After the birth of her daughter, Deroju Bawala searched for soothing candles made with all-natural ingredients – and when the options felt limited, she decided to make her own. With wellness at its core, Victoria & Me – named after her daughter – crafts coconut wax candles, sustainable skincare and calming candle-making experiences designed to nurture mind, body and home.

What is Victoria & Me: What products do you sell and what’s your mission?

Victoria & Me creates wellness products that bring calm and soothing to the mind, body and home using the finest natural ingredients. Our mission is to make wellness products that actually work. 

What is the inspiration behind the name?

Founded in 2022, Victoria & Me is named after my daughter Victoria. After the delivery of my daughter, I wanted calming candles made with natural ingredients. I realised my choices were limited and then decided to make my own candles using coconut wax.

The names of your fragrances, like Delight and Morning Glory, evoke blissful moods and moments. How do you select the scents to go into each one?

Morning Glory Candle is inspired by the fruity olfactory fragrance family. Scents of rhubarb, strawberry and grapefruit wake you up to a bright start. Our Delight Candle brings calm to help you relax, creating the perfect ambiance with scents of lavender and chamomile.

Your candles are crafted with a base of coconut wax. What are the benefits of this?

Coconut wax is plant-based; it burns cleaner with no soot, improving indoor air quality. It is also free from paraffins (which is a petroleum-based ingredient), soy and harsh chemicals.

What does wellbeing mean to you?

Wellbeing is the whole holistic quality of life – how healthy and satisfied we feel physically, mentally and emotionally. It is having positive health and balance.

How do you want customers to access that feeling when using your skincare and candles?

Our products are created using natural ingredients that actually work. Our skincare, for example our Whipped Body Butter, is a skin treatment cream, helping to treat various skin conditions and giving that customer a sense of healing.

Our scented candles are made with natural coconut wax and oils that bring calmness to the mind and atmosphere.

What sustainability practices do you follow in the making of your products, and why is this so important?

Victoria & Me follows several sustainability practices when making our products. These practices help reduce environmental impact while creating high-quality wellness products.

We use unbleached cotton wick which gives a clean consistent burn. Cotton wicks are biodegradable and safer than metal core wicks. They help reduce black smoke and toxic emissions.

Our products are packaged in recyclable glass, tin boxes and cotton linen pouches, with recycled papers used for shipping. Our recyclable packing helps to reduce plastic waste.

We source our ingredients locally and we hand make our products in small batches. We support local suppliers and businesses, which also helps to reduce transport emissions for long-distance shipping.

Sustainability is important to us and our practices help to reduce our environmental impact which creates cleaner products for our customers and promotes responsible manufacturing.

What can someone expect from your candle-making workshops?

Our candle workshops are fun and relaxing but most of all you will learn the craft of making a candle from scratch using all natural ingredients.

What’s been one of the biggest highlights of Victoria & Me’s journey so far?

2025 was a defining year for Victoria & Me: we launched one of our signature products, the Delight Candle, we started candle-making workshops, and expanded into body and skin care with our whipped shea body butter. 

What’s a challenge you’ve overcome in the business?

The market as we know is dominated by well-known brands which can make it difficult to stand out. We have overcome this through storytelling which allows our customers to connect with the craft behind the products. We’ve also introduced skin and body care products and so broadened the brand into a self-care lifestyle brand.

What’s coming next for Victoria & Me?

All great things, you will have to be on the lookout.

–

Jamii members get 15% off Victoria & Me – find out more