In 2018 we shared the nuanced reasons we allowed both “natural” and “synthetic” ingredients in our fragrances. From today, all our new scents—starting with Timur Moon —will only use natural ingredients.
Fragrance Transparency: A Natural Transition
When we envision the future of Keap, we see a completely circular and regenerative company. For us, this means only sourcing ingredients that nourish natural landscapes and the people who care for them, and ensuring every element of our candles—from wick to wax—can be reused or easily repurposed. Since we started Keap almost ten years ago, this ultimate destination has remained the same.
While what we shared in 2018 is still true, we believe that moving towards exclusively all-natural fragrances is necessary to reach our ambitious regenerative vision. We have spent the last two years toiling away at the (many) challenges of switching to all-natural fragrances: from higher costs to reduced functionality. These obstacles keep most candle makers—even those who use terms like “natural” and “clean” in their messaging—from ever making such a change.
Here is a detailed overview of why and how we’ve managed to become one of the very few candle companies to work with all-natural fragrances.
Why We’re Making the Transition to All-Natural
Our decision is rooted in two elements: sustainability and connection.
Counter-intuitively, it is not accurate to say that plant-based naturals are always more sustainable and safer than fossil-fuel-derived synthetics. The devil is in the details.
For example, plant ingredients from industrial monoculture can be worse for the planet and people than lab-made reconstitutions. In other instances, the amount of fossil fuel needed to process and transport a natural ingredient can be greater than the totality needed for the production of its lab-made counterpart.
We recognize these nuances. However, we’ve ultimately decided to commit to natural ingredients because there is no way we can reach our ultimate goal of regeneration while relying on petroleum as a raw material.
As we look to the future, we need to move away from unearthing fossil fuels that have formed over millions of years—especially for products that are as ephemeral as candles.
Another reason for our decision is rooted in our purpose of fostering connection to the natural world. Even as many of us understand the scientific evidence that candles made with synthetic fragrances aren’t inherently less safe for the end user, we still may hold an innate aversion to synthetic ingredients.
"As we look to the future, we need to move away from unearthing fossil fuels that have formed over millions of years—especially for products that are as ephemeral as candles."
We recognize these nuances. However, we’ve ultimately decided to commit to natural ingredients because there is no way we can reach our ultimate goal of regeneration while relying on petroleum as a raw material.
As we look to the future, we need to move away from unearthing fossil fuels that have formed over millions of years—especially for products that are as ephemeral as candles.
Another reason for our decision is rooted in our purpose of fostering connection to the natural world. Even as many of us understand the scientific evidence that candles made with synthetic fragrances aren’t inherently less safe for the end user, we still may hold an innate aversion to synthetic ingredients.
Just like many of us would rather have a conversation with a human being than a chatbot, or drink juice that comes from a fruit than a chemical extract, we’d rather light a candle made from bergamot oil than Linalyl Acetate.
In a world filled with endless products, the most meaningful ones are those with origins we know and understand. When we are knowledgeable about a product’s backstory, we are inherently more likely to treasure it as an expression of our beliefs and values. It’s difficult to rationalize this proclivity, but we think it speaks to the human longing for connection—with ourselves, with our communities, and with natural ecosystems.
Using all-natural ingredients and retaining their inherent characteristics can help foster this sense of unity. It also enables us to share with you the stories of the people and places that make these glorious scents possible.
Getting to a Helpful and Rigorous Definition of “Natural”
Before we go any further, we should clarify that the words “synthetic” and “natural” are not regulated terms and can be used in different contexts to describe different ideas—often very loosely.
Broadly speaking, synthetic, or man-made, fragrance ingredients are created in a laboratory. Their raw materials are most often fossil fuel derivatives, though they can come from plant materials too. Natural fragrances are those that come from organic matter—a plant, fruit, fungi, or animal.
Going Deeper Into Defining “Natural”
For a more granular definition of "natural," we can look to The International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The global standard creator defines natural fragrances as organic matter (a plant, fruit, or animal) that is collected via “physical, enzymatic, microbiological, or otherwise traditional processes.” This definition (ISO 9235) omits ingredients that contain non-renewable carbon, like those derived from fossil fuels.
ISO also has a definition for naturally derived ingredients (ISO 16128), which is less strict. A fragrance can still be considered a natural derivative if over 50% of its weight comes from materials of natural origin and were obtained using approved extraction processes.
