Episode 11: Andrea McGrath - Out of Darkness Candle Co with BestViewsReviews

Sanya : Hi everyone welcome to the Product Life I’m your host Sanya Arora. This show focuses on covering the best products, from home and electronics to lifestyle and beauty. BestViewsReviews is a platform that aims to provide with exclusive selections of products with honest customer reviews. Our product selection algorithms are also constantly updated to provide you with the best deals. So moving forward I have with me our guest of the day Andrea McGrath, the owner of Out Of Darkness candle company. So Andrea could you tell a little about your brand to our viewers?

Andrea : Yeah sure, so I’m Andrea. I live in Brooklyn, New York and I have my bachelors in psychology but I was always a mental health advocate. It kind of took me to different direction, I had kids, I had a family and I started making candles as a hobby while back after seeing all the junk that was in the big box stores, you know the paraffins and the chemicals and stuff and I wanted a healthier option so I started making my own candles and it really only turned into a business after my daughter suffered mental health and we had this extremely dark period in our lives for both of us and I found so much comfort in candles and I found so much comfort in just the ritual of sitting down at night after extremely emotionally and physically draining day and lighting a candle. So thats kind of how it started you know like maybe I could take this and share it with the world, share that feeling of comfort and safety and all those things with the world and also advocating from mental health which is something I’ve always been passionate about and also giving back to mental health organisations. So that’s kind of like my backstory of how it started, where it started and hopeful I could share this and get the word out and kind of try to decrease the stigma a little bit.

Sanya : That’s really great. I noticed that your company has a quite interesting name, So what was the idea behind naming your company Out Of Darkness?

Andrea : So Out Of Drakness I felt was two sided one was literally lighting yourself out of darkness with a candle but also out of darkness like whatever you’re going through in your mind, whatever darkness you’re in let us help you come out of the darkness, we see you, we wanna help you and we’re here for you.

Sanya : Okay quite interesting, so as we know that there are a lot of scented candles brands these days so what makes your candles stand out, like how are your candles better than your competitors?

Andrea : Umm honestly I think that our candles come with all soy which I know a lot of people are using all soy, a lot of people don’t use chemicals like we don’t but our candles I think really are created and I create scents as well myself so you know I kind of mix things so I could try my best to evoke those feelings that I’m trying to evoke. We also have also candles, we have an affirmation collection so they’re really geared more towards self care, self love, mental health and I think that’s what makes them really stand out. The affirmation collection, I have one here, this one’s I am loved and all the affirmation candles come with an affirmation card for you to recite and on the back there’s a QR code which you scan and it takes you to this relaxing and meditative music. We’re really trying to create more than just you know another scented candle, we’re trying to create experience and almost something that makes a part of your self care routine.

Sanya : Okay so really helpful and now I would like to know that what are the steps taken by you to make your candles clean and sustainable?

Andrea : Okay so we only use ingredients such as 100% soy wax, all of the fragrance oils that we use have no chemicals, no parafins, there’s a cotton wick, there’s nothing in it that’s dangerous to your health or anything else also the jars that we use are vessels to cut down on waste, these are actually drinking glasses so we put in every order a little card to say how you could clean it out. Since everything is so natural you don’t have to worry about using this as a drinking glass. Throw this in the dishwasher if you have one and then take this and use it as a glass.

Sanya : Really interesting and also your business focuses very much on mental health right so would you like to put some light on that topic as well?

Andrea : I would, I think that we in this country where suffering a mental health crisis at the moment and I think that we need to be more open and not always put it so much on the people who are suffering but I’ve heard a lot of people say that you know speak up or you know let somebody know but I think the opposite, I think we as a community and we need to start saying how are you instead of expecting someone who’s suffering and just trying to get through their day, just trying to get out of bed, for them to come to us and say hey you know I need some help that’s really what I would love to get and its even the people who are smiling, laughing and who are going out with their friends, you know you never know what anybody is going through, what they are pushing down, even though those people you say hey how is everything, you know I’m here. I think it doesn’t have to be a huge conversation or so heavy just if you ever need anything I’m here and that goes a long way.

Sanya : Yeah that’s true, so what are the kind of ingredients you use in your candles?

Andrea : We use 100% soy wax, we use fragrance oils and they are also infused with essential oils and we use cotton wicks.

Sanya : Okay so that was all from my side. It was great interacting with you and with this we come to the end of this podcast. I would totally recommend our vieweres to go and checkout out of darkness candles and you guys can also find a wide variety of scented candles on BestViewsReviews. Thank you so much Andrea for coming over here and interacting with us. Also I would like to thak our viewers for watching this episode. So guys stay tuned for another episode.