The Siblings story starts way back on a farm outside Buffalo, NY where my sister (co-founder) and I grew up watching our parents live sustainably.
We had limited material things, everything we owned was passed down, if things broke, they were fixed, and we had the biggest compost pile I've ever seen in the backyard. So our parents really instilled this sustainable mindset in us.
Fast forward many years later and my sister and I had grown tired of the throwaway culture we were seeing. We saw the opportunity to impact the home space and more specifically, candles. We loved that fragrance is able to create and change moods in a really powerful manner.
So we set out to create Siblings, with a mission to tackle throwaway culture, and our first step was doing candles right—right by the environment, right by your home, right for your health.
You don't really think about this, but the average candle creates an enormous amount of waste—from glass jars that don’t get reused or recycled, to paraffin wax that’s made from petroleum byproducts and is toxic, to artificial scents that lead to headaches and migraines.
We saw an opportunity to create candles that are clean on multiple fronts—we use a natural coconut blend wax with non-toxic fragrance and essential oils; our bags are plant-based and 100% compostable; and we encourage reusing existing vessels to make new candles.
If not familiar, Siblings creates candle kits that contain everything needed to make a new candle with the empty candle vessel you already have, or the mug you love, the chalice you found at the thrift store, really anything.
We love to see the creativity people have reusing and refilling items they already have. The process to make a new candle is easier than making a cup of coffee, simply melt the wax for a couple minutes, pour into your vessel, let the wax harden and enjoy!
Since launching in late 2019, Siblings has seen incredible growth. Mostly through word of mouth, but we've seen great success reaching new customers through Facebook ads.
We struggled with ads for quite some time trying to understand what worked, what didn't, how ads were truly performing, but since using Triple Whale we've gained so much insight into our ad performance, especially after ios14.
While we're proud of our growth, we're most proud to be staying true to our mission and values. Siblings has been carbon neutral since day one, offsetting 243 Tonnes of CO2 in our first two years of business.
We also have planted thousands of trees through our partnership with One Tree Planted during the holidays. Siblings is in the early stages, but we're excited for what's coming down the pipeline while staying true to our vision—new fragrances, new products, new distribution and more environmental giveback.
Candles may be a small piece of the global problems, but every step towards living more sustainably helps, and every Siblings candle—with its compostable packaging, clean oils and eco-friendly coconut blend wax—makes a difference.