The scented candle sector is enjoying a bonanza; the beauty therapy and lifestyle industries have encouraged the boom in scented candles sales and a designer scented candle is a gift everyone loves to receive. Grace Rose Erskine has discovered this through experience, following her degree in Fine
Art at Leeds University she won a FLOATART scholarship that gave her a studio for a year. During this time Grace indulged her passion for sculpture, until her mother cheekily proposed she try something more commercial and contemporary, something artistic that might make a profit more sustainable.
Under the direction of her mentor, the entrepreneur Charlie Gladstone principal of Peddlars retai and The Good Life Experience, Grace experimented with applying her artwork to a range of products, including notebooks and stationery, china, linens and candles.
The Erskine Rose brand of novelty candles have been a runaway success due to her formula of handwriting witticisms, poems and seasonal messages on each ceramic candle container, but better still there is also the unique option of having a personalised message on the side of the pot. For
Valentine’s Day this past week Grace has been busy as an artist in residence at Selfridges, inscribing pots as love tokens. The black candle pots have white handwriting with eye-catching neon colour packaging, both chic and cool they appeals to many buyers of London’s top shops, from Fenwicks to
The Designers Guild. Originally a country girl and former Pony Club Championships winner Grace now adores the London buzz; she enjoys the creative process of combining the natural scents for her soya-wax blend collection, mixing and pouring all the ingredients herself in her studio in South
Acton. This is a craftsman’s work, currently there are five fragrances available and Grace can inscribe up to sixty personalised pots a day.
Grace’s candles have now eclipsed her other products, a new website with a more “unisex” name is in the pipeline and new candle collections are in product development, Erskine Rose will remain the flagship collection plus a collection for men and another as yet a closely guarded secret. This 28year-old is brimming with enthusiasm and ideas for personalisation pop-up events and even a personalisation franchise, all which sound like excellent commercial ideas, her mother would be proud of.