Can you tell me a bit about Lumos Apothecary and how the business came about?
Born on our dining room table, Lumos Apothecary is made up of husband and wife team, Cathie & Tom. We both worked full-time in demanding jobs, meaning we didn’t get much quality time together. Whenever the rare moments happened, we would cosy up in front of the open fire, eat and drink something yummy, and always, always lit a scented candle. This got us thinking… maybe if we made our own we could eventually work for ourselves and enjoy much more ‘together time’.
Supporters of hand-crafted items for many years, we wanted to create a luxury (yet still affordable) range of products to evoke positive vibes in spaces and basically just make the world smell a little better! Founded in November 2019 after months of experimentation and testing to get our candles just right, we launched our range of luxury hand poured, 100% natural soy wax and cruelty-free candles. Each one is made by hand in small batches in our studio just outside Sheffield and Cathie now operates Lumos full time….so we’re halfway there!
Why is local and ethical manufacturing and materials important to you?
Ethical processes are at the heart of everything we do. As strong believers in ‘rewilding the world’ – we want to offer a range of luxury products that don’t come at a cost to nature. We ethically source as many of our ingredients and packaging as possible from UK suppliers and we always make sure that they’re vegan friendly.
Where possible, we like to obtain our materials from Rotherham or Sheffield so the transport requirements are as low as possible. We walk to the post office every day with our parcels and even hand-deliver some local ones on foot too. Our packaging is all reused, recycled, and/or recyclable too and we are working to improve this further all the time. Finding a supplier as close by as Stitched Boxes who happen to make such high-quality recyclable products was a real find!
What are you most proud of?
Launching a couple of months before COVID-19 hit and managing to keep afloat throughout the pandemic was no simple task. Scented candles are there to be sniffed first hand so having our craft fairs cancelled and the possibilities of opening a shop crushed, we’re just proud we’ve made it through and are growing all the time. We know our families are really proud of us too and this means the world.
What’s next for Lumos Apothecary?
Good question! We are hoping to grow organically and both be able to do this full-time in a few years (at present it’s just Cathie’s full-time hustle with Tom being amazing and doing all the website jobs in the evenings after work!) Ideally, we’d like to open a shop in the near future and run candle-making workshops in our studio. We are frequently adding new products and scents to our range and love experimenting with bold new creations.
Your Experience With Stitched Boxes
What do you use your Stitched Boxes for?
We use our Stitched Boxes for two lovely things – our monthly candle subscription boxes and our beautiful range of ready-made gift boxes. We are just about to add a third, larger size box into the mix too for bespoke gifts.
What do you love most about Stitched Boxes?
Stitched Boxes attracted us initially for many reasons. Expertly handcrafted – check. Local – check. And the good quality – check again! We’d seen that Stitched Boxes had created the luxury gift boxes for another company we admire and once we saw the quality first hand, we knew we wanted to feature them in our business. The staff are friendly, helpful and it turns out one of them even lives on the next street – who knew!? A fabulous company all around.
Would you recommend us to other companies?
Absolutely! In fact, we’ve already had a number of enquiries from companies asking where we get our beautiful boxes and do our best to spread the word.