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New Tea Lights for GoodLight

GoodLight has just received its first order of tea lights made in our new facility.

The new tea lights do have a different appearance than the others we’ve been producing for the last two years. Mostly you’ll notice that the wax has been poured directly into the aluminum cup instead of poured into a mold and then transferred into the cup, filling out the cup better. The new tea lights also have a softer texture and are more of an ivory than pure white color. But they are still made of 100% unscented palm wax and have the same burn quality as our others. In fact, we believe these are  a better quality tea light.

While we will continue making candles as always at our Malaysian factories, this new round of tea lights was made in China. While Jon and I have yet to visit the new facility, we have been communicating with our contacts there throughout 2011 and have reviewed third party audits, making us feel confident that the new facility meets our standards of fair labor and working conditions. In addition, the wax used in these tea lights is sourced from RSPO members, which, as you know, is very important to GoodLight’s mission.

We will still be selling through our existing Malaysian tea light stock inventory, but the new tea lights will start showing up immediately in our 100-packs and new bulk cases for our industry clients. As always, we would love to hear your feedback.

GoodLight’s 2011: The Year That Was

Well, we’re already two weeks into 2012, and I’m just now getting around to following through on one of my New Year’s resolutions—to tend to this blog a little more frequently.  And I’d like to start by reflecting on the year that was.

Looking back on 2011, we feel grateful for how far GoodLight has come in the past twelve months. To begin with, a year ago you could find us in only 75 stores around the country; we’re now in 342 stores in 34 states. This past year saw our expansion into about 80 Whole Foods Markets in the Northeast, North Atlantic, and Northern California regions, as well as to all 49 locations of Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage in the Rocky Mountain West and Texas. More “chain reactions” included a late-summer rollout to the 16-store Richard’s empire along the Gulf Coast of Florida, the 9 Nugget Markets in the foothills of the Sierras, and the 3 Outpost Natural Foods around Milwaukee, and an autumnal placement in the 9 Fairway Markets in the New York metropolitan area. We also landed on the shelves in some of the biggest and smallest independents in the country—from the 40,000+ member Park Slope Co-op in Brooklyn to Oregon’s massive Ashland Shop ’n Kart to community co-ops like Hunger Mountain in Montpelier, Vermont and Phoenix Earth in Toledo, Ohio. And the list goes on and on. To find some GoodLight in your neighborhood, please visit our website’s Store Locator, and be sure and tell them thank you for us when you visit. (And if your favorite local store doesn’t carry us, please request us by name to the store’s buyer—we can use all the help we can get.)

Since our time and energy have been devoted to spreading GoodLight in the retail realm, we haven’t been able to spend as much time getting restaurants to make the switch from petroleum-based paraffin candles to our non-toxic tea lights and votives. Be that as it may, we are happy to report that more and more yoga shalas, churches, and Buddhist temples are finding us online and illuminating their sacred spaces with GoodLight. Namaste and amen to that. We will try to spend more time this year reaching out to and educating these folks about the simple and affordable alternative to the conventional candles that pollute the air with things that we definitely don’t want to be inhaling.

I’ve already blogged this year about some of our other noteworthy moments in 2011, but will recap a few of the highlights now.

• In April we partnered with Carbonfund.org, contributing to their reforestation projects to mitigate some of the negative consequences inherent to commerce. In other words, Carbonfund is planting trees on our behalf to offset not only our office emissions, but all of our transportation emissions as well—including the trans-oceanic voyages of our candles from Asia to the U.S. and all UPS deliveries to our web customers and retail accounts.

• Last February we began supplying the Seattle-based glassybaby—a wonderfully successful maker of beautiful hand-blown containers—with the tea lights they include with each purchase and the candles they burn for display in their glassybaby stores.

• We proudly sponsored this summer’s two yoga+music Wanderlust festivals, providing clean-burning candlelight so that the thousands of attending yoga students and teachers could breathe easy during deep pranayama practice at high altitude.

• In May, we sponsored the Concert for a Healthy Birth in Manhattan and contributed candles for their VIP gift bags.

• GoodLight received some good press in Redbook, the Boston Examiner, Natural Home and Garden, Massage Magazine, Independent Restaurateur, and a bunch of groovy websites and blogs.

