Crafted in Britain: Hand Poured, Small Batch, By Design
Every candle fragrance made at Aja is created by hand, with great care taken to ensure the best burn and the best scent throw. Our candles are always made in the UK, in small batches.
Nature is our muse, from its herbaceous scents to its smoky, woody notes. But how we make things matters just as much as what inspires them. With a strong connection to the British countryside, our founder Tilly Wood built Aja Botanicals around one simple idea: keep it natural, keep it small, and keep it close to home.
Why hand poured, why small batch
Every candle is hand poured, with great care taken over each one to ensure the best possible burn and the truest scent throw. Working in small batches, rather than running through mass production lines, means every candle gets proper attention, and it means we can check quality at every stage.
Working with a blend of soya and coconut wax, both biodegradable, and a natural cotton wick for a clean, even burn, our candles are made in Britain by British Wax, a partner who shares our commitment to sustainability. They generate their own solar energy and keep packaging waste to a minimum. Aligning with people who care about the same things we do is part of how we work.
Our diffusers, made differently
Our diffusers use the same fragrances as our candles, but they're made at a different UK facility, one powered by biomass. It means the diffuser you bring into your home carries the same scent story as the candle, made with the same care, just through a different process suited to the product.
The perfumers behind the fragrances
Behind every Aja Botanicals scent is a natural perfumer we've built a relationship with over time, among them Marina Barcenilla, who has worked with Tilly on fragrances including Wild Horses and After Midnight. Working with essential oils such as jasmine, neroli and sandalwood, rather than synthetic alternatives, means each fragrance carries its own therapeutic and aromatic character.
"Working with natural fragrances is a bit like looking after children, they don't always do what you want them to," says Tilly. Essential oils shift slightly from harvest to harvest, so every new batch is retested before it goes into production. It's more work, but it's also what gives each candle its own quiet complexity, top notes, middle notes and a base that unfolds differently on a shelf than in a bottle.
Relationships we cherish
We love building relationships with our manufacturing partners. Some, Tilly has known for twenty five years, friends first and partners second. When you love what you do, you build strong friendships with the people you work with, and that's a big part of why working in Britain matters so much to us. These are relationships we cherish, not just supply chains.
UK printers, UK production
It's not just the wax and the fragrance that stay close to home. We work with printers here in the UK on our packaging and labelling too, so that everything from the pour to the finished box is made within Britain. Keeping production local means shorter supply chains, closer relationships with the people making our products, and a lot more oversight on quality at every stage.
What scent means to the people we know
Craft and process are only half the story, the other half is what a scent means to the person wearing it or living with it. In our Scent Stories series, Tilly talks to friends of the brand about how fragrance shapes their lives.
Artist Chris Levine, known for his portrait series of Queen Elizabeth II, uses incense to find the right creative headspace and to set the ambience for his work, and spoke to Tilly about how scent can shift energy and bring a sense of harmony. Model and presenter Jodie Kidd talked about the scents that carry her back to childhood, to life on the road racing cars, and to the kitchen garden at her pub, The Half Moon, in West Sussex.
Small batch, on purpose
Keeping production small means we can hold the line on quality, on the people we work with, and on where things are made. It takes longer, and we think it's worth it.
Right now, that same small batch care is going into a new fragrance for Christmas, created with Marina, and we'll be exploring a room spray alongside the candle so watch this space, there's nothing more exciting than a new fragrance.
Explore the Candle Collection
