Frequently Asked Questions

My candles are designed to smell as close to the real thing as possible, not as a gimmick, but as an intentional alternative to the artificial, perfumy and often overwhelming fragrances of box store candles. This means simpler, more familiar fragrances inspired by nature, food, and memory that can often be identified by scent alone (no peeking at the label…)

So many reasons!

1. Perfume and cologne type scents overwhelm me – realistically scented candles smell more natural and therefore integrate into my space without overwhelming me better than more complex blends. 
2. Seasonal grounding – I make collections for the purposes of grounding into the current season and realistic scents do that more reliably than complex blends due to the scent-memory connection. 
3. Predictability – The familiarity of realistic scents can provide more comfort than perfumey ones because the experience is more predictable. 
4. Shoppability – Realistic and natural scents are easier to shop for online than mystery blends. 
5. Design – There is less decision fatigue with design when aiming for realism rather than blends – I know once I “got it”. 
6. Dopamine – The satisfaction of nailing a realistic scent can’t be matched!

Everything is inspired by the changing seasons and life in Northern Ohio – whether that’s plants, food, or places. Each collection begins in my mind, with scents I consider integral to the season, and then I build from there based on available ingredients and testing. Over time I have developed a mix of classic favorites and rotating new scents that capture the feeling of each season with high accuracy.

It’s a complex blend of essential oils and chemistry, built to mirror how real things smell in real life.

For nature-based scents, essential oils do a lot of the work, whereas for nostalgia or bakery style scents, clean chemistry steps in to fill the gaps. For both types of scents, the fragrance molecules are carefully suspended in a clean burning carrier oil designed to release the scent without burning or altering it.

Most candle fragrances are meant to smell like perfume or cologne, so identifying which ones actually smell realistic takes a lot of persistence. Mine smell realistic because they incorporate essential oils and aim to smell like one thing, not many. 

Usually it’s one of two things. Artificial comes from concentration or chemistry – either using too much fragrance oil or using one that has additives like phthalates, which make scent cling and intensify past what’s natural, so even candles meant to smell real smell fake. Perfume-like comes from composition – blending notes that don’t actually occur together in nature, the way perfumery stacks rose with musk, vanilla, and amber into something new.  My candles avoid both and smell more natural by staying restrained in strength and close to a single, real reference point in its blend.

Candles can cause headaches due to a combination of concentration and chemistry. A strong aroma, even when 100% natural, is enough to trigger headaches in some people, but many others actually get headaches from phthalates, paraffin, and other chemicals in the candle. These chemicals are designed to cut costs and stretch the performance of low levels of actual fragrance at the expense of consumer health and can be found in most box store and commercial candles. Candles made with renewable waxes instead of paraffin and scented with phthalate and prop-65 free fragrance oils avoid the common triggers of headaches from candles.

1. Performance – pure essential oils don’t bind reliably with natural waxes and their scent fades within months once made into a candle. This often results in pooling oil, dangerous burn conditions, and poor scent throw if not burnt relatively quickly after being made. 
2. Irritation. Some essential oils – cinnamon bark, clove, citrus, peppermint – become irritating or chemically unstable when lit on fire, altering their fragrance and becoming more like fuel than fragrance. Most essential oils are not formulated to be burnt, which is why they belong in body care, diffusers and warmers, not candles. 
3. Environmental ethics. It takes about 625 lbs of rose petals to yield one ounce of oil which is enough to make two small candles. Lavender is more efficient at 10–16 lbs per ounce, but still nowhere near workable or environmentally conscious at candle-making scale. Even if I got past the first two problems listed here, harvesting an essential oil just to burn in a candle does not feel morally justified when the environmental cost is so high. In these cases, blending essential oils with other ingredients to create clean fragrance oils reduces the raw amount of essential oils used and preserves their characteristics for the life of the candle. 
4. Artistic range. Scent realism is the core of this brand, around which the pillars of clean and minimalist design are erected. But many of my scents, like Lake Shore or Almond Macaron, don’t exist as single  things that can be distilled in real life.

Fragrance oils are how I get realistic, complex, clean and stable scents in my candles, even when burned all day or years after purchase. Essential oils are not meant for use in candles. 

Soy candles are generally safer for people with allergies or asthma than paraffin based candles, because soy wax burns much cleaner than paraffin and does not release irritating VOCs or soot into the air. However wax is only half the equation – the fragrance oil the candle is made with is just as important when it comes to safety for someone prone to respiratory reactions. For the safest candles for people with allergies and asthma, look for ones made not only with soy or other vegetable wax, but also with phthalate and prop-65 free fragrance oils tested for use in candles (not pure essential oils – see more below). 

For the healthiest candles, avoid paraffin and paraffin blends, metal core wicks, dyes, phthalates and prop-65 chemicals. Instead buy candles made with 100% renewable waxes (plant or animal), phthalate-free fragrances made for candles, and paper core cotton wicks. Most candlemakers who use these ingredients will say so – if they don’t, move on.

Yes, 4.5 lbs at a time, equivalent to about 11 small or 6 large candles.

No. Firelands Wax candles are made without the ingredients most commonly associated with health and indoor air quality concerns in the candle industry. They contain no paraffin, phthalates, dyes, metal-core wicks, or fragrance ingredients requiring a California Proposition 65 warning. Instead, I use clean-burning soy wax, paper-core cotton wicks, and carefully selected fragrance oils made in accordance with clean science to create realistic scents with minimal soot and a cleaner burn.

Natural fragrance in candle making usually means essential oils while synthetic fragrance oils can be either fully synthetic (lab made) or a blend of essential oils and chemistry. 

A common misperception is that essential oils are the healthiest choice to scent candles with, but the truth is that they often pose more problems than solutions due to the nature of combustion. While essential oils are ideal for low heat applications like body care, they become unstable under the combustion conditions of a candle – flashing off, distorting their scent, and sometimes even becoming a major irritant (like clove, peppermint, and eucalyptus can do.) 

Synthetic fragrances on the other hand rely on science to suspend natural fragrance like essential oils in a stable base that has been designed to burn cleanly with no chemical residues, fire hazard, or scent distortion. Synthetic fragrances can also replicate scents for which there is no natural oil to extract like bakery and gourmand scents. Firelands Wax candles are made with essential oil based synthetic oils. 

Yes, however proper precautions must always be taken with open flames.

Soy wax candles are made from a renewable resource, burn cleaner and last 30-50% longer than their paraffin counterparts meaning they are not only a more environmentally conscious choice, but also often an equally or more affordable one once burn times are considered. 

No. 1 – this was the first candle I ever designed, specifically to be universally giftable. The scent is herbal but sophisticated, unisex, and works in any room, any time of year.

Tomato Leaf or Cut Grass but honestly they are all on point.

Soy candles are better than paraffin – they don’t release soot and VOCs, are renewable, and last longer.

Yes! Many of my customers do, with some even reporting strong fragrance throw for up to a year with the large candles. My best guess is that the sheer mass of wax in a candle versus a standard size wax melt protects the fragrance notes from burning off. Candles that have been used on a warmer can be burnt like a normal candle, as long as the wick remains centered.  

Smell is processed by the brain closer to memory and emotion than any of our other senses – it’s why a specific scent can pull you back to a moment years later, faster and more vividly than a photo or a sound can. At Firelands Wax, I lean into realistic scents not just for the artisanal, true-to-life experience, but because I’ve found that scents grounded in real memory – a specific plant, a place, a season – tend to surface a subtler, more genuine sense of comfort and being grounded than something built purely to smell pleasant in the abstract.