Our Story and Approach
Our Approach
We make our candle products in small batches in our own studio meaning that you get an artisan product straight from the maker without paying third party manufacturing costs. We pour love into each candle and strive to offer something that is locally made with purpose as an alternative to many mass produced items on the market.
Minimal Packaging and ingredients
Our candles are made from natural wax for a clean burn (European made, GMO free soy wax) infused with premium essential and fine fragrance oil blends in minimal, well designed packaging. Our products are petroleum-free, cruelty-free, and vegan. We hand blend and pour all of our products here in our studio ensuring that they are of the highest quality with a keen eye on sustainability and accessible price points.
Transparency
We are at the start of a life long business journey and strive to make the best choices for the planet and community. We continue to learn and adapt our products in order to be as sustainable as we can. When we sell ceramics alongside our own products, we support other small, local artisans. We try to check the credentials of all of our suppliers and choose businesses with values aligned with our own.
Our Story
Stowsmiths was started by me, Katie Smith, and I am so proud of how far my little company has come in a short time from very humble beginnings. Back in 2022 after taking a break from my book publishing career I took my first candles to a local market in the Cotswolds. Now in 2025 we share a collective shop space in the beautiful market town of Burford, an online store, and a growing wholesale business.
Originally from Derbyshire, my background is in book publishing. I lived in east London for twenty years where I pitched a raft of children's, fiction, cookery and gardening books to international publishers. My job in publishing involved a lot of international travel and I would take my own mini candles with me as a home comfort on these (often) solo trips. Always on the look out for useful and yet beautiful gifts that wouldn't end up in landfill, candles felt like the perfect gift: a little luxury that didn't cost the earth. I started making them for family and friends.
In search of a calmer post Covid life my husband (a book jacket designer who designs our labels) and I moved our family to Chipping Norton in 2021. Surrounded by the beautiful rolling countryside I found the headspace I needed to immerse myself fully into creating Stowsmiths as a business. It has been a steep learning curve and a lot of hard work and I'm still grateful for every order. It has been a steep learning curve and a lot of hard work and I'm still grateful for every single order.