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Recalling Some of Our Tea Lights

We’ve recently received two customer complaints about our tea lights, and, as a precaution, are initiating a recall. If you have a box of GoodLight tea lights with the batch number 000002 stamped on it, please contact us at 1-800-519-2353 or sales@naturalcandles.com. We will gladly send you some new and improved tea lights to replace them.

Thanks!

Survey Says!

Since GoodLight just celebrated our second birthday, we created a new survey yesterday to get some feedback from our customers as we head into our third year of business. If you’ve ever bought or been given GoodLight Natural Candles and want to weigh in with your experience, we’ll give you a 30% off coupon to use between now and June 1 once you complete the survey.

Simply follow this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KKLL79Z

Thanks again for your support throughout our first two years in business!

Meet Your New Addiction: Coco Cafe

We met Elan and his crew at Expo West last week, and they kept us well-caffeinated and thirst-free with their Coco Cafe lattes. Coconuts and espresso, two of my favorite things. Other people seem to feel the same way, judging from how many times I heard someone say, “This is the best thing I’ve put in my mouth in a long time,” or something like that.

One day we’ll step up our game and have video content on our website like these guys do. Until then, go out and get some Coco Cafe or ask the people at your store to bring it in if they don’t carry it.

Growth of Sustainable Palm Oil in 2011

As members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, we’d like to share with you these statistics on the impressive growth of certified sustainable palm oil production and its uptake by buyers (like GoodLight) supporting this shift in the industry’s paradigm:

From 2009 to 2011 supply of CSPO has increased by 250% (1,357,511 metric tons in 2009 to 4,798,512 metric tons in 2011) while sales volume has grown by over 6 times, approximately 620% (343,857 metric tons in 2009 to 2,490,526 metric tons in 2011). The year-on-year supply of CSPO in 2011 increased by 73%, reaching 4,798,512 metric tons compared to 2,773,567 metric tons in 2010, while year-on-year sales volume increased by a whopping 94%.

The remarkable surge in supply can be attributed to the rising number of certified growers entering into RSPO’s certification process. While in 2008, RSPO could count 17 certified mills in just two countries (Malaysia and Papua New Guinea), today there are 29 grower companies with 135 certified mills in six countries: Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands – an increase in certified mills of approximately 8 times over a 3 year period.

Darrel Webber, Secretary General of the RSPO commented that: “The growth of CSPO has shown an escalating trend and clearly reflects the inclination of sustainability standards towards palm oil. RSPO praises the efforts of growers for embarking on the certification process and committing themselves to the RSPO Principles and Criteria. A total of US$21.5 million worth of premiums has been paid to date to RSPO certified growers since the first certificates via the Book & Claim system under the GreenPalm were traded in 2008 – and we hope that the growers have found this valuable in empowering their transformation to sustainable cultivation practices.”

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!