Meet the Makers
Soon to be husband and wife, Ollie Russell and Sophie White are the founders of Russell & White, our newest candle and organic hand wash range addition.
They both grew up only 5 miles apart in rural villages within Worcestershire and although they met at high school, they became friends years later at college.
They both began their apprenticeships whilst still living at home and any money they could save, they spent on holidays abroad exploring the world, which has had a huge influence on their brand today.
The World as Inspiration
Ollie and Sophie set out to launch their brand in 2019 with the idea of creating unique fragrances inspired by their experiences during travels across the world and the many places they still wish to explore.
After many experiments with blending oils and combining perfectly suited notes, they have presented us with a series of unique fragrances that infuse and reflect nature into their soy candles and luxurious hand wash.
Hi Ollie and Sophie,
When did you realise that you wanted to pursue a career in candle making and hand wash products?
It all started when we bought our first home in 2016 that we discovered our passion for interior design and home fragrances.
Once we renovated our home, we wanted to have a unique scent and ambience to reflect the décor in each room.
All the fragrances we purchased at the time smelt similar to the next, information regarding whether or not the oils were safe to burn/inhale were unclear and many weren’t eco-friendly. After being frustrated with not finding exactly what we wanted, we toyed with the idea of one day making our own home fragrances.
What do you think you would be doing today if you had not started Russell & White?
We both love home interiors, property, fashion, etc so if we didn’t have Russell & White, we’d definitely be doing something creative that we would be passionate about.
What would you say are the challenges faced by brands like yours nowadays?
The industry is incredibly competitive. We want to create the best products in the market without compromising on quality and sustainability. However, since we started, we have discovered so many great established makers with similar ideas and prices that already have a bigger customer base than ours, which we find difficult to compete with.
We also have the impression that most people think that candle
making is easy, but it is far from it. The process can be challenging. There’s
a lot of trial and error until you create the perfect candle that burns well
and has a strong hot and cold throw.
It is time consuming, however highly satisfying once you get
is just right!
"A part of our soul goes into every product we make."
What does a normal day in the studio look like?
We actually aren’t full time candle makers. We both have full time jobs, though during the day we will respond to customers and wholesale queries via email & social media!
Once we finish our 9-5 jobs, we start working for Russell & White. Our evenings and weekends are spent at home in our workshop meeting deadlines for orders, actioning daily stock checks, replenishing stock for our website and other marketplaces.
If we are quiet, we might spend time updating our website, drafting plans for new products or taking stock/lifestyle photos for social media.
The main inspiration behind our brand are the experiences with nature in places we’ve visited around the world. So when creating a new product or scent, we experiment with oils to create unusual aromas that resemble either a place we’ve visited or aspire to visit. This adds to the whole uniqueness of our brand.
Ollie comes from a design background, so once a product’s scent is finalised, he’d then work on the design of a new collection or product.
What are your favourite ingredients to work with?
The essential/fragrance oils and hand wash are our favourite! We love creating our own blends and smelling each of them once they have cured.
Also, the hand wash is fun to work with because once we’ve made it
and it’s cured, it’s exciting to test it on ourselves and if we spill any, it’s
easier to clean up than wax!
What do you want to communicate to the person who purchases one of your products?
When purchasing a Russell & White product, you will receive a product that has been designed, created and quality checked completely by hand.
A part of our soul goes into every product we make and we would hope that
a customer would go on to purchase more from Russell & White to help us
grow and create even better products in the future.
A more sustainable lifestyle is extremely important to us and our customers. Could you tell us how you practise sustainability as an independent business?
Everything we do at Russell & White has the environment in mind. All of our packaging is eco-friendly. We use biodegradable packing peanuts, cardboard boxes & brown recyclable tape.
Both candles and hand washes are made in glass bottles to encourage our customers to reuse and recycle the containers once they are finished with them.
We will also shortly be offering a refill service for the hand washes so we hope that this will encourage an even further sustainable lifestyle.
All of our candles are made with soy wax which is a natural, renewable resource and it’s biodegradable. It’s a wax that comes from vegetables derived from soybean oil and we only use an organic soap base which is made with sunflower and coconut oil for our hand washes meaning all of our products are not only eco friendly but also vegan friendly and cruelty free too.
Do you have any plans for the near future to increase your sustainability even further?
100%. Our love for nature across the world has become our biggest inspiration for the business.
We’ve seen so many beautiful places in the world and to carry on enjoying these places and the nature surrounding it, we need to look after our planet. Because of this, we’re always on the lookout for new ideas to encourage a more sustainable lifestyle. For example, as previously mentioned, one of our new ideas to increase sustainability further has been to create a refill service for our hand washes. Sustainability is always on our mind and will be in every new idea we have.
If you had to choose one of the candles that you made to take with you forever, which one would it be?
It is so difficult because we love each and one of them so
much and can’t come to an agreement with just the one for the both of us, so we
will probably have to take our two favourites, Eastern Garden and Opulence.
Divulge your senses with natural scents
Keeping clean and fresh with organic soaps
