Our Story

Hello - I'm Donna, and Whimsy & Wist started on my kitchen table in 2023.

I've always been obsessed with candles. I wanted to make one where I'd chosen every part of it myself, from the wax to the wick to the scent, so I taught myself how. The first few were not good. I kept going anyway.

What I make now comes from the same places it always did: cottage gardens, fresh laundry, quiet mornings, rainy afternoons, the smell of a kitchen when something's baking. Scents that feel familiar rather than designed. Most of them started as a memory I was trying to get back - which is where the name came from. Whimsy for the fun of it, wist for the missing.

That's why nothing here is named after fragrance notes. Bookworm, Laundry Day, Sunday Morning, Rainy Day Café. If a name tells you exactly where you are, I've done my job.

These days it's a small home fragrance studio in Northamptonshire rather than a kitchen table, but nothing else has changed much. Every candle, wax melt and diffuser is poured by hand in small batches, which means I can be fussy about them.

The facts, if you want them: plant-based wax, cotton wicks with no lead core, and vegan, cruelty-free fragrance and essential oils supplied without added phthalates or parabens. Orders go out in cardboard boxes with paper tape. My candles are tested to the UK safety standards that apply to them.

Whimsy & Wist is for people who notice the details. A candle lit at the end of a long day, a scent that puts you somewhere else for a second, a small seasonal ritual that makes an ordinary Tuesday better than it was.