Scentered Review | Refillable Candles, Oil and Aromatherapy Balm
ad - this post contains PR samples from Scentered.
This is an honest review of Scentered’s aromatherapy range using products they sent me, I have updated it in 2022 to add a section on ingredients sourcing and supply chain transparency.
As a knackered mum, I do not set aside enough time for self-care.
My days are structured around nap times and my nights are spent breastfeeding on demand.
Even the cat follows me and the kids into the toilet when I need to pee!
What I like about Scentered’s Wellbeing Ritual is how flexible it is.
Scentered’s refillable aromatherapy products have been designed for different moments during the day. You simply choose your desired mood and complete the three-step ritual at a time that works for you.
This could look like a bath to help you relax after a long day, or you could apply a balm to your pulse points to help you focus your mind at work.
What is also important to me is the products in my home have ingredients that are non-toxic, free from pesticide-residue (especially if they are burning because they’ll release VOCs into the air) and sustainably sourced.
If you want to know if Scentered products meet all these requirements then read on.
The Scentered products I’m reviewing today are:
Refillable Candle (Sleep Well)
Bath & Body Oil (Sleep Well)
Aromatherapy Balm (De-Stress)
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Coming up
Is Scentered Sustainable?
Are Scentered products organic?
Where are Scentered products made?
Are Scentered ingredients ethically sourced?
What fragrances are available?
What is Scentered’s Wellbeing Ritual?
Review: ‘sleep well’ natural candle
How to refill Scentered’s candle
Review: wellbeing ritual oil for bath + body
Review: ‘de-stress’ aromatherapy balm
Overall thoughts
Disclaimer - These products contain pure essential oils and should not be used if you are pregnant. Some products are not safe for young children. If you have any medical conditions, you should check with a health professional before using them.
1. is Scentered sustainable?
I decided to take a look at Scentered’s sustainability in my review because natural products can still have a negative impact on the environment.
Unfortunately, Scentered does not have a sustainability policy or provide any information about its supply chain, it is impossible to call them a sustainable company. There is no evidence they are paying farmers fair wages, and no mention of its environmental impact or carbon footprint.
Scentered is a UK corporation that imports ingredients from overseas, so at the very least they should have policies in place to protect workers and the environment.
Scentered only addresses packaging in its “Sustainability FAQs” which implies they have very little knowledge of what sustainability means.
This is problematic when it comes to human rights. Farmers overseas are easily exploited in low-income countries because minimum wages are horrifically low. This leads to more poverty and farmers having no choice but to use child labour.
The best way to find out if a company is sustainable is to look for certifications, like Fairtrade, which guarantees farmers are paid a fair price and organic which protects farmers from toxic pesticides (which also end up in the final product).
2. Are Scentered products organic?
No, Scentered essential oils are not organic and neither are their products. Scentered feel organic certification restricts them and say they prefer to focus on quality and performance.
3. Where are Scentered products made?
Scentered products are made in England, however, they use ingredients sourced from all over the world. They provide no information about their supply chain so it is hard to say whether they are sustainably sourced.
Scentered products are handmade, which is good, but there is no information about whether they use renewable energy in their UK factory.
4. Are Scentered ingredients ethically sourced?
Essential oils
The products I’m reviewing by Scentered use a lot of essential oils - 25 different oils in each fragrance blend to be exact. Each candle contains between 22g and 26.4g of essential oils.
It’s easy to assume that because they come from a natural source, essential oils are eco-friendly.
You may be surprised to learn that it takes:
3000 lemons to make 2lbs of lemon essential oil*
242,000 rose petals to distill 5ml of rose essential oil*
3lb of lavender flowers to make 5ml of lavender essential oil*
The entire tree needs to be uprooted for sandalwood essential oil
Hugely popular frankincense oil comes from trees which are threatened with extinction
Overharvesting essential oils
Now consider how much of a trend essential oils are, especially now that MLMs (multilevel marketing) firms are on the rise. To try and meet this demand, people are resorting to unsustainable harvesting practices which
Because you need such a large amount of plants to create a small amount of essential oil, over-harvesting has become a really big problem.
The only way to know if your essential oil products are sustainable is to buy from brands with transparent supply chains.
Scentered’s essential oils
Unfortunately, Scentered has no information on its website about where it sources essential oils from so you have to take their word for it that they are sustainable. I prefer transparent companies that give specific information about where they get their ingredients so you can be sure that the plants weren’t sprayed with toxic pesticides and that farmers were paid fairly.
Beeswax
As Scentered products contain beeswax, they are not vegan.
I will sometimes use a product that uses beeswax in it if the sourcing policy is good. For example, I am happy with organic beeswax from sustainable British beekeepers who ensure the bees are benefitting.
