Our Story (so far…)

My name is Sonia and I am co-founder of Soleste Creations along with my daughter, Solenne.

This journey started a long time ago. For as long as I can remember I have had a passion for candles, a trait which Solenne shares! That this love of candles should or could become a business hadn’t really crossed my mind until a few years ago when a niece gave me one of her beautiful handmade candles. It stayed in the back of my mind until 2020, the year that Covid-19 came to challenge our world. I had been working full time in a job I enjoyed, but in a very short space of time all that changed. I made the scary decision to resign and spend some time regrouping. The time was right to start making candles! Solenne was with me all the way, from researching to purchasing a kit and the excitement of creating our first candles.

Solenne had often spoken about wanting to start a business and it didn’t take her long to suggest we sell our candles. Were we ready? Not yet… But we set to work, figuring out what we wanted to achieve, what was important to us and refining and improving our products.

We’ve made a few mistakes along the way, changed our minds about certain things and then changed them again which caused us to blow our initial budget. But we learn something new every day about our products, our customers and about running a business.

Right from the start we knew we wanted to create beautifully fragranced, high quality candles and offer them at a reasonable price. To achieve this we tested various waxes, fragrances, wicks and jars to make sure we could produce the best quality candles. All our candles are made with 100% soy wax for superior scent throw.

Sustainability and minimum waste have always been high on our list of priorities. Most of our ranges don’t include lids or boxes (although you can purchase these separately for some jars) and some of our containers can be upcycled into drinking glasses once the candle is spent. Check our FAQs section on how to clean the containers. We don’t use plastics, unless there isn’t an alternative including all our packing and shipping materials and our aim is that they be made from either recycled materials or can be recycled or upcycled. Even though most of our candles don’t come boxed, they are all wrapped in tissue paper before shipping.

We also offer refills for candle jars, so if you live in Sydney and have one or a few used candle jars lying around, bring them along to get refilled.

One thing we realised early in this journey is that, although we are alike in many ways we have quite different tastes in candle scents. It has helped us create a diverse offering and we hope you can find the perfect candle for you!  If not, let us know – we are always looking to improve.

We hope you join us on this journey and enjoy our candles as much as we enjoy making them!

All the best,

Sonia & Solenne