formulated using natural ingredients, often grown at home or locally foraged.
Our planet is at the heart of this brand created by husband and wife Sarah and Cassie back in 2004, Soap offcuts are sold or donated to local charities to ensure no excess soap goes to waste.
Inspired by the stunning Devon countryside, these beautiful paper wrapped soaps smell good enough to eat and are perfect for all skin types.
It’s time to meet the maker, we spoke with Karen & Patrick from Little Karma…
How long has your brand been going/ is it full time or do you do other things?
We launched 18 months ago during lockdown in 2020. At the beginning it was just myself, but my husband Patrick joined me a few months after launch and now it’s our full time hustle.
Where in the UK are you based and what space do you use for your ‘workshop’?
We’re based in the beautiful Buckinghamshire countryside, and at the start of 2022 we moved into our very own workshop. We love having our own space and it’s sped up our production times massively. We can’t wait to put the finishing touches to the workshop when we can find the time.
What inspired you to start making candles? Do you have a passion that has been embedded in your brand?
Whilst pregnant with our daughter, we realised that burning paraffin and synthetic fragrance oils can release harmful substances into the air you breathe, so we set about creating candles that burn cleanly by eliminating all nasties. With a new arrival on the way, it was important to us that our home was completely safe, including the air that we breathed. This led us to develop our range of 100% natural scented candles, which are fragranced using only pure essential oils that are not only clean but bring with them amazing aromatherapy benefits. Our mission with Little Karma Co. Ltd, was to create a collection that was luxurious, aesthetically beautiful and made gifting simple whilst doing better for our planet. That’s why all our candles are refillable and we offer personalisation on every candle.
What do you love about our featured scent?
It’s such a bright, uplifting scent, and every time we light it, it feels like we’re transported to a luxurious spa. Lemongrass enlivens the senses, and works perfectly with the warming and powerful scent of ginger. Lime revives the mind while coriander aids relaxation. Sensual patchouli grounds the blend to finish off this wonderfully balanced aroma.
There are so many scents you can choose to make…How do you go about choosing for your collection?
We are very selective about the scents we develop. We only use pure natural essential oils and never use any synthetic fragrance oils or chemical boosters in our candles. Each blend has been carefully curated in our studio for their scent and aromatherapy benefits. When deciding on the next scent, we start with either the key note or how we want the candle to make us feel, and then the next step is research! We compile a list of the essential oils that work well together and will help us achieve the aromatherapy effect we’re looking for. Then it’s all about testing testing testing until we find the perfect combination of scent and the right aromatherapy benefits.
What has been your proudest moment since starting out?
Being commissioned by Rolls-Royce London to create a collection of bespoke, 5-litre and 10-litre candles for their brand new Mayfair Showroom was certainly a pinch-me moment! Seeing our custom creations adorning key areas of the stunning showroom made us feel extremely proud of how far we’d come. We’ve since built a wonderful partnership with them and we feel extremely lucky to continue working with them.
Do you have a fun fact or anecdote about your brand?
Not many people know that our brand name comes from combining my first and last names – KAR(en) MA(xwell). Also, as our daughter Luna first inspired us to pursue this passion when she was still in the womb, we knew we wanted to dedicate our first candle to our beloved daughter. We felt the name Luna, meaning moon, was the perfect name for our calming lavender blend, which helps to de-stress after a long day. We are delighted to have had our Luna candles independently tested by a laboratory, who told us they were not only very clean burning, but they were in fact “among the cleanest candles that we have tested”
Do you have any specific ambitions or goals for Little Karma?
We’ll be taking part in our very first trade show in September, which is one of our goals for this year. We would love to be discovered by major retailers and independent shops alike, and hope to have a successful show and find like-minded people who love our products, our mission and our brand.
Do you have any charitable or environmental partnerships we should know about to share?
We regularly support charities with our specific product lines. During 2020-21 we donated over £3000 to Mind, the mental health charity, through the sales of our Up Yours Corona candle collection. Last Christmas, we donated a percentage of profits from our Christmas collection to the Trussell Trust to support their vital work. We’re currently in the process of finalising which charity we would like to support on an on-going basis.
Is there anything that you believe makes your brand different or stand out?
What makes Little Karma Co. really special is the unique combination of our entire collection being refillable and personalisable. We feel candles should be more than just objects of beauty, and that’s why we create candles that work harder for our gifting needs and do better for our environment. This ethos drives every decision we make, even down to our plastic-free packaging and our brand new candle labels which are made of sugar-cane waste materials.
Are there any plans for new products or news over the next few months?
With a new arrival due shortly we’ll be taking some time as a family to enjoy this very special time. But we have a very exciting Father’s Day collection coming up as well as big plans for this Christmas!
Feel free to add any other information you would like us to share with our subscribers…
We take our ‘no nasties’ policy very seriously. So seriously that we in fact prime and wax all of our own wicks in-house. We never use pre-waxed wicks as these are normally coated in a thin layer of paraffin. This process is very time consuming, as we have to cut the dry wick and insert each one by hand into a sustainer before waxing them in our workshop. But we feel this is an important part of our candle making process as we truly care about what goes into our candles.
There you have it, our July maker and box! We hope this box enables you to take some time for you and reset to be your most productive self this summer.
