For those of you who know me, you’ll know that there are three things in this world that I think you can never have enough of; mugs, rompers and candles.
One thing that I have loved about working from home more often is that I get to actually use my candle collection, and I’ve also been discovering new local candle makers along the way!
Arrow It Forward offers hand-poured soy and coconut wax candles, wax melts, room and linen sprays, gift sets and reusable car fresheners. When the owner Emily reached out to me and asked if she could send me a few products to try out a few weeks ago I was ecstatic.
Emily was kind enough to send over a little bit of everything for me to try out – some candles (in various sizes), room sprays, wax melts and a reusable car air freshener.
First things first – I have to admit that I’m a bit of a candle snob. I avoid all candles that are made with paraffin and look for high-quality, natural ingredients like soy, coconut or beeswax and natural cotton wicks. Not only do these types of waxes burn cleaner (they don’t produce soot while burning), but they also burn slowly and evenly, and will leave your room filled with the aromas of the candle.
About Arrow It Forward
Based out of Gananoque, Ontario, all of Arrow It Forward’s products are handmade with love, using premium ingredients with eco-friendliness top of mind.
The brand’s name is a nod to the “pay it forward” concept and a well-known quote by Paulo Coelho: “An arrow can only be shot by pulling it backward. When life is dragging you back with difficulties, it means it’s going to launch you into something great. So just focus, and keep aiming.”
All of their candles and melts are made with soy and coconut wax, are made in small batches and use premium quality fragrance oils – and that’s it! For the candles, they use natural cotton wicks.
I’ve burned a few of their candles so far, for various amounts of time, and was really impressed with how slow, clean and evenly they burned. After the longest burn I did (around 3.5 to 4 hours) there was absolutely no signs of carbon collecting on the wick, and no soot left around any of the candle containers.
Moving on to the aromas – oh, my, gosh.
Each and every product I received smelt so good. I don’t think I can even articulate how great everything smelt. A pet peeve of mine is when candles or melts smell really good before your burn or melt them, but then once you start to use them the aromas don’t actually fill the room. Another one is when a room spray smells nice after the initial spritz, but then the scent goes away quickly.
I can’t stress enough that this is not the case with Arrow It Forward – each and every product that I tried truly filled the room with its unique and amazing scents and they stayed in the air for a nice amount of time after use.
When I was burning the pyjama day candle in particular, which smells like freshly baked bread with a hint of sweetness, everyone who walked by the room I was burning it in (which was next to the kitchen) stopped and asked me “did you bake bread?” or “wow, what did you make? It smells so delicious!” — they were all floored when I told them it was a candle.
Arrow It Forward also sells other items from local and small businesses such as bath and body products, home decor, jewellery and more. They’ve even collaborated with Eh Frame, a company owned by Todd Talbot of HGTV’s “Love it or List it Vancouver”, to create a small, curated collection of Canadian-inspired candles.
I already know that I’ll end up being a repeat customer!
While I was gifted all of the products mentioned in this post, all opinions expressed are of my own. I hope you will support your local community by shopping local and small businesses too!
