Spotlight On... Home Fragrancing Bath & Body

Scents Of The Season

Home fragrancing products will be very much in the minds of gift retailers as they start their buying for the second half of the year, with autumnal and festive fragrances and colours leading the way.

PG&H sniffed out what’s trending.

Nothing says Autumn/Winter more than fragrance, with the festive season very much underway for suppliers. At Best Kept Secrets, new for Autumn/Winter is a rebranded Christmas Elegance range, with new candle fragrances that include Cosy Nights; Mulled Wine & Cranberries; Pine Cones & Spruce and Plum Pudding.

“Additionally, following on from the response to our newly redesigned Just Because collection, we have introduced a new Christmas range along the same lines - Just Because Christmas,” explains managing director Vanessa Curry. “We also offer tea light boxes in tea light festive sets featuring Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh, Hot Cinnamon and A Winter’s Tale.”

Historically, tins in both gold and silver are always popular for the company, with gold tins selling especially well at Christmas. Explains Vanessa: “customers associate gold with a luxury, festive feel, while in the Autumn months people look for more warming, slightly headier scents, such as Plum Champagne, Pink Pomegranate and home comfort, evoking fragrances to include Sticky Apple Tart,” she explains. “We’re rocking autumnal colours, with new additions to our Chinoiserie range,” states Candlelight’s marketing manager Kate Winch. “New to the range are the darker, more mysterious dark green and plum colour palettes, bringing warming fragrances to our already extremely popular summer range. Plus, Aromatic Forest and Oriental Blossom encapsulate the trending, deep scents of cosy winter evenings.” Staying with Autumn, Broughton and Beech will be adding melts and incense products to the company’s expanding Julie Dodsworth range, with Angel Wood a new design created by Julie. “It’s a limited edition, a fragrance blend of muted tones capturing autumnal walks and misty mornings, and will be available in a gift boxed glass candle, reed diffuser and hand cream, all of which are made in England and plant based,” confirms Broughton and Beech’s director Richard Wood.

He adds that in addition, the company’s Niki collection is being revamped with new packaging, designs and fragrances, to include a refillable car fragrance from Mr&Mrs Fragrance.

At Lesser & Pavey, beaded sparkle is at the heart of the company’s new range of Christmas themed Desire diffusers and candles. “The glass containers that house the fragranced oils feature sparkling red

Above: Pine Cones & Spruce from Best Kept Secrets. Left: A Julie Dodsworth reed diffuser from Broughton & Beech. Bottom: Candlelight’s Chinoiserie collection includes a plum colour palette.

glass beads alongside sustainably sourced packaging and reeds, with fragrances including Sparkling Cinnamon, reflecting the essence of Christmas,” highlights managing director Julian Hunt.

Wax Lyrical meanwhile, has a host of new collections and products for the festive season, to include candle Advent calendars, with new designs in the company’s Sara Miller London, Wrendale Designs and Yvonne Ellen collections, with candles, reed diffusers and gift sets also available. The company has also launched two new Sparkling Snowflakes collections.

But it’s not only the festive season that will be ringing up sales in the coming months. Ashleigh & Burwood is launching a brand new collection, Naturals, with 100% natural fragrances.

“The collection is centred around four aromatherapy blends designed to fragrantly and mindfully guide people through their day,” explains PR manager Deborah Bettinson. “Wellbeing is central to the new collection, extending to the health of the planet with packaging choices too. All outer packaging is made from card that is suitable for recycling, and vessels are glass. Once used, they can be repurposed around the home as desk tidies, bud vases and tealight holders.” With the winter months in mind, the company has also launched three new fragrances - Smoked Chilli, Cashmere Blankets and Cocoa Forest - in its The Scented Home and lamp fragrance collections. “They’ve been created to bring seasonal warmth,” highlights Deborah.

At Marmalade London, sales director Helen Flook concurs that, going into Autumn/Winter, wellbeing will still be trending. Joining the company’s Wellbeing range this Autumn will be an ultra-sonic diffuser and Energise oil.

“With the night’s drawing in, this is a very important time of the year for people to look after their physical as well as their

Left: Lesser & Pavey’s new Desire Christmas Sparkling Cinnamon collection. Below: Smoked Chilli, a new fragrance from Ashleigh & Burwood. Bottom left: Wax Lyrical’s Sparkling Snowflakes reed diffuser.

