Pintail Candles is celebrating a significant birthday this year. The company has been making fine fragranced candles in the South Lakeland countryside for 30 years.
His first workshop was in a basement and his first range was a collection of pillar and taper candles. After a couple of years, he moved to a converted milking parlour and took on his first employee.
It was at this time that Pintail Candles became one of the first candle makers in the UK to produce candle tins, a product which they have been associated with ever since.
With a growing business, his wife Fiona joined the firm full time and Pintail Candles moved again to its current location in Flookburgh, a small fishing village where cockles, mussels and the famous Morecambe Bay shrimps are harvested. It is also home to the beautiful and colourful pintail duck which inspired the name of their company.
Over the succeeding years they pioneered the concept of an occasions candle and when cocktails were all the rage, Pintail was the first to make cocktail candles in a tin.
James explains that their success has been in blending traditional candle making with contemporary fragrances and styling. "Although the company has grown, we still individually hand pour our candles. This creates a beautiful finish on the candle with a fragrance throw that fills a room with scent, all the way to the end of the burn," he says.
Fiona describes their ethos as sourcing everything as close to home as possible and supporting their local area: "We were lucky to grow up in the South Lakes of Cumbria and we wanted our business to remain in the area to provide local jobs. We use local designers and printers and most of raw materials, tins and wicks come from the UK."
Pintail Candles now sells its candles all over the UK, from the Shetland Islands to the Channel Isles as well as to Europe and various points around the globe.
Fiona and James would like to thank their customers for their support over the year, many of whom have been stocking their candles for nearly as long as they have been making them.
www.pintailcandles.com
