This is Lily – she is nine years old and the maker behind Lily Lou’s Aromas. Lily is the sustainably minded entrepreneur we need, keeping the planet and its people at the heart of everything she makes!
When COVID-19 was dramatically slowing down the progress on the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), young minds like Lily’s, their innovations, and their actions were helping the planet rebuild, realize its potential and achieve the promise of SDGs.
This is her story, her journey until now, and a peek into her dreams!
Earth to Lily Lou’s Aromas!
Let me paint you a picture. Lily and her mom’s nightly mother-daughter routine always involves spending some quality time together. Lily talks about her mom’s love for candles and how they would always light up their home with candles. Then they would do their nails, and watch some TV.
Then the headaches started! The parabens, paraffins, phthalates, and whatnot in the candles had started to spoil their mother-daughter routine.
“…and they all can be bad for women’s reproductive health and cause lung irritation, nausea, dizziness… I wanted to make my own candles without the nasties, so I did.”
Their instincts after this realization are what sets Lily apart from the ‘usual’ candle maker. Lily speaks about her love for the community and doing her part to help reduce global warming, and waste, and to prevent wildlife from losing their homes.
Lily loves turning challenges into opportunities, and we love that about her! Seeing and thinking about the effects of the ingredients in those old candles and the vessels that ended up in landfills, Lily began her own thought process of solving this problem.
Lily recollects, “I tried my best to make formulas that didn’t have any of those bad ingredients, and I try to use natural oils instead of essential oils because some essential oils aren’t good for pets and people. After a lot of testing, we found ones that work for us.”
And so we got Lily Lou’s Aromas!
Lily and her team work hard on being as eco-friendly as possible, end-to-end. She makes renewable, 100 percent locally sourced soy wax candles in glass containers that can be either returned to Lily Lou’s Aromas or repurposed at home. Lily even makes the candle wicks with cotton or wood, so it burns clean. Her team gives their customers the choice to request no packaging for their wax melts, so there’s no plastic. When she does, Lily only uses biodegradable glitter in her wax melts! Lily Lou’s Aromas keeps the packaging to a minimum, so you don’t have to dig through it to get to your candle and reduce the waste.
Lily is currently working on launching refills so her customers can put the wax into any container and use it!
Lily is a young entrepreneur on a mission, and like every entrepreneur, she acknowledges her village makes it possible, and she has the best one!
About the starling herself: meet Lily!
I remember sitting down to read Lily’s interview for this Spotlight, reading her response to her biggest challenge and being hooked right there and then. It said, “I don’t see things as challenges, I see them as learning opportunities and to grow. I feel like they’re puzzles that need to be solved.”
On a human note, Lily loves experimenting with new things and has a never-ending imagination! True to her cruelty-free attitude, she is vegan and promotes wildlife conservation. talks about showing signs of ADHD (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), and how she’s taken that diagnosis along with her passions and made herself into an advocate on sustainability, bullying, and women empowerment.
“I like letting kids struggling at school know that it’s okay to be different. I love to encourage them to get inspired to do what they love, and show them that they can do anything they want despite their struggles.”
Lily works with One Tree Planted, where every time you buy a candle, you help plant a tree. She is also involved with the Canadian Women’s Foundation to help empower more women across Canada and Mamas for Mamas to support moms in poverty.
Lily has BIG dreams and a roadmap to make it all happen! The dream she’s working on right now is to have a manufacturing production so she can keep up with the demand for her candles. What started in her kitchen space is growing rapidly, and we couldn’t be more excited! Lily dreams of seeing her candles for sale across North America and the world.
And I hope Netflix is listening! She is getting ready to take the podcast industry by storm as well and launch her own podcast. In the meantime, she’s working her way up and appearing as a featured guest on Startup Podcast soon! Stay tuned. Lily is an absolute inspiration. If you haven’t had a chance to meet her yet, catch her on her LinkedIn, Instagram and now Threads!
Meanwhile, to all the young and budding social entrepreneurs out there, Lily’s advice is, “Chase your dreams! You got this!”.
