Alex Williams Nature’s Beeswax Cornwall
Chandler (noun): [historical] a person who makes and sells candles
Almost fourteen years ago, Alex Williams moved to Mevagissey to open a B&B. She’s rung the changes since then, trying out a variety of industry sectors including retail (the Candy Shop) and service (laundry) but in her latest venture she’s returned to her roots, and found a perfect outlet for her creative drive.
Alex is an Environmental Scientist and an Aromatherapist. An unusual, if not unique combination. She’s put these twin skills to ideal use in creating her original line, Nature’s Beeswax Cornwall.
The business was born out of two bits of local inspiration. And a lot of hard-work and research. In May 2018 Alex noticed that Mevagissey gift shop Issey was selling pretty soya melts in oyster shells. Her first thought was, “well those should be scallops in Meva!” Her second was, “maybe I’ll have a go”.
She talked to her friend Brian Ball, a local fisherman she knew would be able to supply the shells in suitable numbers for her experiment and set to trying out her idea. Sadly, she came to realise that the problem with scallop shells was the shape; they might be local and environmentally friendly, but they were just too flat and wide for a successful melt/candle to be held. But now she’d got the bit between her teeth! Next step was the second bit of inspiration, and here she had more local help this time from family. Cousin Tom is a beekeeper, and he suggested that maybe what she needed to do was abandon the soft soya wax and go with the real thing!
Alex’s grandmother had taken up pottery at the age of fifty, making a living from the “potting shed” at the bottom of the garden. “I was really proud of my Granny, she’s my biggest inspiration”. Granny had been thorough in her research, trying just about every creative course that was offered at the local college in St Albans, Hertfordshire, where she lived, before finally settling on ceramics.
That thoroughness of research, and determination to find a creative outlet, are characteristics I’m sure she’d recognise in her granddaughter today, and that sense of pride would be entirely mutual. Alex began to research her subject using the more modern channels available now, scouring the Internet, joining forums and watching endless YouTube videos to pick up the necessary skills and learn the techniques. And as she read and watched, she practiced. Starting out melting wax in a bain-marie (double vessel for warming over an indirect heat) she melted and moulded and learnt as she went.
She still uses her first “wax melting jug” to keep productive while waiting on the industrial scale version that’s now installed in her garage. How ever you do it, melting and cleaning wax is a messy business, so she was glad to be able to transfer from her kitchen to garage last October. There’s even a Baby Belling out there to keep things warming nicely, on which she makes all her skin-care products by hand.
As Alex points out, it might be stating the obvious when you’re making candles, but the products are all rather flammable, so she takes a great deal of care to keep production safe as well as achieving that perfect finish.
Using her aromatherapy training to produce luscious body lotion bars, she also employs her environmental expertise to make sure her line is as planet-friendly as possible. Her products use no plastic packaging, her lotions are in reusable tins (refills of the body lotion bars are available) and her wax is bought directly from beekeepers so she knows the provenance at all times. She prioritises her wax stocks as Cornish first, West Country next, and UK as absolute minimum. Everything is locally sourced where possible, including the design work for her brand.
Friend and neighbour Sally Mitchell is one half of the talented Design Room Cornwall team that put together the beautiful branding that makes Alex’s candles standout from the crowd. True to her determination to be plastic-free, the stylishly branded tags / information cards that go with the candles are tied on using ribbons in the distinctive Cornish tartan. “I wanted them to be really Cornish, and the yellow of the tartan works so well with the colour of the natural beeswax”.
It was Alex’s attention to detail, and Design Room Cornwall’s imaginative branding that made the difference when Alex approached The Lost Gardens of Heligan about stocking her line in their on-site shop at the top of the hill, where they now sit amongst big brands and well-established local producers looking perfectly at home.
But Alex’s candles aren’t just available locally, where they’re stocked by Jenny Aves and at Heligan, they can be bought all over the UK and beyond. There are over two dozen outlets already, including Arreton Barns on the Isle of Wight, Country Harvest in Lancashire, and O’Donnell’s pharmacy in Co. Mayo.
For a full list of stockists, or to enquire about wholesale or retail buying, visit Alex’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/cornishbeeswax/
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