I didn’t do my research before agreeing to try Scentered products because as you might expect by now, there is no information about where it is from.
This is an issue for me because intensive industrial beekeeping is a serious problem, one that is partly responsible for the decline of bees in the last decade.
I would argue that a brand using unsustainable beeswax is not cruelty-free.
I’d feel better about Scentered’s ingredients if they had cruelty-free certification, but unfortunately, they don’t.
5. Which fragrances can you choose from?
Scentered use 100% natural and pure essential oils in their products. They do not use synthetic perfumes or phthalates and all their essential oils are therapeutic grade.
Scentered has six fragrance blends to choose from:
Sleep Well - relax your body and quiet your mind (geranium, lavender, ylang ylang)
De-Stress - keeping you calm and in control (chamomile, neroli and mandarin)
Escape - transports you mentally to “me time” (frankincense, oud, sandalwood)
Love - supporting your emotional connection with yourself and others (rose, patchouli, cedarwood)
Focus - helps direct your mind and boost concentration (rosemary, mint, clary sage)
Happy - lift your mood and boost positivity (grapefruit, lemon myrtle, spearmint)
The products I’m reviewing today are from the de-stress and sleep well ranges, but the balms and candles are available in all the different scents.
6. What is Scentered’s Wellbeing Ritual?
To understand how Scentered’s products help you achieve a desired mental state, you need to know about their Wellbeing Ritual.
“Stop. Inhale. Reset.” Three actions that are as effective as they are simple.
The ritual helps you take moments for yourself throughout your busy day using scent as a mental trigger.
This is the method taken from Scentered’s website:
Stop - Apply a balm directly to your wrist, neck and temples or light a Scentered candle to purposefully fill the room with mindful meaning.
Inhale - Raise your wrists or candle to your nose and deeply inhale, visualising the mind state you wish to achieve at this moment.
Reset - Exhale deeply as you step into the next moment of your daily journey.
7. Review - Scentered refillable candle (Sleep Well)
I’ve never reviewed a candle before as soon as I opened the box I knew I’d have plenty to say.
The scent of the candle is strong - it hit me in the face as I opened the box.
Once I lit my sleep well candle the fragrance filled the room quite quickly, within 10-15 minutes, but it wasn’t really that strong (maybe it’s because my house is open plan with high ceilings?!)
I’m quite sensitive to smell (there are a lot of scents that I dislike immensely) but Scentered’s candle smells nice. You can definitely smell the ylang-ylang; the candle has a floral almost sweet scent.
I really like the idea of using aromatherapy to help me sleep, but I’m neurodivergent and sleep issues have been a problem my whole life. I don’t want to lie and say this helped because I’m not sure it did anything. I really don’t know how to tell.
A candlelit room is always a nice way to wind down in the evening though.
Before I review the bath and body oil, I thought it would be helpful to share more information about the candle and how you refill it.
Ingredients
Wax - unlike mainstream candles, Scentered avoids nasty paraffin wax. Instead, they use a blend of plant-based waxes mixed with a tiny bit of beeswax.
Fragrance - pure essential oils
Preservatives - tocopherol (vitamin e)
Wick - cotton
Cruelty-free - yes
Packaging
Scentered’s candle comes in a glass container which you keep to reuse.
The refills are packaged in a special plant-based paper that can be recycled alongside paper in your household recycling. The refill packaging can also be composted industrially, although, it is not suitable for home composting.
The cardboard box your products arrive in is made from recycled cardboard to avoid cutting down more trees.
The candle itself is nicely presented in a cylinder box (see very first photo) so it would make a nice gift
8. How to refill Scentered’s candle
Glass has a big carbon footprint because it’s so heavy. I like that Scentered has consciously made its candles refillable so that you can reduce your environment impact and also save money.
Here are the instructions for how to refill them. I haven’t tried it yet, so I’ll update this blog post once I have.
Step 1 - Prepare the container. Once you’re ready to refill your candle, you place the glass container in the freezer overnight and in the morning the wax should come out with a spatula.
Step 2 - Clean the container. After you’ve removed the wax, wash and dry the glass by hand.
Step 3 - Insert the refill. Take the refill candle out of the packaging and place it into the glass.
Cost
Scentered products are quite expensive considering they are not certified organic or Fairtrade. There are various sets available if you’d like to mix and match Scentered’s aromatherapy products or choose from different scents.
The cost of the Sleep Well candle I reviewed today is £32.95 on its own, or £49.95 for a candle and a refill.
You can also save money when you buy further refills which cost £34.95 for a pack of two.