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Changing Seasons

A fresh, exciting development for Find Your Glow (FYG), winner of the Gift of the Year’s Home Fragrance category, is Seasons, a brand new candle duo launched earlier this year that changes fragrances as they burn.

Explains FYG’s founder Demi Pendakis: “There are two three wick candles, each weighing a kilo, that burn for 120 hours - 60 hours per season. One candle reflects the fragrances of Spring/Summer, the other the fragrances of Autumn/Winter. Plus, each comes with a sustainable seeded dust card that can be planted in the garden to grow meadow flowers. We also offer a gift set, featuring candles for all four seasons, which is already proving popular for Christmas forward purchases.”

Above: FYG’s Seasons, featuring Autumn/Winter fragrances.

Inset: An ultra-sonic diffuser and Energise oil are new additions to Marmalade London’s Wellbeing range.

mental health too, which is equally as important.” says Helen.

Aesthetics too, always have a key role to play in the home fragrancing market place, with Aromatize’s focus on design reflected in the company’s new Woodbridge tumbler candles. “We have chosen the wrap on the jars to complement people’s homes,” highlights Aromatize’s Sophie Aldred.

For most people, receiving a high quality, home fragrancing product in beautiful packaging - particularly if the packaging and the vessel are sustainable - is a very welcome gift indeed, not just at Christmas but all year round. And with so much product available, once again, gift retailers are going to be spoilt for choice as they start their Christmas buying.

Body Beautiful

Left: Woodbridge’s Let It Snow 3-wick fragranced tumbler candle jar from Aromatize. Below: T&G organic soaps and soap dishes.

Fragranced bath and body products have always gone hand in hand with the festive season, as people look to gifting as well as self-purchasing.

‘We’re focusing on sustainably packaged, affordably priced pick-up gifts for Christmas that make great stocking fillers, Secret Santa and teachers’ gifts,” confirms Heathcote & Ivory’s co-founder and creative supremo Lesley Aaronson.

“We’re launching a bath and body stacker set, the Magic Myth Marvel Magic Stack, which enables the gift giver to choose to gift as a set, or to break it down into smaller gifts, and our popular, giftable Bath Bomb Cracker sets can also be divided up. They make great table decorations too, and have returned within our Magic Myth Marvel and Nathalie Lete Christmas collections. Additionally, across all our bath and body gifting, we are continuing to look at sustainability and how to give the customer as much as we can with their purchase,” underlines Lesley.

Lovely, high quality fragranced soaps also make special gifts. “During the festive

months, our most popular soap is Spicy Orange, and, with the exception of Lavender Oats & Honey and Goats Milk & Lavender, our handmade natural soaps are cruelty free and vegan friendly,” points out Best Kept Secrets’ managing director Vanessa Curry. “There are no parabens, with the soaps made in the traditional cold process method, containing only vegetable oil, lye, water, and essential oils. Wrapped in handmade paper, they are completely plastic free too.”

At T&G, the company offers a range of organic soaps and soap dishes. “Our hand crafted organic soap is 100% vegan, crueltyfree, uses pure essential oils, organic and natural ingredients and contains sustainable palm oil,” confirms the company’s head of marketing Jenny Handley. “Additionally, they are produced here in the UK.” (For every soap dish and bar of soap sold T&G donate to the charity www.oceangeneration.org).

New to the UK market meanwhile, is the American gift, home and lifestyle brand Michel Design Works. Distributed in the UK by Aromatize, each collection features six bath and body products to include a foaming hand soap, hand and body lotion, a duo caddy and triplemilled bath and boxed soaps made in England. “The signature prints for each fragrance collection are akin to a work of art,” says Aromatize’s Sophie Aldred. Meanwhile, one company that is continuing to make bathing and beauty rituals fun is Mad Beauty, which will be launching new franchises for AW22 to include Elf, Scooby Doo and Hocus Pocus.

“As well as products that put a smile on the recipient’s face, a big focus with the new ranges has been reducing plastic packaging wherever possible, as well as bringing out multi-use products which offer greater value for money which, in turn, help to keep wastage minimal,” says creative director Julia Cash.

Left: Best Kept Secrets Spicy Orange soap. Below: Michel Design Works’ Eucalyptus and Mint collection, distributed by Aromatize. Bottom left: Magic Myth Marvel Magic Stack from Heathcote & Ivory. Below right: Mad Beauty’s Elf

Footcare and Sock Set.