You might be as surprised as I was to learn that not all natural ingredients are assessed to be 100% biodegradable. For example, vetiver and chamomile extracts, though derived exclusively from plant-based sources, form heavy molecules that do not readily biodegrade in the environment. On the other hand, many synthetic molecules derived from non-renewable petroleum can be 100% biodegradable. An example of this is synthetic vanillin, a molecule that occurs naturally in vanilla (and carries that distinctive vanilla smell), but is often produced in a lab.
Why is Biodegradability Important?
Candles leave a small amount of fragranced wax behind after burning. We want to get to a place where Keapers can throw this residual wax into their home compost bins knowing it will return to the earth with their food and yard scraps.
Given the intricacies of choosing sustainable natural materials, we have chosen to limit ourselves to fragrances that, at minimum, are what we are now referring to as “100/100”:
100% renewable origin (i.e. plant-based)
100% biodegradable, meaning they will naturally start to degrade into CO2, water, and microbial biomass within 28 days
The ISO Standards Version, for the Experts
By ISO standards, this means we are now using ISO 9235 compatible ingredients, except those that are not 100% biodegradable.
In addition, we are allowing a small number of ISO 16128 ingredients that are 100/100. These are ingredients that fall under the umbrella of "green chemistry," such as linalool. This fragrant terpene can be isolated from basil oil, wood chips, or other renewable sources via an efficient chemical reaction. For example, when derived from basil oil, it is extracted using fractional distillation.
We estimate that these green chemistry-derived ingredients will make up around 10% of our new scent palette, at least to start.
By working within these constraints, we are reducing our ingredient palette from approximately 10,000 options to around 500—a ~95% decrease.
Under This New Framework, The Simpler the Better
One of the most significant shifts we’re making isn’t about which ingredients we use, but how many.
In fine fragrance formulas, including in our candles to date, master perfumers typically use 20-120 ingredients. This complexity allows them to bring to life evocative concepts such as Wood Cabin, where a log cabin, a fireplace, a mossy and rocky path, the pine-laden damp air, and even a bear in the background can be summoned with remarkable precision.
It is challenging enough to find one aromatic ingredient that can legitimately claim to be regenerative. But finding and monitoring 20-120 such ingredients, multiplied by the number of different scents we design, is a tall order for the most well-resourced corporate sustainability department—never mind an artisanal business with 10 employees.
With the help of a new fragrance house, we will be whittling down our ingredient list to an industry-unheard-of seven per candle. This change will allow us to closely monitor each ingredient’s supply chain and incrementally improve our sourcing as more sustainable options come onto the market.
Using so few ingredients is anathema to many in the fragrance industry, but we found innovative partners willing to take up the challenge in Mane and perfumer Ugo Charron.
Practically, this means changing the way we come up with our candle scents. Instead of beginning with a concept (e.g. “Wood Cabin”), we now begin with a hand-selected ingredient, chosen for both its olfactive beauty and its sustainability profile (e.g. Mane’s Timur Pepper extract, sourced from Nepal’s Salyan district). We use the history and cultural significance of this main ingredient to develop each candle’s story. From there, we add just six other ingredients to prop up this star scent and really help it sing.
Whereas before we were baking a layered cake, our new process will be more akin to salting a perfectly ripe tomato. It will be a celebration of the beauty and complexity that exists in simplicity.
What Makes This Framework So Difficult?
The vast majority of candle companies work with a broad palette of natural and synthetic fragrances (though they may use vague language like “made with essential oils” on their products to suggest a higher degree of naturality).
There are a few reasons you see almost no 100% natural fragrance candles on the market today, especially on the luxury end. For starters, they tend to be significantly more expensive to make. While natural and synthetic fragrances can both vary in price, there are not as many inexpensive naturals as there are cheap synthetics.
If a company’s fragrance budget is below $100/kg, as it is even at most higher-end brands, it will limit their choice of natural ingredients down to only a few (cheaper varieties of lavender and peppermint, for example). It is virtually impossible to make something novel and unique using such a restricted palette.
Many natural fragrance ingredients are also prone to certain performance issues in candles. They often won’t “throw” as strongly, rendering their scents less pronounced and robust than certain synthetic ingredients. A lot of naturals will also have trouble burning well—tunneling instead of creating a nice even melt pool, further reducing their scent throw. Finally, many natural fragrances tend to have lower flash points (the temperature at which they catch fire), which can make them fire safety hazards in a candle.
