Candles, fragrances and Ekam

CANDLES, HOME FRAGRANCES, DECOR AND MORE

When I was a kid, candles meant prayer and power cut! Fast forward to my present life and candles means luxury. Gone are the days when our choices were limited to just white candles, fluorescent colored candles and twisted tapered candles. My love for candles probably started when I first started staying alone and when I earned on my own. The tiny little room in my hostel was colorful, cozy and always scented 😀 And I still have two of the pillar candles I bought way back then – a lavender scented and one rose scented. Since then I have had quite a collection of smaller candles but often neglected and not maintained well.

Anyways I just wanted to share some pretty beauty’s that I added to my home last week. I am so mesmerized by the scents that I had to share them just in case any of you wanted to try them. Also some small talks on home & decor too 🙂

 Types of candles you should look out for : 

• Pillar candles – they come in various sizes ( both length and radius/width) so buy ones that you like. Try adding different shapes like cylinder, cube etc for some edgy feel and also choose ones in the most loved/used fragrance.These will last longer and look pretty on your coffee table.
• Tin candles- Buy these for seasonal fragrances that you like to have occasionally for instance maybe frosted pine ( like one I bought) that reminds you of Christmas 🙂
• Jar candles – I love jar candles because of their low maintenance – they don’t turn ugly with wax drippings, also they never collect dirt or lose their shine 🙂 This could be where you invest your costlier fragrances and don’t forget to buy ones with lids so that fragrance can be kept intact when not in use
• Designer candles – they are little difficult to handle since we can never judge how designer it might look still after 3-4 times of use. These can be brought if you have some occasion/party etc or just as a showpiece or they are great for gifting !

These tin candles are my favourite and the scent is just divine. I’m saving this for Christmas – how cute is the package! The red one is berry scented and the green one pine scented – both are such nice scents. The pine one although initially reminded me of amruthanjan but right now, so far, it has remained my favourite 🙂 There is definitely something magical about the pine scent !

How to decorate with candles at home ?

• One tip while decorating with candles will be to use different types of candles in a cluster or at least different sizes. If you have just similar candles, place it at different heights by stacking few books or maybe few on candle holders.
• I store candles in my cupboard and have the ones in use at my work table or coffee table. Here in India we don’t have mantle where most of the decorations are made in many other countries. Nevertheless, there still is coffee table in your living room or bedside table/stand in your bedroom etc where you can place your candles.
• Try to layer your candles not just with other candles of different size and shapes but also with other elements such as photo frame + flower vase on bedside table or flower vase with tin candles in a tray on coffee table.
• If you have a candle collection, I suggest you to invest in few good candle holders and also a quirky/attractive holding tray to keep it all together.

This is my second favourite so far. This jar came with a disposable lid which my daughter misplaced somewhere. Without even burning them, my room was definitely smelling so pleasant and relaxing 🙂

How to choose your fragrances?

Talking about home fragrances, I used to pick ones I liked generally for instance lavender & rose because I am not sure how good other scents might be. Fragrance experts say that just like how our perfumes have many tones of scents that are mixed in harmony in the right amount , home fragrances including ones in candles are made up of many notes. Each scent changes our mind and mood say for instance, the smell of a strong coffee makes you feel motivated and energetic right? So basically coffee scented candles/fragrances can be kept at your work place/work table to keep you on your toes :) Few other scents which are great are citrus for cheerful & happy, lavender for soothing & relaxing, rose for romantic, vanilla for calming, jasmine for freshness, mint for invigorating, pine, berry, pumpkin etc for seasonal memories etc.

So I suggest that you buy few varied scented fragrances as candles or sachets or diffusers and use them according to your mood or the room, but just don’t mix it all 😛

When do we have so much time to arrange candles and enjoy their fragrance?

Well the candles will do their job - just use them :) I have personally found a marked difference in my behavior as in mood wise when my home smells good. When I'm back after a hectic day at office, a good smelling bedroom is so relaxing no matter now hard my daughter is jumping on my back trying to make me be her elephant!

While I was clicking pictures my daughter kept waiting behind so that she could blow them out once I had finished the photos and sing happy birthday to herself! I let her hold one of the jar candles and she was so happy to help in the photoshoot 🙂

Home fragrances, not just scented candles 

 I personally use scented candles and perfume sachets  at my home because they are more convenient for me . There are many more options like reed diffusers where you have to insert your reeds into the fragrance solution so that they get dispersed, perfume sachets that you can hang anywhere especially closed spaces like linen closets, scented melts that you can just melt and diffuse the scent, pretty potpourris also a great decor piece, the most common room freshner sprays etc that you can use to add that little fragrance to your home.

 

When to use fragrances at home?

If you are using sachets/potpurries/diffusers, replace them whenever you feel the fragrance has worn out. For candles, melts, freshner sprays etc, there is no specific time. Just based on what mood you are in, try them out. As for me, I like to have some fragrance around when watching a movie after my daughter has slept, or while soaking my feet for a loong pedicure day! or even when I sit editing photos& drafting out my blog posts.

Just like rose & lavender, vanilla is also a universally appealing fragrance. Some even say that the smell is associated with babies & mothers hence so soothing & calming. Also, the white color the candles come in adds to the extra divine look 🙂

 

Isnt it a pretty sight to see pretty candles glowing? Also showing of my new purple chevron cushion covers during Jabong sale last month 🙂

Enough with candle yumminess and truckloads of photographs – whats with “ekam” in the post title? Well that’s from where all this yumminess is rolling out!

About Ekam :

Ekam is a brand owned and manufactured by Primacy Global Enterprises Pvt Ltd (PGEPL). It has five candle manufacturing units – two in India and three in the US. It also manufactures many Aerosol products as well. PGEPL shares its parentage with some of the bestselling fragrant candles found in USA, Europe, Australia and other markets. And can be found in some of the world’s leading retail stores – Wal-Mart, Dollar General, Bath & Body Works, Tesco, Carrefour, Candle Artisan, etc.

Basically Ekam is a brand of candles an home fragrances, with two factories in India at Mangalore & Gujarat. 4/5th of their products are exported to US and European countries and the rest finds place in Indian markets. I’m sharing this video from their YouTube channel where they show the process involved in making fragrances and I was truly mesmerized. I mean so much research and work goes into making one single scent!

Candles, fragrances and Ekam :

If you haven’t checked out this page on my blog where I have listed all indian home decor + furnishing stores I know of, do check it out. Well ekam had already found a place under candles sections. I loved the ease of purchasing on their online website trust me its better than even amazon!

Just to give you an instance, I am sharing a screenshot of the webstore ( because I am an online shopping addict :D) and you will not believe how many filter option you have to choose product of your choice. You needn’t endlessly scroll up and down to add products to your cart when you have filters based on range of price, color, scent/fragrance, size and product design.

I loved their webstore and I would recommend you guys to at least checkout their site. Did you know there were best practices for candles and fragrances? Be sure to read them from their product usage guide here.

Ekam also have few outlets in Bangalore whose address are listed on their website if you really want to smell and purchase :D. One last quick word on their packaging before I end this long post – packaging was so very well done that even my husband actually sat through the whole unboxing ! He generally is not interested in seeing my crafty + home purchases but this time he was like how did they pack so well!

 

Before I wind up, here is the link to ekam store if you want to purchase online EKAMONLINE.  Do let me know if you would like to see more such home related posts on my blog 🙂 Suggestion and requests are always welcome!

xoxo Angela