Swazi Candles

Swazi Candles started in 1982 when two South African art graduates began working out of a converted cowshed in the Malkerns Valley, building a business around millefiore - a technique of layering and cutting colored wax to form intricate patterned shells around each candle. That original workshop has grown into the Swazi Candles Centre, a craft destination combining the working studio with galleries, additional craft shops and the Sambane Tea Garden, alongside a separate manufacturing facility in the Matsapha industrial area for scaled-up production. The range has expanded well past patterned pillar candles to include animal-shaped pieces, 100% soya tea lights, wax-encased battery-powered glow lamps rated for roughly 100 hours of use, handmade vegetable-glycerin soaps and marula-oil body balms. The company is a certified Fair Trade employer through SWIFT, running with 45 permanent staff who receive healthcare and pension benefits, and it maintains an organic vegetable garden as part of its community program - details that place Swazi Candles closer to an accountable manufacturing operation than a roadside craft stall. From that single cowshed workshop, the business now exports to more than 20 countries while keeping the original hand-sculpting technique, and a visit to the valley today means the candle-making floor, the tea garden, and the export warehouse all sit within the same site.