Creating a custom candle that captures your brand identity and excites your target audience starts with strategic design decisions. This guide walks you through the essential elements: choosing the right vessel, fragrance, packaging, and overall presentation. We also explore emerging trends around sustainability, seasonality, and luxury design to help you craft a candle that tells your story, resonates with customers, and elevates your presence.
Why Custom-Branded Candles Work
The North American candle market hit $4.5 billion by 2024, and is projected to grow to $6.25 billion by 2031, according to Grand View Research.
with scented candles driving the growth. That means more opportunity—and more competition. Custom-branded candles offer more than just aesthetic appeal; they are long-lasting marketing tools with high emotional value. When designed well, a candle offers hours of scent-driven ambiance, creating a consistent and luxurious touchpoint with your brand.
Candles are versatile: they’re used for corporate gifts, client appreciation, event swag, and even as sellable merchandise. Their universal appeal, perceived value, and sensory impact make them a high-ROI promotional item. And because scent links directly to memory and emotion, your brand can trigger positive associations every time the candle is lit.
Candle Vessels: Form Meets Function
The vessel is a canvas for your brand’s style, and choosing one that best fits your brand's image and purpose is a great first step.
Classic Jar Candles
The most traditional branded candles are prepared in Glass Jar Candles with a Metal Lid. They offer that classic candle look and feel, nostalgia, and plenty of surface area for custom candle labels or logos/design imprints.
There are lots of glass colors available, including Matte Black, Clear Glass, and the old school looking Amber Glass.
This candle style looks best with Custom Labels that include luxurious finishes such as metallic foil stamping, embossing or debossing, matte flat textured paper stock, or spot gloss.
For a more minimalist look, having your branding imprinted directly on the glass vessel is a sharp look that also emphasizes your brand as the candle burns because the light from the flame shines through the glass, highlighting your logos and designs.
Classic Glass Candles
Classic Glass Candles are versatile, elegant, and a look embraced by many luxury brands including Byredo, Jo Malone, Diptyque, Maison Francis Kurkdjian, and many others.
These premium vessels have many customizable features and options, tailored to incorporate your branding in many layers including Custom Color Glass, Customizable Labels, as well as Logo/Design Imprints on the glass vessels.
Perfect for everyday use, they’re also perfect as a minimalist focal point with subtle branding, versatile to fit with any living room aesthetic and decor, especially with neutral tones like Matte Black or Matte White.
Metal Tin Candles
Metal Travel Tin Candles are lightweight, eco-friendly, cost-effective, and perfect for mailer gifts, swag bags, and promotional items. Tins can be imprinted with your branding, or have custom labels on the lids and sides of the vessel.
Ceramic Candles
Ceramic Candles offer a refined, artisanal touch that elevates your brand’s sensory experience from fragrance to form. Hand-crafted and kiln-fired for durability, these vessels evoke an ultra-luxurious, tactile feel that instantly communicates quality.
Brands can customize ceramic jars with embossed logos, creating a subtle, permanent branding detail that doesn’t rely on labels. Available in a wide range of glazes, textures, and custom colors – including gold or metallic rim finishes on the lips or interiors – ceramics allow you to tailor the vessel to your brand’s aesthetic, whether minimalist, rustic, or bold and playful. Customers often reuse and repurpose these vessels as planters, or desk accessories.
Dozens of candle vessel styles are available in our Custom Candle Lookbook
Don’t Forget: Multi-Wicks & Wood Wick Options
Many brands absolutely love incorporating multi-wicks or real wood wicks into their designs. Multiple wicks (ex. 2 or 3 wick candles) create an extra glow and layer of sophistication, making them seem more luxurious with a whole home feel.
Real wood wicks are also a favourite because of the soft crackling sound they emit while lit, adding a sensory dimension and rustic feel to the candle collections – very popular with spas or wellness centers, as well as outdoorsy, rugged, and nature-inspired brands.
Fragrance Options: Clean vs. Natural
The fragrance of your candle is akin to its soul.
