At Humankind, one of our commitments have always been to support other small-to-medium sized businesses, so I wanted to write this article about how and where we source our materials, and what's in our candles.
Firstly, emitting minimal emissions is important to us. When we think about the entire lifecycle of creating raw materials, they have to be farmed, processed, made into what we need, and then shipped to the end user. Although we're not at the stage where we have our own farms (yet!), I choose suppliers located near our studio whenever possible, reducing the distance materials need to travel.
For our coconut-soy wax and FSC-certified wicks, we purchase from a local distributor in Woodbridge, 43km away from our main office. They get their coconut-wax from a farm in Iowa, and the wicks are manufactured in Texas. By keeping our supply chain within North America, we minimize the need for air freight, which carries a substantially higher carbon cost than ground transport.
For our fragrance, we use a company in Victoria, BC, and our local distributor in Woodbridge. Recently I've done my best to try to predict demand for my candles, and only buy the fragrance oil I need, and ship it all together. This helps me save on shipping costs, and contribute to saving the environment - not using multiple trucks for small shipments and using 1 truck instead to bring all of the fragrance oil at once.
For our labels, we use a family owned business just 400m away from our office. This makes ordering labels easy, and there are no emissions made from getting it from their office to our office, as it's an easy walk. They are probably one of my favourite partners, as the provide great service, fast turn around and print with recycled paper and environmentally-friendly ink.
Beyond logistics, we pay close attention to the materials themselves. We use FSC-certified wicks sourced from responsibly managed forests, vegan and cruelty-free fragrance oils that meet IFRA safety standards, and a coconut–soy wax blend that’s also vegan and cruelty-free. Our boxes, inserts, and shipping materials are recyclable, including bubble wrap made with partially recycled plastic.