• In March, we exhibited at Natural Products Expo West, which was a big turning point for us in a lot of ways. We weren’t even a year old at that point, and the enthusiastic response we got from attendees at the country’s biggest natural product trade show was encouraging and reaffirming. Expo West also marked the turning point when we began interviewing potential sales brokers, but I’ll dive into that in a later blog post. (*It’s also worth mentioning that we’ll be at Expo West again this March…come visit us in Booth #4130.)

So, that’s enough about what happened in the past. Now it’s time to take a deep breath and focus on the present, and continue to think ahead about how we can contribute towards a lighter, more sustainable future for us all. As always, thanks for your support.

 

 

 

Vitamin Cottage: Spreading More GoodLight in Our Backyard and Elsewhere

We have been stocking up on provisions at the Vitamin Cottage in Boulder before returning from our Front Range road trips for the past decade, if not longer. And all of our Telluride and Ridgway friends have been shopping at the Montrose location regularly ever since it opened right down the street (if street can mean highway) a couple of years ago. So, given our history with and personal connection to this local fave, we’re extra excited and proud to announce that GoodLight Natural Candles rolled out to all 49 Vitamin Cottage/Natural Grocers this week.

I used to think Vitamin Cottage was only a Colorado thing, but the chain (which is sometimes known simply as Natural Grocer) has expanded all over the Southwest and Midwest, with stores in New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Wyoming, Utah, and–coming soon–Kansas. This helps us get GoodLight a lot closer to a lot of customers who could only order from us online before, making GoodLight acquisition a much more convenient, tangible experience for folks living in places like Cheyenne and St. George and Abilene.

Like the songs goes…”If I had a candle for every ace I’d drawn, I could light a town the size of Abilene.” Or something like that.

Thank you, Christina and Kaye at Vitamin Cottage, and Annemarie!

 

 

Natural Grocers, aka Vitamin Cottage

 

 

 

glassybaby + GoodLight forever

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the phenomenon that is glassybaby, please let me share with you the inspiring story of what has become the country’s foremost creators and purveyors of, well, glassybaby.

When the first glassybaby was created in 1998, Lee Rhodes, glassybaby creator and founder, was raising her three small children and fighting what would become a 7-year battle with a rare form of lung cancer. She had endured surgery, countless rounds of chemotherapy, and was searching for a few moments of serenity to escape the fear that encompassed her life. Inspired by the beauty of these elegant vessels, Lee filled them with tea lights and scattered them throughout her home. She found great hope and healing in their color, light and love.

 

glow glassybaby glow

Over the next few years, Lee learned to blow glass and create glassybaby. And as she began giving them to others, glassybaby was born. Eventually she searched out local glass blowers to assist her with the production so that she could spread the light of glassybaby. To Lee, they represented “that deep breath that we often forget to take.”

In 2003, glassybaby opened its first retail store. Today, the Madrona neighborhood of Seattle is home to the company’s main store and studio, where a team of dedicated glassblowers produces an average of 200 glassybaby daily. The company also has stores in Seattle’s University Village; in Bellevue, Washington; and in New York’s West Village at 555 Hudson.

To honor those who have walked down her same path, Lee established glassybaby goodwill, which remains the company’s foundation and mission. During her cancer treatment, Lee met many other patients who could not afford even daily needs such as bus fare, childcare, or groceries. Today, much of the money donated by glassybaby goes directly toward meeting those basic needs. Each year, the company spreads hope by supporting charities dedicated to health, healing, and quality of life. –from glassbaby.com

Earlier this year, GoodLight and glassybaby found each other through the help of our friends Hilary and Lyn White, and we’ve been working together ever since to spread the warm glow of non-toxic candlelight in the gorgeous glass of glassybaby’s technicolor rainbow. Each glassybaby sold now comes complete with a GoodLight tea light, and you can even order your own box of paraffin-free glassybaby tealights by GoodLight on glassybaby’s website.

Jon and I feel very fortunate to have GoodLight aligned with such a wonderful company with such a compassionate mission. And we want to thank Lee and Marissa for being such a joy to work with. Here’s to GoodLight + glassybaby forever, together!

 

New favorite CD: Nada Sadhana (The Brooklyn Sessions, Volume 1)

Kevin Courtney, our friend and sometimes yoga teacher (when we’re fortunate enough to be in NYC with enough time to practice), has just released his debut CD, The Brooklyn Sessions, Volume 1, under the name Nada Sadhana. I picked up a copy from the merch booth at Wanderlust a few weeks ago, and have been listening to it ever since. Acoustic strings, harmonium melodies, and hypnotic beats all melt together into organic grooves that provide the perfect instrumental soundtrack for bodywork sessions and yoga classes (which is unsurprising given that Kevin is a bodyworker and yoga teacher, and of course, musician).

