We are always trying to find the best ways to deal with anxiety and stress. Holistic therapy is proven to be highly effective in improving health and wellbeing. Some of those tools are candles and wax melts.
The right scent combination can be relaxing, bringing comfort to the body, mind, and soul.
Thinking about it, we would like to introduce Holly Blue Holt, a brand that combined principles of colour psychology, aromatherapy, and spirituality in their products to create a range of scented environmentally friendly candles and wax melts using. Read the interview with its founder Paula Clair now:
MT: Tell me a little bit about your background in business.
Paula Clair: I’m Paula, the owner of Holly Blue Holt. I’m a teacher, and until my husband and I started Holly Blue Holt I worked in the education sector, mainly in special needs.
I spent around seven years working for a Local Authority, and my last role before I started my business was as
Deputy Headteacher at a special school near Watford – so although I don’t have a background in business, I have plenty of experience in working with people and in team management, and I’m very used to wearing lots of different hats in my job role, something I’m sure anyone who works in education can tell you is vital for survival!
I’ve always been a creative person, and over the years I have found myself coming back to the idea of doing something for myself. Then the events of last year brought things ahead, and it seemed like the time was right to make some big changes.
MT: How did you come up with the idea of a business like yours?
PC: We’d been wanting to live in a more sustainable and less stressful way for a long time (my husband was a Headteacher at the time, so you can imagine the stress in our household…) so we made the decision to look for a home with a little bit of land so that we could explore our sustainability dream, and to start Holly Blue Holt!
Cue a move to the Lincolnshire coast, to satisfy my long-held dream of living near the sea again, having grown up near the sea in South Africa.
MT: What is the main inspiration for your boxes?
PC: The inspiration for Holly Blue Holt came from our experiences and our background – specifically what we have learnt about human behaviour and occupational therapy over our years spent working in schools. We know how important it is to reduce anxiety and stress because of the massive impact they have not only on our moods but also on our health and wellbeing.
We have spent our lives working with children with anxiety and behavioural difficulties – developing and understanding those elements that can help reduce anxiety and benefit our health and wellness.
As part of this, we came to understand that the environment we live in can bring on stress simply because of the colours on the walls or the smell in the air, and we wanted to develop a way to combine the use of colour, fragrance, and spirituality to make candles that support mindfulness-based stress reduction.
MT: What is unique about your business?
PC: We believe our candles and melts do just that – you can use them to support affirmations, meditate, promote energy healing and help create the optimal environment for wellbeing.
Alongside these elements, we are passionate about sustainability and the importance of nature in supporting our wellbeing – we use only the highest quality coconut and rapeseed wax, carefully selected fragrance oils that are free from harmful chemicals, and eco-friendly dyes.
All our products are vegan and where we use botanicals they are sourced from our garden. Even our packaging is eco-friendly – we reduce packaging where possible and use only recyclable and compostable packaging products.
MT: What is your kind of clientele?
PC: Our products are perfect for those seeking a more mindful and stress-free way of life. For people who are conscious of their impact on the world, aware of the impact that the world can have on them and looking to find natural ways in which they can practice self-care and nurture themselves and others.
We know that they work to help reduce stress and really love the fact that we’re able to help others benefit in the same way when they use our products around their homes.
MT: What are the challenges of a business like yours?
PC: Starting a business will always have its challenges, and during a pandemic, these have been unique – it’s this thought that I think gave me the push to do something about creating the dream and taking those steps to make it a reality.
One thing I’ve learnt in life is that there’s never a perfect time to do anything, and often you can miss your chance while you’re waiting for everything to align. My advice to others would be to follow your dreams and focus on doing what you need to do to make them come true!
MT: What are the next steps for Holly Blue Holt?
PC: We’re already busy planning our next range of candles and
looking at growing our business through in-person sales and online. It’s important to us though that we stay true to the core principles of our business so we’re making sure that everything that we plan falls within that!
Follow Holly Blue Holt on social media