There is also a smaller size available, travel candles, for £16.95.
9. Review - Scentered Bath + Body Oil
I don’t usually take baths but I’ve had an eventful week so I decided to treat myself and have a bath once the kids were asleep.
It was so worth it.
Scentered’s Ritual Oil has a lovely fragrance. I practised the Wellbeing Ritual in the bath and felt calm and relaxed for the rest of the evening.
I need to be honest though, baths really relax me so I’m not sure the product had anything to do with it.
As much as I’d love to spend each evening in the bath, I work from home once my children are asleep so I’ve started using the oil on my face once I’ve finished working.
I am prone to dry skin in the winter so the nourishing jojoba and apricot oil feel nice on my poor, neglected skin. It’s a little bit runny and you have to pour carefully from the bottle to avoid using too much, but absorbs nicely and a little goes a long way.
You could use the oil on other parts of your body too if you’d like soft, delicately fragranced skin (although don’t apply it to your feet when bathing or showering for safety reasons).
I’m hoping I can convince my partner to give me a massage next!
Ingredients
When applied topically, essential oils need to be mixed with carrier oils because they are very potent. Scentered’s bath + body oil is a blend of several carrier oils, including safflower, peach and jojoba oil, so it is fine to apply directly to your skin.
The fragrance consists of pure essential oils. Just like the candle, the Sleep Well oil contains ylang-ylang to help calm the nervous system and geranium to help soothe emotions.
Packaging
Scentered’s bath oil comes in a glass bottle with a plastic lid and arrives in a cardboard box.
Cost
The Wellbeing Ritual Oil for Bath, Body and Shower costs £35 for 100ml.
10. Review - aromatherapy balm (De-stress)
Small enough to fit in your pocket, Scentered aromatherapy balms are portable so you can complete the three-step Wellbeing Ritual whenever you need to.
…It’s not exactly easy to carry glass bottles of essential oils around with you!
The de-stress range is a blend of Chamomile, Neroli and Mandarin and has an earthy smell with a hint of citrus. The scent lingers on my skin for about 15 minutes and can be reapplied whenever needed.
The balm, made from natural oils and butters, is easy to apply and doesn’t feel greasy.
Honest thoughts on the balm
One thing I found disappointing was how small the balm was - it’s tiny! The packaging makes it look like it is the size of the tube, but it’s only about half an inch long (it is a fair bit wider than a Chapstick though). Scentered’s balm weighs 5g which is slightly more than a Burt’s Bees lip balm (4.25g).
In the photo below I’ve twisted the balm as far as it goes.
Ingredients
The balm is made from carnauba wax, shea butter and natural oils. It also contains beeswax so it isn’t vegan.
Like all Scentered products, the fragrance is made from 100% pure essential oils.
Packaging
When I agreed to review Scentered’s refillable products, I didn’t expect them to be made out of plastic.
The aromatherapy balm sits in a small, white plastic tube that is inside a larger green cardboard tube. You can twist the plastic part like a lip balm, to get more to come out.
Once it has run out, you can buy the plastic tubes in packs of two refills to insert into your previous cardboard tube. This is more cost-effective and reduces packaging but unfortunately, it only reduces the cardboard packaging and not the plastic.
It is great to see companies getting creative with their sustainability efforts but I’m not sure how to recycle the plastic tube it comes in (my council is awful for recycling and unclear which plastics they accept) which means other customers won’t know either.
Overall, I like the convenience it brings to aromatherapy for those juggling a lot of responsibilities, but I do think the packaging and size could be improved or at least made clear.
Cost
The de-stress aromatherapy balm costs £14.90.
Refills come in packs of two for £16.00.
The balms are available in all 6 scents and gift sets are available if you’d like to try them all.
Tap the image to add it to your Pinterest board:
Overall thoughts of scentered
Having reviewed three of Scentered products and analysed their sustainability, the lack of transparency outweighs the things I like about this company.
I’m very fussy about my fragrances - I don’t use anything with synthetic perfumes in my home and I limit natural ones. It’s great to find a brand that only uses naturally derived ingredients and essential oils. However, there is a big gap in information about Scentered’s ingredients and that’s not good enough in 2022!
I also think the price tag is really high for a product that isn’t certified organic, cruelty-free or Fairtrade.
On the plus side, I like the idea of refilling candles. It’s also been a while since I’ve made time for myself (and even longer since I’ve dabbled in aromatherapy). It’s been a calming way to wake up my neglected sense of smell and a reminder of how important it is to make time for mindfulness and wellbeing.
I hope you enjoyed my (probably too honest) review. I’d love to know if ingredients sourcing and transparency matters to you too.
Take care.
Sophie xx