 

Nada Sadhana: The Brooklyn Sessions, Volume 1

 

 

And while this album is surely destined to quickly become a staple in yoga shalas and massage studios around the country, I highly recommend one for personal consumption. For those of us who slave away in front of a computer all day (or those who slave away in any sort of capacity), the Nada Sadhana album is perfect background music to help maintain a peaceful, more divinely-connected state throughout the day, even during those hectic moments when the San Francisco wind is rattling your windows and/or your brain, and all you really want to do is take a nap. When those moments come, as they often do, tune in to The Brooklyn Sessions, take a deep breath, light a candle, and, yeah, maybe take that nap.

Spreading GoodLight at the San Francisco International Gift Fair

I spent most of the last week downtown at the Moscone Center at the the San Francisco International Gift Show, where buyers from all over the country come to stock up on fall and winter goodies for their stores. Not only did I meet a lot of these nice buyers, I also got to spend a lot of quality time with the wonderful Mary Hada and her lovely team of brokers who represent GoodLight all over Northern California. We’re happy to welcome several new retailers into the GoodLight family, including: the Golden Gate State Park Warming Hut; Castle Remedies in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Cornucopia Community Market in Carmel; Lotus Heart Gifts in Maui (our first Hawaiian retailer!); Moscow Food Co-op in Moscow, Idaho (our first Idaho retailer!); Ukiah Natural Foods in Ukiah; Garden of Enchantment in Sacramento; Ivy Crest in Fresno; and Berryvale Natural Foods Grocery in Mt. Shasta. We also got connected to Windy City restaurant in San Mateo and Shale Oak Winery in Paso Robles, both of whom will soon be burning non-toxic GoodLight Natural Candles in their dining and tasting rooms.

In the Mary Hada booth

Looking forward to long, clean-burning relationships with you all….safe travels home!

Sustainable Palm Gains Momentum in the States

It seems like some big U.S. corporations have become more aware of the work the RSPO is doing to shift the paradigm in the palm industry towards more sustainable practices. Wally World, Hershey’s chocolate, and Citigroup have all recently followed our lead and joined the RSPO. Read more about it here.

Our Weekend at Wanderlust 2011

For the second year in a row, GoodLight had the honor of being one of the sponsors of the three-year-old Wanderlust Festival, providing non-toxic candlelight for the festival’s yoga studios and lounge spaces. But this year was much better than last in that we actually got to go to Wanderlust & Squaw Valley for the first time. I could go on and on with a detailed play-by-play account of the weekend, because each moment held significance, but for those with small attention spans (like me), here’s an overview of the highlights:

 

• The people: It was great to get to spend time with the Kula crew from Tribeca and practice with my NYC teachers Nikki Vilella and Kevin Courtney, and just as good to hang with former Telluriders who were everywhere. Whether in class or at a wine tasting or at one of the concerts, we kept running into old friends and making new ones. Everyone had something in common—they were happy to be there and open to whatever the weekend had to teach them.  (Shout-outs to old friends we got to spend time with: Morgan Young, Jen Roy, Gina Guarascio, the Portland girls, Scotty Nichols, Judd from Paonia, Bonnie Luftig, Matt Lewis, Kevin & Dana, Alex, Cali, Dina Amsterdam, Nikki V, and Mr. Brian Holiday.)

 

• The concerts: The Wailers and Spearhead were entertaining, but Portland’s March Fourth Marching Band and the super-freaky-geeky Girl Talk really made the weekend. March Fourth’s afternoon parades and shows at the Casbah—complete with the best stilts-dancers anywhere—were a bonus, blowing the minds of unsuspecting tourists and Wanderlusters alike. And Girl Talk did not disappoint as the Saturday night headliner, mashing up approximately 10 million songs into one 90-minute set of booty-shaking hip-rock-hop. (Big shout-out to the volunteers and crew that had to clean up GT’s confetti-cannon debris the next day. That did not look fun.)

 

• The weather: It may be mundane, but it has to be said—Squaw was gorgeous. It was like summer in the San Juans, but warmer and without the rain. In a word, perfect.

 

• The pool parties at High Camp: Part Playa, part Caddyshack, part Squawllywood—the sun-soaked scene at the pool, with both DJ’s and aerialists spinning all day, is reason enough to go to Wanderlust. Seriously.

