How Clay & Burn is Bringing Sustainability & Luxury Candles to Your Home
What if luxury candles weren’t just indulgent but also kind to the planet? Enter Clay & Burn, the Chilterns-based brand that’s flickering its way into our eco-conscious hearts with handcrafted home fragrance products that are as guilt-free as they are gorgeous.
Founded by Bryony, a woman on a mission to make our homes smell divine without compromising the Earth, Clay & Burn is more than just another candle company. It’s a love letter to sustainability. With eco-friendly, vegan, and cruelty-free materials, British-made glassware, and recyclable packaging, every element is thoughtfully curated.
“At Clay & Burn, we are passionate about handcrafted luxury that doesn’t cost the Earth,” says Bryony. And trust me, that’s a statement that smells just as good as it sounds.
Let’s talk wax—because not all candles are created equal. While soy has had its moment in the eco-spotlight, Clay & Burn takes it a step further with coconut wax. Not only does it provide a beautifully neutral base and an even melt, but it also burns longer, giving you more dreamy, flickering moments. Sure, it’s pricier than soy, but when sustainability meets superior quality, how can we say no?
And if candles aren’t your thing (who are you?), Clay & Burn has you covered with diffusers infused with the same carefully blended, vegan fragrance oils. It’s luxury, but make it responsible.
But wait—there’s more. The Clay & Burn collection isn’t just about scenting your space; it’s about self-care, too. Their hand washes and lotions are the skincare equivalent of a cashmere sweater—gentle, soothing, and oh-so-luxurious. With a mild pH, these vegan, cruelty-free, and gluten-free essentials leave your skin feeling soft, pampered, and ready to take on the world.
So whether you’re lighting up a candle for a cosy night in, refreshing your space with a diffuser, or giving your hands the five-star treatment they deserve, Clay & Burn is here to make sure your home (and conscience) smells absolutely fabulous.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with a coconut wax candle and a glass of wine. Bliss.
We had a chat with Bryony to find out about what inspired her to start her business and how being a female entreprenuer has been.
What inspired you to start Clay & Burn, and how did you decide to focus on eco-friendly and vegan home fragrance products?
I’ve always had a very keen sense of smell (my husband often refers to me as a blood hound – I’m not going to read too deeply into the dog analogy ha!) and although I adore gorgeous fragrances, I’m also very sensitive to smell! Just as a really bad smell can really bother me, a good smell can really influence my mood, cheer me up, trigger a memory etc. I’m also quite fussy with fragrances and could rarely find a candle or diffuser that didn’t offend my nose! So I started learning how to make candles and reed diffusers just for me to use at home, but my husband encouraged me to make something more of it.
I’d always dreamed of working for myself, doing something creative. I have an interior design degree but didn’t end up doing much with it, so wanted to pursue something that I could channel my creativity into. During my maternity leave with my daughter, it really hit me how much I wanted to be there for her, to inspire her, support her, and how going back to my full time role as a Legal Secretary would be somewhat restrictive, especially once she starts school. If she was ever poorly and needed to come home, I’d be some distance away and wouldn’t be able to just drop things and be there for her. So I spent most of my daughter’s naps during maternity leave, and another 10 months after that (having returned to work part time as a legal secretary), researching everything I could think of, securing suppliers, developing ideas, products and the brand until I was finally ready to launch a product I was really proud of in Summer 2024, and Clay & Burn was born!
In terms of focusing on eco-friendly & vegan products, at home we try to do our best to have a limited impact on the environment; we recycle, compost food waste, buy bamboo toilet paper, invested most of our savings into some solar panels to create green energy, drive an electric car etc. So it was very important to me that if I was going to be creating products to go out into the world, I wanted to make sure they weren’t having a negative impact on the environment!
Why did you choose coconut wax over more common alternatives like soy wax?
I knew that I wanted to use a plant wax, and to stay away from paraffin. The research on the environmental impact of all different plant-based waxes is a bit of a mine field, but I committed to stick to trusted sources, and came to the conclusion that coconut wax had less of a negative impact on the environment than soy wax. I was very surprised to learn that soybean crops massively contribute to deforestation, therefore making it far from the most eco-friendly choice.
Coconut wax on the other hand has a lower environmental impact, since coconut trees need less water, they can be good for local ecosystems as they can stabilise soil and, even better, herbicides and pesticides are generally not required! So despite coconut wax raw materials being more costly than the soy alternatives, I felt that it was worth the additional manufacturing expense to look after our planet and enjoy a guilt free, beautifully smelling home.
When testing different waxes, I tried a few different coconut waxes, including a blend of rapeseed & coconut, but I found that the pure coconut wax provided a beautiful neutral base for the carefully selected eco-friendly fragrance oils and it had fantastic burn time and even melt.
What inspires the scents you create?
I wanted to provide a variety of different scents; my favourites are generally fruity fragrances, but I also wanted to produce some more rich, musky fragrances, some floral, woody and festive. I also love how certain smells can really evoke strong memories, so having a variety was important in this too! I absolutely love when I’ve been at markets and potential customers come over to smell our candles and tell me what memories they have triggered!
