Caroline Issa speaks to Amy Christiansen about her philanthropic candle brand.


I was obsessed with Anita Roddick as a teenager. She was the founder of The Body Shop, and I must have devoured her book Body and Soul: Profits with Principles in one sitting. As a young woman searching for female entrepreneurs as role models to show that one could succeed at owning your own business, in the beauty industry no less, her brand with a social mission embedded in her organisation was revolutionary. It changed my own path.

More recently, I came across the independent brand Sana Jardin when a mutual friend introduced me over email to Amy Christiansen. I was immediately intrigued and admiring of her approach to starting a "luxury fragrance brand" as she had the same spirit as Roddick did, wanting to empower her supplier who happen to be women. 

By partnering with the female harvesters, who use the by-products of perfume production to create their own products to sell, Sana Jardin has also helped set up a women's cooperative where they can sell these. Offering training and new skill workshops, they contribute towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. And all through the power of a conscious purchase of a fragrance, or, as I'm currently obsessed with – a candle...



I asked Amy to answer some questions below, her answers will surely help convince you (if you aren't already, that is!) to switch your candle at home to one that makes a real impact, immediately... 

I started Sana Jardin Because...
I wanted to show that perfume can be a vehicle for social change. I would like to demonstrate that we can create an alternative business model and use luxury business to empower women if we are creative with our use of waste. I worked in the non-profit sector for 25 years to try and support people economically and realised that the next iteration of social impact is to harness the power of commerce to help people, not traditional philanthropy.

I am involved with non-profits that work to make the supply chain more ethical and transparent in fashion and I thought if we can do this in fashion, why can’t we do this in perfume?

I spend a lot of time in Morocco and realised that a lot of the raw materials for fragrance come from this region. I also am enchanted with the sacred rituals associated with floral harvest and the healing power of plants and flowers. I was attracted to the essence of perfume – that it is incredibly seductive, strong and feminine. Lastly, I could never find a perfume I liked on the market! I scoured souks from Damascus to department stores in LA and could not find anything that smelled natural. I thought I would fuse all the different threads in my life and create a perfume that empowered women in Morocco.



I can't believe I didn't realise that I'd need to...
Build a brand! My Master’s degree is in social work and I have always worked for charities. Although I love fashion and luxury, I had absolutely no concept how hard it was to build brand awareness. It is one thing to create a product and have the right retailers, but quite another to have it sell! Every day I am learning about social media, marketing, branding and ways to create a digital community. I often joke that had I known it would have been so hard I would have just sat back and gotten a manicure instead.

Sana Jardin founded a women's cooperative in Morocco because...
Sana Jardin was established to address two problems. Low employment for indigenous women in Morocco and waste in the floral supply chain. The female flower harvesters live in small, remote villages and do not have access to year-round employment because the flower harvest is only 2-3 months per year, and they do not have any other job skills.

When flowers are harvested and distilled for luxury perfume, there are two organic waste products – orange blossom water and scented candle wax. We established a legally recognised cooperative for the floral harvesters in Morocco to help the women up-cycle waste and re-purpose it into their own line of candles and orange blossom water. We have trained them in financial literacy, branding, distribution and marketing and have given them the skills and supplies to become micro- entrepreneurs. They are now a self-governing organisation and receive 100% of the proceeds they earn year round.



We developed the Beyond Sustainability™ model to empower our floral harvesters with the skills and materials they need to increase their wages through commerce, not charity. This business model is based on “flower recycling” within a circular economy.  I feel strongly that we can create alternative business models that empower people at the start of the supply chain if we are creative about our use of waste.

I think smells trigger memory because...
Memory and smell are intertwined; after a smell enters the nose, it travels through the cranial nerve into the olfactory bulb within the limbic system. This is the emotional centre of the brain.

Scent is the most evocative sense and I love that a spritz of fragrance can literally transport you to anytime and anywhere. It is a living and breathing gift!

Shop Sana Jardin HERE or below:


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