My Story

Founded in 2018 by Kathryn Rozanski, Vela Tarina combines environmentally friendly ingredients with an acute attention to detail. Vela Tarina’s luxurious soy candles are all handmade from only the finest ingredients and always poured in small batches.

How did you get started?

I’ve always loved candles (*cough* I may or may not have a slight addiction *cough*), however I noticed that every time we moved I’d be packing a collection of half full candles. I started to wonder why I rarely finished any of the candles that I’d purchased over the years. My conclusion was that over the years I’ve learned more about the quality (or lack thereof) of ingredients that are used in our candles, cleaning supplies, food and more.

Additionally, I’d get bored of the same scent after a few weeks. The normal solution to this would be to just buy better quality smaller candles, but I’m Kat, which means I decided to pick up a new hobby and learn how to make my own candles to ensure that I know exactly what type of ingredients are going into them. Well, I ended up falling in love with the art and science of the candle making process and thus Vela Tarina’s Signature Collection was born.

The Signature Collection consists of 20oz soy candles that will take you on a blissful aromatic journey. Each Signature candle is comprised of three 7oz layers, where each layer takes you on a journey through a scent story as you enjoy this candle. These candles inspired this amazing adventure and the name of my company, Vela Tarina. Vela is Spanish for “Candle” and Tarina is Finnish for “Story”.

What ingredients are in your candles?

All of my candles are hand poured with love by yours truly and created with only the finest ingredients. After extensive research, I strategically selected each component of these candles with my family (furry babies too) and our planet in mind. There are many different types of waxes, wicks, and fragrances to pick from with equally as many manufacturers of each of these components.

The wax I selected is derived from a safe and sustainable plant-based resource. More specifically my wax is entirely soy (soybean) based. Initially, I wanted to tell you that my wax is “100% Soy”. However, my attorney informed me that if I were to say “100%” that would be considered misleading. Of course this made me wonder. Had I mistakenly selected a lower quality soy wax than I thought since I’ve purchased candles from small businesses in the past that claimed 100% Soy? Therefore I did what any normal person would do…OK fair enough, what Kat would do.

I reached out to my wax manufacture to inquire further about their wax and the ingredients that they use. I learned a lot and I’m extremely pleased in my selection. So it turns out that “100% Soy” isn’t a thing. Regardless of which brand soy wax is selected because if it was 100% it wouldn’t be wax.

So in case you’re wondering, in order for soybeans to become candle wax which is liquid at high temperatures and solid at room temperature. They first need to be turned into soybean oil (liquid at room temperature). Then, the soybean oil is reacted with hydrogen using a process called hydrogenation, which changes the soybean oil (liquid at room temperature) into soy wax (solid at room temperature). Since this process is introducing an additional ingredient, hydrogen, into the final product it’s not 100% soy. Additionally, most candle wax manufacturers add additives to their waxes to assist with glass adhesion, smoother tops, lower melt points etc. These additional ingredients aren’t always soy based and often times are derived from paraffin. So, even though I legally can’t tell you my wax is “100% Soy” I can confidently tell you that my wax is in fact soy(bean) based including the additives.

The wicks are lead-free cotton core wicks that are primed with a vegetable based wax coating.
The majority of cotton wicks that are available on the market are primed with a paraffin based wax coating.

Finally, every fragrance used in my candles are always phthalate free.

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