 

• Oh yeah, there was also some yoga: The classes were superb. It was like a super-sized asana sampler platter. I finally got to take classes from teachers I had only heard of or seen on the old youtube: John Friend, Seane Corn, Shiva Rea, Jason & Jenny, Nikki Costello. John Friend’s Friday noon class may have had the most impact on me, but the peaceful, easy feeling of Dina Amsterdam’s Saturday morning class up at High Camp was extra-special. Jason & Jenny’s handstand workshop was a lot of fun, too; and, as expected, the Kula classes were amazing in terms of pure flow & alignment. The entire weekend actually felt like one long, extended, continuing class, whether we were standing in line hungry for lunch at the Food Co-op or packed into the tram or hiking through the wildflowers in the high country. Each moment was a chance to practice yoga–not just the poses, but the philosophy. And that’s what I think was the most valuable take-away from the weekend, the reminder that yoga isn’t just about seeing how bendy you can get on your mat, yoga is a way of living—mindfully, purposefully, with compassion. Don’t forget to breathe….

 

GoodLight on the altar of The North Face Space. To see more photos, check out our facebook page at http://on.fb.me/fvlSpJ

 

 

P.S. – Big thanks to Jeff Krasno and Schuyler Grant for putting on this amazing festival, as well as Lydia Berg-Hammond and Morgan Young for all of your help. We’re looking very forward to next year.

 

More yoga studios switching to GoodLight

Many yoginis might agree that there is nowhere that they focus on their breathing more than during their asana practice. And with the exception of those who have a steady home practice, or those enlightened ones who are inspirationally involving yoga in every aspect of their lives, many folks practice yoga mainly at their chosen yoga studio/shala/school/temple. And while Patanjali informed us there are eight limbs of yoga, two of those limbs are often given more attention than the other six. Those two are asana, or yoga poses, and pranayama, which loosely translates to breath control. This is a long-winded way of saying that most of us who practice yoga do a lot of conscious breathing in class.

With so much intention going into that breath, one could theorize that the air we breathe in yoga class penetrates us a little more deeply than usual. So we want that air to be as clean as possible, and we definitely don’t want to be inhaling the toxic fumes of paraffin candles while surfing the waves of our ujjayi pranayama.

The owners of Kula Yoga in New York and Om Base in Portland were the first to start burning paraffin-free GoodLight Natural Candles in their classes last year. Next, Yoga Sutra and Sonic Yoga in New York started burning our non-toxic tea lights in their studios. And then last week, the owner of Tadasana Mountain Yoga decided to burn GoodLight in her new studio in Nederland, Colorado. We want to take this opportunity to thank all of those studios for not only teaching the importance of conscious breathing, but for consciously choosing to keep the air in their studios as pure as possible for their students and teachers. Because you breathe what you burn…

Alfalfa’s Is Back!

The first time I ever went “out west” was on a road trip to Boulder, Colorado. That was back in the hazy days of college, probably 1990, and Boulder was the most exotic place my sheltered Southern self had ever been to. There were things there that I had never seen, like big mountains (well, foothills leading to big mountains). And micro-breweries. And hippies. And a grocery store called Alfalfa’s, which was the coolest grocery store I had ever seen (with the coolest grocery store name I had ever heard).

But about ten years later, Alfalfa’s got bought by Wild Oats. And while a lot of the innards of the store remained the same–shoot, there may have even been some improvements–the general vibe of the store slowly changed, although it still remained a mandatory stop for me whenever I visited Boulder from my newly adopted home, Telluride. A few years later, Whole Foods bought Wild Oats, later shuttering the building that had housed one of the first natural grocery stores of its kind. Sad.

And then I heard the news this winter that Alfalfa’s was going to be re-opened in its original location by a team consisting of some of its original founders. The rebirth had something to do with divestment, but, whatever the reason, I was inexplicably elated. Congratulations are finally in order now, as Alfalfa’s had its Grand Re-Opening a few weeks ago, right around Earth Day. And although I couldn’t be there for the ribbon-cutting ceremony in person (because I now live thousands, and not just hundreds, of miles away), I’m psyched to say that GoodLight was there. Inside. On the shelves.

So Boulder people, if you haven’t been by already, make a special stop into Alfalfa’s soon. The first three people to take a picture of GoodLight Natural Candles on the shelves there and post it on our Facebook page will receive a special gift from us.