One of the things we’re most proud of at Maple & Lather is the sustainability of our products and packaging. You may have noticed that our candle and soap boxes are 100% paper, and when we ship our products to you, even our packing peanuts are biodegradable and soluble in water. There are many companies making sustainability promises today, but we can tell you it’s a lot harder to walk the talk if you really want to minimize the footprint you leave on our fragile planet. We’ve seen some beauty companies make commitments to have fully recyclable products some time in the future, while reminding their customers that they’re still a for-profit business and it will take some time to get there. Although it’s definitely not easy, it is possible to stand up to a sustainability promise and run a successful business.
If you like candles, you’re likely burning more than a few every year, and once your wax is gone, you’ll have an empty vessel. Maple & Lather candle vessels are made of glass – which is one of the most recyclable materials on the planet. Did you know that you can recycle glass over and over again without losing any purity, strength or utility? Recycling is great, but upcycling – where you can reuse a product for a different (and possibly higher value) purpose – is even better. In our house, we upcycle Maple & Lather vessels in many ways. Here are 3 of them:
- Smoothie, Juice & Liquor Glasses
Maple & Lather candle vessels are actually manufactured as scotch glasses, so this use case is hardly a stretch. We’ve replaced our water and juice glasses over the course of the last year with a selection of our 40-hour and 75-hour candle ‘glasses’. They’re elegantly simple, and versatile enough for our morning smoothies, afternoon iced coffees, and evening cocktails. I’m honestly shocked at how many glasses our family will run through in a given day, so having a dozen of these glasses in our cabinet has been a handy and welcome addition.
- Pencil, Lipstick & Supplies
With our house doubling as an office and a school during this lockdown, each of our workstations have a Maple & Lather candle vessel hosting an essential collection of pencils, pens, scissors and the odd paperclip or glue stick. While the 75-hour candle’s vessel – at 4 inches high – is more suitable for pencils and pens, the 40-hour candle is a much better candidate for lipstick and smaller items.
- Home Accents
We don’t keep a lot of kitsch around our house. But we do have mementos from special trips and family time together. Some of our favorite holiday activities include rockhounding on riverbeds and shelling on tropical beaches. One Christmas, Santa even brought us a rock-tumbler to polish our special finds. Recently, our Maple & Lather “upcycles” have become permanent homes for our best shells and pebbles which gracefully accent parts of our house, and keep some very special memories alive.
Upcycling an M&L candle is easy. You’ll notice that our candle labels peel off easily with no sticky residue, and our soy wax cleans easily. We’ve designed our product to allow for hassle-free upcycling and encourage you to share your elegant upcycling ideas with us on Instagram; don’t forget to tag or mention @maplelather! We hope you enjoy our candles as much as we do. As we always say, you won’t find a product that’s more luxe, clean and of course, sustainable.