Melody Lim founded Mala the Brand in Vancouver in 2019. The name came from friends in Europe, who had taken to calling her mala — Croatian for kiddo. The idea came from a candlemaker she visited in Milos, Greece: a small workshop, a short range, nothing that needed a factory behind it.
Coconut, soy, and a wooden wick
The candles are hand-poured in Vancouver from a coconut and soy wax blend, with wood or lead-free cotton wicks and phthalate-free fragrance. The packaging is plastic-free — which sounds like a small thing until you have unwrapped a scented candle from three layers of shrink film.
The scents lean nostalgic rather than luxurious. Cabin Fever reads like a wooded escape. Cereal is exactly what it says. It is a more honest register than most of the category manages.
A tree per candle
Through a partnership with veritree, a tree is planted for every full-size candle sold — more than seventy-six thousand of them at last count. Plenty of brands attach a cause to a product. Fewer publish a running total.
Why it is here
Mala is Made in Canada on our standard: poured, finished and packed in Vancouver. Some inputs — wax, fragrance oils — come from elsewhere, as they do for every candlemaker on earth. The making happens here, and that is what the label describes.
Everything above is drawn from Mala's own published material and press coverage. Nothing has been attributed to Melody Lim that she did not say publicly.