It’s the aspect that evokes emotion and memory. Choosing the right scent - or collection of scents - for your brand’s candle involves both creative branding decisions and technical considerations around ingredients and the vibe you’re looking to create.
One big question we at Spark Candles get a lot is whether to use “clean” synthetic fragrance oils or naturally-derived fragrances.
Spark Candles offers a full-service fragrance house of perfumers, who are experts at creating brand-inspired fragrances (link) using either clean, lab-derived fragrances, naturally-derived fragrances, or both.
“Clean” Fragrance Oils
Most upscale fragrance houses offer scents that are labeled “clean,” meaning they are phthalate-free, paraben-free, and free of known toxins – designed to smell beautiful without compromising indoor air quality.
Phthalates (like diethyl phthalate) have historically been used as fixatives in fragrance formulations but are increasingly avoided due to concerns about hormone disruption and indoor air safety. Research compiled by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and summarized by groups like the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has raised awareness around phthalate exposure and its potential risks.
A clean synthetic or lab-derived fragrance oil is formulated using aroma molecules without hazardous additives, offering greater safety, stability, and creative flexibility. These options are also ideal for brands seeking vegan and cruelty-free fragrances, as no animal byproducts or testing are involved.
According to the International Fragrance Association (IFRA), synthetic aromatics are widely used in consumer goods and are governed by global safety standards to ensure responsible use in scented products.
One of the key benefits of using lab-crafted fragrance compounds is creative precision, where perfumers can engineer nearly any scent – from Pumpkin Spice Latte to Ocean Breeze – with reliable performance and consistency that may not exist from naturally-derived options.
If your brand wants a signature, high-performance fragrance or is targeting clean-label-conscious customers, opt for oils that are IFRA-compliant, phthalate-free, vegan, and Prop 65-safe.
Ironically, lab-derived fragrances can also be more eco-friendly, with a smaller ecological footprint, due to the harvesting and industry practices often associated with ingredients that come from nature.
100% Natural-Derived Fragrances
If your brand ethos is all about natural, botanical ingredients, you might lean toward fragrances that are 100% naturally-derived, and meet the ISO 9235 standard for natural aromatic raw materials.
ISO 9235 basically defines natural fragrances as those made entirely from ingredients derived from natural sources (plants, flowers, etc.) via physical processes like distillation or extraction.
In other words, ISO 9235 compliant fragrances contain no synthetic chemicals or chemically modified ingredients. These are usually blends of essential oils, absolutes, CO2 extracts, and other plant-derived aromatics.
One of the primary benefits of natural fragrances is the marketing appeal – you can legitimately claim the candle is made with 100% natural fragrance, which appeals to health-conscious consumers and those seeking elevated, clean beauty standards.
However, there are trade-offs.
The palette of scents is somewhat constrained to what nature provides. While some of the greatest perfumers can work their magic and create something truly special with all-natural ingredients, some of the industry’s most popular musks, ambers, and other aromas cannot be replicated. Additionally, some essential oils don’t throw scent as strongly in wax or can be irritants in high amounts. Natural oils can also be much pricier than their lab-derived counterparts.
Brands still choose them to align with values of purity, sustainability, and wellness. For example, wellness centers, yoga studios, and luxury spa retreats might prefer any of the dozens of all-natural lavender or eucalyptus scent options to reinforce a holistic image.
Ultimately, it comes down to your brand’s priorities and palette.
If all-natural ingredients are core to your identity, a naturally scented candle might be non-negotiable, and you highlight that it’s free of synthetics. On the other hand, if fragrance impact, uniqueness and hypersophistication are critical, a custom-blended perfume oil gives you far more flexibility.
Many of today’s luxury brands actually combine approaches. Using primarily safe synthetics while avoiding known harmful additives, they incorporate both naturally-derived and lab-derived ingredients to create their fragrances. A well-tested synthetic blend can be a smart choice that still aligns with a “clean” ethos.