The vast majority of candle companies use synthetic fragrances in their formulas as a counterbalance against these issues. You may see some small-scale creators making 100% natural candles in one or two fragrances (often using those aforementioned lavender and peppermint essential oils), but chances are, they have at least one of the performance problems identified above.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a naturally scented candle that has a satisfying burn and rich, complex aroma—until now.
How We’re Able to Make This Work
After nearly two years of behind-the-scenes work, we’ve reached the point where we can create scents that transcend the issues that typically plague all-natural candles.
This has only been possible with the help of Mane: a multi-generational family-owned business, renowned for building strong relationships with farmers and producers based on trust, reliability, and fair compensation. This history has made them a leader in natural fragrances, with access to beautiful materials other fragrance houses don’t have (Timur pepper is a prime example of this). They have also pioneered new extraction methods that allow fragile plants to retain their full scent potency through processing, like supercritical fluid extraction.
Mane’s unparalleled expertise in working at the intersection of fine fragrance and natural sourcing gives us an exciting set of tools to develop novel all-natural scents.
Crucially, they are also giving us full transparency on the components of each formula, which we are then able to share with you. This openness is actually extremely unusual in the world of perfumery, where ingredients usually show a catch-all “fragrance” line item rather than the full detail. (The main reason for this industry standard has to do with protecting the perfumer’s intellectual property, which is not possible through patents or copyright.)
However, we still wouldn’t be able to make this new approach work if not for the fact that we simply outspend other candle companies on fragrance.
We don’t say this flippantly. Our fragrance manufacturers old and new have told us that our fragrance budget is more than double that of other luxury candle manufacturers—even many that charge almost twice as much for their candles.
The reason we are able to spend more comes back to our business model . Our combination of in-house production, limited product offerings, and virtually zero marketing expenses allows us to pay top dollar for our fragrances, giving us access to natural scents that are beyond the budget of conventional businesses.
"However, we still wouldn’t be able to make this new approach work if not for the fact that we simply outspend other candle companies on fragrance."
That extra budget doesn’t just mean we get to use rare, beautiful ingredients. It also means that our palette is wider with more choices to affect scent throw, burn quality, and flash point. Therefore, we can overcome the barriers to creating masterful all-natural candles that perform at our standards.
Coming Soon
By switching over to 100% natural fragrances, we’re limiting ourselves—but in the process, we’re opening new doors toward our vision.
Starting in December 2024, subscribers will be able to purchase the first scent in our 100% plant-derived, 100% biodegradable fragrance line: Timur Moon.
As we move into 2025, we’re planning to launch three additional scents in this line of new naturals, which we are calling the Full Circle Collection. Our prior creations, which we will refer to henceforth as the Escapes Collection, won’t be going anywhere. You can still purchase our Signature Scents, including Wood Cabin, at any time, and subscribers will continue to have access to our Seasonal Scents throughout the year.
"By switching over to 100% natural fragrances, we’re limiting ourselves—but in the process, we’re opening new doors toward our vision."
We can’t wait to hear how these new scents fit into your life, your daily rituals and personal transitions. Our hope is that they also help connect you to the incredible world we all share. As we continue onwards in our journey toward circularity and regeneration, we are so grateful for your support and the leadership you demonstrate by choosing to shop with us.
Credits: Words by Emma Loewe, Harry Doull, Suzanne Fonzi
If you enjoyed this article, you might enjoy our not-quite-weekly free newsletter where we share our lessons on our journey toward our regenerative vision, product launches, and behind-the-scenes happenings.
We left social media in 2021 because we found its current mechanics didn’t align with our purpose to facilitate connection to the natural world, our loved ones, and our own spirits. Since then, our newsletter has become a vibrant place for healthy conversation around topics ranging from alternative business ownership models to happy hour cocktail recipes.
*****
What our readers say about it:
“It’s very thoughtful and not sales-y like all other marketing newsletters.”
“I like reading how a business is trying to be as progressive as possible in a capitalist system.”
“I normally delete emails from businesses but with the Keap newsletter I was actually interested in reading through! Made me feel that you guys really care about us and the work you do."
