Hand-Poured in Johannesburg : The Making of Laurence & Co. Atelier
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Hand-Poured in Johannesburg : The Making of Laurence & Co. Atelier
By Laullie Beya | Laurence & Co. Atelier
Laurence & Co. Atelier began with a quiet intention.
During lockdown, I found myself holding onto empty candle vessels, objects too beautiful to discard. Drawn, as I have always been, to the atmosphere a candle creates, I set out simply to reuse them.
But the truth is, the story begins much earlier than that.
For years I worked as a flight attendant, moving through the world's cities and airports and hotel rooms with a particular kind of attention. I collected things, not souvenirs, but experiences. A candle burning in a boutique hotel lobby in Paris. A perfume discovered in a small shop in Mumbai. The way a market in Germany smelled at Christmas , warm and spiced and completely alive. I carried these things home in my memory long after the trips ended, building a private archive of the world's most beautiful scents.
So when lockdown arrived and the world went quiet, I already knew what I loved. I just hadn't yet made it.
A visit to a candle supply store changed everything.
What began as a search for a wick became something more. Wax. A vessel. A first pour. The result was unexpectedly refined. When I shared it, the response was immediate, requests to purchase, to experience it again. I declined. Not yet. There was more to understand, more to perfect.
Months of testing followed. A focus on clean-burning formulations. A commitment to non-toxic ingredients. A quiet refinement of both craft and intention.
Then, the first candle.
Why hand-poured, why soy, why small batches
I'm an introvert by nature. My time alone , quiet, unhurried, sensory, is something I protect. So when I started making candles seriously, I wasn't thinking about a product range. I was thinking about the kind of space I wanted to come home to. Elegant. Calming. Intentional.
Soy wax was an easy choice. It burns cleaner and longer than paraffin, carries fragrance more faithfully, and sits well with the commitment to non-toxic ingredients that has guided this brand from the very first pour. Small batches matter too. Each candle is hand-poured here in Johannesburg, which means I can control every step: the temperature of the pour, the quality of the fragrance, the way the finished candle looks sitting on a shelf.
There are no shortcuts in small-batch making. That's precisely the point.
The scents, and where they come from
I have always been drawn to fragrance that feels like a place, or a feeling, rather than just a smell.
My first love was peony, soft, romantic, unmistakably floral. There's something about a peony that feels both delicate and full at the same time. Over time that love evolved into something more rooted in this landscape. The result is the Silken Protea Candle — a South African interpretation of that same romantic softness, drawing on the protea, our national flower, rather than a European bloom. Same feeling. Different soil.
The second was grapefruit , bright, clean, quietly energising without being sharp. The kind of scent that makes a room feel alive on a slow morning. That love grew into the Lowveld Sunrise Candle , citrus and warmth and the particular quality of early light over the Lowveld. A luxury soy candle that captures something very specific about this part of the world.
Both began as personal obsessions. Both became part of what Laurence & Co. Atelier is , a collection of hand-poured soy candles made in South Africa, each one a translation of this landscape into something you can burn in your home.
Africa, introduced to the world
People sometimes ask why South Africa. Why not draw inspiration from somewhere with a more established luxury fragrance heritage like Grasse, perhaps, or the lavender fields of Provence?
I have been to France. I have wandered the perfume houses of Paris, browsed the candle boutiques of London, and breathed in the incense-thick air of markets in Mumbai. I have smelled the world, slowly, deliberately, over many years and many miles.
And still, nothing has moved me the way Africa does.
The Highveld sky at dusk. The particular quality of light over the Lowveld on a summer morning. The salt and stillness of the South African coast. The rooibos-red earth of the Karoo. The jacarandas over Johannesburg in October. These are not second-best versions of somewhere else — they are among the most extraordinary sensory experiences on earth. Africa is not defined by the world's imagination of it. It defines itself.
Laurence & Co. Atelier was built on that belief. Not to follow the established language of European luxury, but to introduce something the world hasn't fully encountered yet , the landscapes, the warmth, the unhurried beauty of this continent , translated into a candle you can burn in your home, wherever in the world that home may be.
Every candle is an act of that introduction. The Highveld. The coast. The soft romance of the Silken Protea. The bright clarity of a Lowveld sunrise.
Africa has always been beautiful. We're simply making sure the world can smell it.
An invitation
If you've found your way here, you probably already understand the particular pleasure of a beautiful candle , the ritual of lighting it, the way a scent can shift the feeling of a room, the small luxury of something made with care.
That's what Laurence & Co. Atelier is. Luxury hand-poured soy candles, made in Johannesburg, for people who live with intention.
Laurence & Co. Atelier candles are hand-poured in small batches in Johannesburg, South Africa. Free delivery available across South Africa.