While most of us select candles based on scent, Keetja Allard, the founder and creator of Photerian, believes in enlisting a different approach.
A photographer by trade, Allard sought a creative outlet and departure from the humdrum pace of work. She explains, “I was doing up to 180 product shots a day, which was hard and made me think about all the garbage humans produce.” On top of that, her young son – “he’s an enemy of toys, and was constantly taking things apart,” Allard jokes – rendered their apartment a “landfill of arms, legs, tails, horns, little action figures, even tiny weapons.”
To that end, she decided to make candles from all the broken bits and pieces. Though Allard had no sculpting or candle mold experience, she went online and discovered a how-to video by Martha Stewart. She quips, “Of course, she had exactly what I was looking for.”
As for the original name, Allard says, “Photerian is a combination of the word photon and the notion of being” – citing her natural love of light as the main inspiration. Another quirk to Photerian? How all the candles are fragrance-free. While most people usually follow their nose when purchasing candles, Allard instead believes in, like a true photographer, engaging your eyes with both form and color.
The shapes are whimsical and irreverent and range from things you’d spot in nature (like star fruits and poodles) to objects of your imagination. The charmingly ugly-cute Garumon candles, for example, are cheeky nods to the friendly monsters from the 1966 Japanese cult television series Ultraman.
