A Scent Story

My relationship with scent began long before this collection.

My mum has always lit candles. You can see how much joy she gets from them, the way she gravitates towards them in a shop, picks them up, lifts the lid, holds them out for you to smell. We've spent more time than I can count slowly making our way around a candle display, passing things back and forth, coming out sneezing.

My dad would break off a sprig of something growing in the garden, rosemary, mint, thyme, and hold it out without saying anything. Just: smell this. I still do it now, instinctively, every time I walk past something growing. I can't help it.

So when it came to choosing the scents for this collection, I wasn't starting from nothing. Scent has always been tied to memory and emotion for me. Deeply so. What this process did was deepen something I already felt, and teach me a great deal about how to put that feeling into words.

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Finding the right maker

Before I could choose the scents, I needed to find the right person to help me make them.

That took months. Most candle manufacturers work at a scale that simply wasn't possible for me, minimum orders of hundreds, sometimes thousands. And finding someone who uses quality ingredients and cares about what goes into each candle was just as important as finding someone who could work at a smaller scale. I was starting to think I might not be able to bring this idea to life at all.

Then I found Nicola, founder of Willow & Finn.

Nicola makes candles for her own brand and also works with independent brands that want to create something of their own. Her values are solid. She uses only the best ingredients, cares about sustainability, and has been so incredibly kind and generous throughout this process. After speaking with her on the phone, I felt something shift. This was going to happen.

She sent me a box of sample scents and blends. That box arriving was one of the most exciting moments of this whole journey.

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The box of samples

I opened it as soon as it arrived. I was in my kitchen. I emptied everything out onto the counter and slowly went through them one by one, smelling, pausing, going back, narrowing down.

It was so exciting. Scent is such an instinctive thing. You know within moments whether something is right or wrong, even if you can't explain why.

Some of the candles came together quickly from that first session. Others took considerably longer, more samples, more back and forth with Nicola. That's the nature of trying to translate a feeling into a fragrance.

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Wintering

Wintering was the easiest. Which perhaps makes sense, it's the most personal of the four, the one that began as something I was making for myself.

I knew the feeling I wanted it to create. Relaxing. Grounding. The particular comfort of a winter evening when you have nowhere to be and no reason to hurry.

I love lavender. I always have. And I love herbal scents, the kind that feel alive and green rather than sweet or floral. Thyme felt like a natural companion. When I smelled this blend for the first time, I knew immediately it was going to be in the collection.

It's one of those scents you want to breathe in deeply. Not too heavy on the lavender, perfectly balanced. Light and bright somehow, and herbaceous, but also deep and comforting at the same time. That combination is harder to achieve than it sounds.

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Sanctuary

Sanctuary took the longest, partly because I struggled to put into words what I was looking for.

I knew I didn't want strong essential oils. Nothing too heady, nothing that would fill a room and demand attention. I was thinking about cotton at one point, something soft and clean and almost invisible. A scent that creates ease rather than presence.

Nicola sent more samples. I kept going back to the same problem: I knew what I didn't want more clearly than what I did.

Eventually I found it. Sea salt and wood sage. Lightly coastal, soft, mineral. A scent that blends into the background in the best possible way, not too showy, just quietly there. It was exactly right for a candle that's about making space rather than filling it.

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Daybreak

Daybreak I approached differently. I knew from the beginning that I wanted essential oils, something bright and clean, a morning feeling. But I didn't want sweet. Sweet would have been wrong.

Neroli has been a long-time favourite of mine. I've always loved it, there's something about it that feels optimistic and uplifting. I'd never seen it paired with lavender before, and I was curious whether it would work.

It works beautifully. You can hardly tell the lavender is there. The neroli lifts everything, keeps it bright and open. And then there's petitgrain, which I learned from Nicola comes from the same tree as neroli, the bitter orange. It made complete sense once I knew. Petitgrain is a natural companion, a quieter note that deepens without weighing down.

This one is a real mood booster. On the days I need a gentle start, it's the one I reach for.

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Wildflower

Lil & Dot is nature-led at its heart, and I knew I wanted something floral and wild for this one. As soon as I settled on the name, my mind went straight to rose. Rose felt right immediately. There's a warmth and depth to it that I've always loved.

Rose, patchouli and tonka bean. Exactly the direction I'd been reaching for. Floral without being perfumy. Deep and warm and soft. Rich without being heavy.

There's something else about Wildflower that I love. The wax comes out with a subtle warmth to it, slightly pinker than the others. Something in the fragrance does that. It's a small thing, but it feels right for a candle that's about warmth and expression and golden hour light.

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What I learned

Choosing a scent for a feeling is harder than it sounds. You're trying to translate something emotional and atmospheric into something you can actually smell and touch. There's a lot of instinct involved, and a lot of going back and forth, and a lot of moments where you think you have it and then realise you don't quite.

What helped most was having a clear sense of the feeling I was after before I started looking for the scent. Not a description of the smell, but a description of the moment. The particular quality of morning light. The relief of a tidy room. The warmth of late afternoon.

When you know the feeling, you know when it's right.