However, I’d say the main reason I provide the fragrances I do, is they just all smell so delicious! I have so many more I want to make available, so will unveil those when they have been fully developed and tested; watch this space!
Sustainability is clearly a priority for Clay & Burn. What steps do you take to ensure your materials, packaging, and manufacturing processes align with your eco-friendly values?
It was important to me to choose suppliers that were UK based, not just to limit environmental impact from transporting product, but to support UK businesses. I worked closely with my chosen packaging suppliers to select 100% recyclable boxes, tape, stuffing, and honeycomb wrap. I wanted to make sure that no plastics were used. In fact, the only plastic item included in our products is the pump on the hand wash & lotions, which is reusable!
Our glassware comes from one of the few remaining glass manufacturers based in the UK, our labels are printed by a local small printing business and our waxes, cosmetic product components and fragrance oils are also manufactured in the UK. It was obviously also very important that my chosen suppliers could provide the necessary certifications to back up their vegan friendly and cruelty free claims.
Do you have a personal favorite product from your collection, and why does it hold a special place for you?
Ooh that’s a tricky one! The Orchard is without a doubt my favourite fragrance – it’s sweet and fruity without being sickly or overwhelming. It just smells fresh and light while feeling soft and comforting if that makes sense! But then I’m torn between The Orchard reed diffusers or hand wash! I love both equally as you don’t have to make a conscious decision to go and light a candle or burn a wax melt, you can just be going about your day and walk past a diffuser and get a surprise little whiff of yumminess! I love the hand wash for similar reasons, every time you wash you hands the smell washes over you and it stays on your hands for some time after and just follows you around – I love it!
What are your future goals for Clay & Burn, and how do you see the brand evolving in the coming years?
I have a few development ideas and short term goals in the pipeline, such as launching gift boxes and bundles, more fragrances and larger candles. I’m trying to decide which to prioritise (I’m thinking probably gift sets in time for Mother’s day) and trying to juggle it all around keeping up with orders, stock levels, and social media, plus being a toddler mum and working part time at my ‘day job’.
In terms of future goals, I’m hoping that by the start of 2026, I can get the business to a position where I could leave my job as a legal secretary, and focus solely on my daughter and Clay & Burn.
Some other big goals for the future would also be to be able to introduce my other passion in life, Pottery, to Clay & Burn. This is part of the origin of the ‘Clay’ in our name, as I had been going to weekend pottery lessons for a few years, but had to stop those to make time for Clay & Burn. I would absolutely love to have my own wheel and kiln in my studio one day, to be able to create pieces to sell to our wonderful customers, that would complement our existing products perfectly, such as wax burners, candle vessels and seasonal homewares. This would also then enable me to start providing candle refills, so the handmade pottery I have created can be used again and again. Although our glassware is recyclable and can also be repurposed around the home, providing refills is something I really want to explore in the future, particularly from a sustainability point of view.
How do you balance the creative and business aspects of running Clay & Burn, and what skills have been most important in your entrepreneurial journey?
I’ve got a bit of a weird ‘hybrid brain’ actually, if you can call it that, in terms of the fact that I’m definitely a creative person, but I’ve also got a very analytical brain and love all of the research, admin, record keeping and finance tracking aspect of this! I’m a big fan of an excel spreadsheet and to be honest I started working things out on a spreadsheet before I even attended my first candle making class! So I think that’s part of the reason I’m enjoying this journey so much; there is so much variety in the various tasks involved, that it fulfils so much! I have also really enjoyed learning new skills along the way, on top of learning to handmake candles, diffusers, hand washes and lotions etc, I’ve learnt to build my own website, represent the business on social media, use accounts software etc. It’s definitely been a learning curve but a fun one!
Starting a business while managing family responsibilities can be incredibly demanding. How have you balanced your entrepreneurial journey with your personal life?
You can say that again! I must admit I may have underestimated how difficult it would be to juggle being a new mum, starting a business, working part time and other general household responsibilities! For now it’s been a case of spending most moments that I’m not at work and my daughter is asleep, trying to get through my to do list. It’s meant a lot of late nights in my home studio, but I really enjoy it and do find the making process very cathartic, so it rarely feels like work! I also know (or hope) that it won’t be this way forever, and if I keep going, eventually I’ll be able to do this full time, which would be perfect once my daughter starts school – so I can be round the corner if she needs me, and not miss any assemblies or sports days! That’s the dream really, isn’t it, to be in control of your own life and have flexibility, whilst doing something you love, putting something you’re really proud of out into the world and having the opportunity to be there for your children. So the late nights will 100% be worth it!
If you want to find out more about the Clay & Burn range or buy some of the amazing products, pop along to www.clayandburn.co.uk.
Linsey is the Founder and CEO of Anne Louise Magazine, a platform dedicated to empowering women with insightful lifestyle content. As an author of The Science of Getting Rich – Empowered Edition, Linsey blends her entrepreneurial spirit with a passion for writing, inspiring women to thrive in both business and life. With a keen eye for detail and a commitment to helping others succeed, she brings years of experience in editing and content creation to her work. When she’s not leading the magazine or editing articles, Linsey enjoys spending time with her daughter, family, many pets, exploring plant-based recipes, and working on her next book.
