November 22, 2021

REKINDLE Gifting: Reminds Me Of

"...it’s about celebrating the beauty in every pair of hands, and what it can create. I believe everyone has a maker spirit in them, and no matter how busy we are - it's’ important to harness it, and to never lose that desire to create."

- Eleanor, Founder of Reminds Me Of

Share a little about yourself.

I’m Eleanor, the founder of Reminds Me Of. I’ve been running the brand for about a year now. It’s still currently very much a passion project that I run from my home studio, with a small roster of part-time help. I juggle this on the side alongside my day job as a content strategist at an FMCG company. As of this September, I’ve also added Mum to a beautiful baby boy into my resume. The past few months have been a whirlwind, to say the least!

Share how the brand started.

My journey into candle-making, and the creation of Reminds Me Of, was a bit of an accident.

I suffered a late-term pregnancy loss with my first child towards the end of 2020, which left me grief-stricken. When you wake up every day in tears, feeling like a rug has been pulled from underneath you, it can be easy to let yourself drown in these feelings.

As someone who has always loved creating things with my hands, throwing myself into the deep end of a new project was my way of taking control of the situation; a form of therapy. I have always loved collecting and exploring new scents and candles. Amidst a mental fog, I woke up one day with a strange clarity - to create beautiful candles for my girlfriends as Christmas gifts.

It was a whirlwind few months, but I remember waking up each morning, feeling an excitement I hadn’t felt in a long time, eager to check off a new milestone for the project. From learning how to create candles from scratch (no in-person classes no thanks to covid, but thank god for Youtube!), experimenting with different scent and wax concoctions, to creating the concept and visual identity of the brand. The project was a much needed creative outlet for me.

The candles were very well received by my close circle of friends, and through word of mouth, I began receiving an influx of enquiries to purchase the candles, which encouraged me to take it to the online marketplace. There’s been no turning back ever since!

It’s only been a year, but I’ve enjoyed watching the brand grow slowly and organically, and it has opened many interesting doors for brand partnerships and collaborations with other small local independent makers who have also inspired me in turn.

What does your brand hope to achieve?

A core brand tenet of Reminds Me Of is imagination. The brand exists to celebrate the transformative power of candles; the power to not only transform a room, but transport you to a certain time, space and place.

Each new scent starts first with a strong concept board. What place are we hoping to transport someone to? What feelings, emotions, or memories are tied to that space? Finding a cohesive visual story and the right words to articulate it kickstarts the whole process. Alot of this is instinctual. And then the science part comes alive; sourcing for, and play with several scent blends before finding the right one that brings the concept to life.

When it comes to the materials we work with, we choose to only work with cleaner ingredients and procuring materials from trusted leaders in the fragrance industry - even if it costs more, or takes a long delivery lead time.

We source for premium fragrance oils from suppliers that pride themselves on doing rigorous safety tests, meaning our candles are made with fragrance oils that are free from carcinogens, reproductive toxins, and other potentially hazardous chemicals often found in fragrances.

Unlike other independent candle counterparts who choose to work with 100% soywax, we use a soy-wax based blend that contains a smaller percentage of paraffin wax which we believe gives our candles a much stronger hot throw (the strength of a candle’s smell when it’s lit), without compromising on its’ safety.

Lastly, candle wicks don’t get talked about much when it comes to candle safety, but it plays such a big component in how clean your candles burn. Many mass produced candles that you see being pedaled on the likes of Shopee use wicks that contain a small amount of lead. We use only cotton-core wicks that are interwoven with specially treated paper threads. This results in minimized mushrooming, soot and smoke to achieve what we have set out to do - a cleaner overall burn, and a safer choice for your homes.

Why did you decide to partner Our Barehands in this collaboration?

When Our Barehands approached Reminds Me Of to be a part of their Christmas gifting lineup, it must have taken me about 5 seconds to say yes. (laughs)

There is a natural brand fit. At the core of Our Barehands, it’s about celebrating the beauty in every pair of hands, and what it can create. I believe everyone has a maker spirit in them, and no matter how busy we are - it's’ important to harness it, and to never lose that desire to create.

Also coming from a fast-paced FMCG and advertising landscape that is all about fast consumption, I enjoy the juxtaposition that RMO and Our Barehands stands for - slow, thoughtful and meaningful creation and consumption.

What’s your favourite scent from this collection?

If you walked into my house on a dinner party night in December, I would have Christmas Wreath burning in my living space to welcome my guests, and then as we are adjourning to the dinner table, Festive Fizz & Tipple would be burning in the background.

Christmas Wreath is actually the first scent I created as gifts for my friends back in 2020! I’m naturally drawn to woodsy and botanical scents, and with notes of fir, eucalyptus, cedar and clove, Christmas Wreath is crisp, woody yet fresh, something perfect for the daytime to have in the background without being overpowering.

I wanted to create a darker “night” inspired scent to ground the collection, and Festive Fizz & Tipple is the result of that. With the woodsy fresh botanical notes of cypress and balsam, and the sweetness of juniper berry, it has a complex, luxe-smelling touch to it. I also imagine it’s a candle that would work beautifully in bathrooms and for bathtub-soaks, if you’re lucky enough to have one in your home.

Anything else you'd like to share?

New candle creations inspired by the festivities are something that our audience can look forward to from us. Candles are such an easy way to inject a christmas spirit into the home - it doesn’t need to always be a big (or messy) gesture like hulling a whole live Christmas tree into the home.

Reminds Me Of hopes to capture the essence of the festive season through the power of scents and imagination - Christmas is a time of warm and sweet memories, and I hope we have captured the essence of this in our festive collection.