Her scented candles beckon with olfactory promises of forest and mountain air. Looops founder Julia Schliefsteiner in a talk.
KURIER: What is the idea behind the Looops candles?
Julia Schliefsteiner: My partner Markus and I are very in love with nature and travel a lot. We asked ourselves how we can bring the great smells of nature into our own four walls? In their natural form and not like in many artificial scented candles that we knew. We just wanted to capture nature in the candle.
How did you do that?
When we started in 2014 it was still difficult because there were actually no natural scented candles. So it was mostly learning by doing. We attach great importance to good quality, natural wax, cotton wick, no artificial additives.
How does the mountain stream or the flower meadow smell?
We start from the scent idea and try to create our memories using the essential oils. We achieve freshness with peppermint or lemon. It gets woody with stone pines or firs. That's so exciting about working with smells. Fragrances are so individual, everyone has different associations with certain smells, sometimes even several. That's why the whole team always has to approve of new fragrances.
Can every fragrance be produced naturally?
The challenge is that not every plant has essential oils. Lilacs or apple blossoms, for example. Such fragrances are always artificially created in the laboratory and therefore do not occur in our company.
Many people are very sensitive to smells. Are scented candles suitable for everyone?
In principle, one is better served with a natural scent as a sensitive nose than with an artificial scent. But the sense of smell is very subjective, it is difficult to say in general. With one of our fragrance sprays, however, you can easily create a volatile fragrance. But with our products you can also achieve an additional effect.
For example?
The aromatherapy effect is an added value of our candles. Every fragrance has an effect, sometimes calming and harmonizing, sometimes stimulating and invigorating.
Are there also plans to dive into other worlds of smell?
We are currently sticking to local fragrances, this year a new one is coming out. Who knows what the future holds? In any case, we are already working on other room fragrance products.
Loops founders Julia Schliefsteiner and Markus Niederfriniger
This is how the scents get into the candle
Ready-made fragrances do not come into the glass here: “Fragrance mixtures are created by ourselves. Based on a scent idea, we consider which mix of scents will lead to the desired result. Flowery, fresh, earthy, depending on where you want to go. When you have found a mixture, you have to give it time to develop its full aroma, ”Julia Schliefsteiner explains the creative process in production, which takes the most time. Their knowledge of the respective positive effects of the oils is also used. “If I want to create a calming scent, I need lavender or lemon balm. The stone pine, for example, has a strengthening effect. The scent is also the basis for our bestseller: mountain air. ”Incidentally, the oils are obtained by distillation or cold pressing. However, enormous amounts of plants are required for pure oils: for 1 liter of oil, for example, 100 kilograms of lavender.
The naturalness of the product also leads to its sustainability. Petroleum-based paraffin is clearly not used. The vegetable wax used is very soft and can be removed without leaving any residue. The empty containers – classic 1-liter bottles shortened and ground – can later be used as drinking glasses or, with a pretty oak lid, as a storage glass. But even if thrown away, the glass can be recycled again.