Most Popular Fragrances
Universally Appealing Scents
EVE [Heliotrope + Almond + Saffron]: Heavenly, neutral notes of youthful, soft heliotrope flowers, warm almond and opulent saffron musk.
HAVANA [Cuban Tobacco + Dark Rum + Cane Sugar]: Alluring, masculine musk with crushed tobacco leaves, intoxicating rum molasses twirled with natural cane sugar.
TWILIGHT [Jasmine + Saffron + Tonka Bean]: Our most popular neutral, universally appealing fragrances, striking a delicate yet sophisticated balance of sweet florals, alluring musk and soft nuances of warm tonka bean.
Holiday Season Scents
DREAMY [Cassia + All Spice + Vanilla Bean + Amber Resin]: A refined, sophisticated presence, igniting the senses with rich spice flavours of cassia and allspice, melted in a velvety embrace of vanilla bean, cloaked in a warm amber resin.
EVERGREEN [Cypress + Fraser Fir + Juniper]: Traditional, radiant fragrance of fresh trimmed cypress and frasier branches sprinkled with energizing pop of juniper berries.
SPICE [Cinnamon + Clove + Vanilla + Nutmeg]: This fragrance boasts rich, spicy aromas of clove, cinnamon and nutmeg like your favourite spiced teas and baking, balanced perfectly with a subtle hint of sweet vanilla.
Spring and Summer Scents
AMALFI [Amalfi Lemon + Orange Blossom + Jasmine + Sea Salt]: Layers of fresh, floral and citrusy notes inspired by Italy’s coveted coastline. Sweet Amalfi Lemon with beautiful aromatic Orange Blossom and Jasmine Petals and a touch of airy sea salt.
CITRUS [Grapefruit + Bergamot]: Bright, fresh, crowd pleasing combination of uplifting grapefruit and tangy bergamot.
ROOT [Rosewood Bark + Bergamot + Vetiver + Amber + Clove]: Enchanting, lavish, pleasing aroma with a zesty burst of bergamot, creamy, rich amber and clove, earthy vetiver musk, combined with rare, intriguing rosewood base notes.
Custom Packaging & Design
Packaging is the first thing your customer sees when they’re looking at your custom candle.
Great packaging not only protects the candle during transit, it also communicates your brand’s story and adds a wow factor to the unboxing experience:
The most common boxes are a fitted, paperboard rigid box sized to the candle. You can choose from various box styles: two-piece rigid boxes (lid and base) exude luxury, while tuck-top cartons are cost-effective and easily customizable. If you’re looking for elevated candle packaging, consider other custom box styles, such as a magnetic closing or rigid drawer box.
Both the exterior and interior of the packaging can be utilized: for instance, you might print a subtle pattern or a surprise message on the inside of the box lid, delighting customers when they open it. This interior printing is a fun way to add an extra branded moment – maybe your tagline, a thank-you note, or a repeat pattern of your logo. High-end brands often use print finishes like foil stamping, embossing, or UV spot gloss on their candle boxes to add texture and shine, amplifying that luxury feel.
5 Candle Trends for 2025: Sustainability, Seasonality & Style
Sustainability: Eco-friendly soy wax, recyclable jars, and biodegradable packaging are now expected. Showcase any sustainable features in your marketing.
Quiet Luxury vs. Maximalism: Minimalist neutrals and elevated simplicity are trending alongside rich, colorful maximalist designs. Both can shine if executed authentically.
Seasonal Drops: Quarterly collections tied to seasonal themes keep your candles relevant and engaging. Plan ahead for production.
Wellness & Functionality: Stress-relief and aromatherapy scents, wood wicks, and relaxing features resonate with modern consumers.
Fun Facts & Engagement: Add candle care tips, scent trivia, or ingredient facts to your packaging to boost engagement and brand storytelling.
Ignite Brand Loyalty
Custom candles fuse sensory design, storytelling, and luxury into one powerful branded gift. By choosing the right elements—from vessel to fragrance to packaging—your brand can stand out, leave a lasting impression, and create meaningful moments that customers remember and love.