22 Apr 2024
It was perhaps one of the most inauspicious of introductions, but indicative of how our amazing community comes together to highlight the achievements of its residents, and in doing so, provides the St Albans Times with a wealth of fantastic stories.
When Wine Times writer Darren McCabe visited acclaimed eatery Toast for lunch with his wife, she commented on the lovely scent of the candle in the toilet, prompting him to make enquiries about its origin from owner Liam Judge.
Liam revealed it had actually been handmade by his friend Charlie Smith, co-founder of eco-friendly chandlers (candle makers) Modern Botanicals with her husband Dan, and before long I was arranging to meet them for coffee and a chat in the Fleetville Larder.
But that’s how St Albans works though isn’t it? Connections between like-minded individuals acting to help each other out for the common good.
For florist Charlie, who has made flowers for the likes of our late Queen, Yoko Ono and Sir Elton John, it was Covid which proved the catalyst to set up the business.
As someone whose entire career revolves around her olfactory senses, to be suddenly bereft of these was no doubt terrifying, only for her smell to return at a much heightened level than previously.
“I had Covid five times, and I did lose my sense of smell. I completely lost it to the point whereby I could not smell anything for a month, and didn’t really know if it was going to come back, but then it came back stronger than before.”
“It’s like a super power,” quips Dan. “We’re going to sell the rights to Marvel.”
As with many couples, the conversation jumps between the pair, often finishing each other’s sentences or interjecting with added detail.
Charlie, who now works in Flower Box on George Street, was previously a florist at Bloomsbury Flowers in Covent Garden, before the couple moved to St Albans to raise a family.
In contrast to his wife, Dan is a wildlife filmmaker (he won a BAFTA as director of David Attenborough’s Natural History Museum) whose work takes him all over the world, meaning he is perfectly placed to make Instagram clips of Modern Botanicals’ candles in remarkable locations.
He explains: “The aromas come from Charlie, more from floristry, and it’s your love of scent isn’t it?”
She agrees: “Yeah, and an obsession with candles and botanicals and all that sort of thing, but the scent is actually inspired by nature. I’ve always been quite obsessed with candles and bought a lot of them. At first I began making them just for myself for a long time and then started really experimenting with scent.”
The candle-making process is very much one of trial and error, mixing chemistry and physics in order to create the perfect scent in harmony with the right wax and wick, as Charlie elaborates: “I didn’t ever want to just make ordinary candles. A lot of people do buy fragrance oil and, you know, there’s still a skill in using the right wick and things like that.
“But I always wanted to make really good candles that were unique and so I decided to make it really difficult and just blend my own scent rather than buying fragrance oil. I buy scents from all over the place and try different blends over and over and over again until I get the perfect one.”
“Our kitchen is a sea of tiny bottles,” adds Dan.
“Then it’s testing, and it takes me a long time to make a good scent. Writing down different weights because a gram can make all the difference.”
What follows is a waiting game, says Dan: “Every time you make one, you’ve got to leave it for like a week before you can burn it and test it.”
(“Or longer,” Charlie interjects.)
“And we won’t know if it’s worked. Even when you get the scent right…”
“…it’s the burn,” adds Charlie. “So all the variables change every time I add a different ingredient, and the actual burn rate will change, so it’ll have an effect on how it burns, the wick and the scent flow.
“If you up the fragrance load sometimes that doesn’t increase the fragrance and has the opposite effect, so you just have to keep testing all the time.”
At the moment there are just three scents to choose from.
The forest fragrance of Into the Woods sees uplifting top notes of bergamot and petitgrain mingle with clary sage, vetiver and rosemary on a base of patchouli, moss and cedarwood.
Sweater Weather features aromatic top notes of zesty clementine blended with invigorating cinnamon and nutmeg on a warm clove-leaf base.
Finally, Hibernation offers rich top notes of raspberry and pomegranate combined with sensual jasmine, frankincense and a warm whisper of black pepper.
But Charlie has almost perfected the next two: “Because I’m a florist as well, I work seasonally. I developed all the winter and autumn ones and now I’m doing the spring and summer.”
Apart from designing the website and packaging, Dan brings his talents behind the camera into the business.
Charlie explains: “Dan being a film maker can help me with my Instagram and things, so there’s one candle called Into the Woods, and rather than me just taking pictures in the local woods, he can put one in his rucksack and when he goes off filming he’ll put one in a redwood Ecuadorean rain forest for me.
“He’s done another little film for Sweater Weather, and went into the park by the Abbey and filmed lots of dogs wearing jumpers.”
So how does she see the business developing? “I just want to really grow it locally to start with, that would be brilliant. People are really up for supporting local and shopping local now, and then, I don’t know, the sky’s the limit, really, but I’m trying to grow it slowly.”
Dan has bigger ambitions: “Yeah, but if we had a tonne of wax we could make a load couldn’t we?”
Charlie isn’t entirely convinced about transforming their home into a full-scale candle factory: “There’s probably a limit on how much we can make in our house, but I’ve gradually invested in the business and have wax melters now…”
Dan agrees: “You can probably make hundreds at the moment, but if we get into the thousands we’ll need an industrial unit, and that’s probably the next stage.”
“Yeah, to scale up.”
Currently you can find their candles in Flower Box, Trinder Hair Studios, Toast, and The Dutch Marketplace garden centre in Brookmans Park, but Charlie has ambitions to sell them in more outlets.
“I need to get my next fragrances out and then really push them. The next one is a floral one and it’s going to be called Bloom, and then there’s a really summery one, which is kind of grapefruit. Then there’s another one called Dopamine, which is like a really happy summer scent.”
Find out more about Modern Botanicals on their website at modernbotanicals.co.uk, or pop into Toast and have a sniff of the one in the loo!
