A candle can be fragrance, décor, ritual or gift — and India’s independent candle brands are increasingly building around those very different uses. Some are turning hand-blown glass into statement objects; others are working with botanical details, memory-led scents, small-batch soy wax or playful festive forms. That variety is what makes the category worth looking at beyond a generic list of scented jars.
For this Women Listed recommendation edit, the focus is on women-led brands with a clear point of view and a current public presence. The seven names below span Gurugram, Delhi, Faridabad and Kolkata, but more importantly, they occupy different spaces within the candle category — from luxury interiors and personalized gifting to slow-living rituals and accessible home fragrance.
1. Candles By Wickit — Raina Ahuja
For buyers who think of a candle as part fragrance and part interior object, Candles By Wickit sits at the luxury end of this edit. Gurugram-based founder Raina Ahuja has built the brand around hand-blown glass vessels, large sculptural formats and a coconut-soy wax blend, with fragrances ranging from jasmine and amber to oudh-led compositions. Wickit’s strongest distinction is scale: several pieces are designed to remain visually significant even when unlit, closer to collectible décor than a disposable jar candle. It is the clearest choice here for statement gifting, design-conscious homes and buyers who want the vessel to matter as much as the scent.
2. Remeha Candles and More — Vandana Arora
Remeha Candles and More has a more personal, bespoke character. Founded by interior stylist Vandana Arora after she discovered candle-making through a workshop, the brand works across vegan soy-wax candles, wax sachets, melts and customized gifting. Floral details are a recurring visual signature, with dried and sculpted botanical elements turning many pieces into decorative objects before they are lit. Remeha is particularly relevant for weddings, hampers and occasion-led gifting because fragrance, colour, format and packaging can be adapted to the brief. Its appeal lies less in one hero product than in the ability to make the candle feel specific to the person or event receiving it.
3. Homelixir — Ashmeet Kaur
Homelixir builds its candle identity around scent and the emotional idea of home. The Faridabad brand, co-founded by Ashmeet Kaur, uses a soy-and-beeswax blend across scented jars, decorative candles, tapers and gift boxes. Its more interesting products draw from recognizably Indian fragrance memories: the Celebration range, for instance, uses notes such as mogra, marigold and sandalwood alongside more familiar gourmand and floral scents. That makes Homelixir a useful middle ground between everyday home fragrance and festive gifting. It is especially suited to buyers who want a candle that feels warm and approachable rather than overtly ceremonial or ultra-luxury.
4. Ruh Rituals — Samira Gupta
Ruh Rituals treats the candle as part of a wider practice rather than simply a fragrance product. Founder Samira Gupta’s Delhi brand creates ritual candles, travel candles, altar candles and complementary objects built around intention, reflection and slow living. Its main candles use a coconut-soy wax blend, while its altar range includes hand-poured beeswax forms. Botanicals, folklore and symbolic names such as Protection, Abundance and Calm give the collection a distinct language without making it feel like conventional home décor. Ruh is the strongest fit in this list for wellness-led gifting, meditation spaces and buyers who like objects with an intentional or ceremonial dimension.
5. CraftCloudIndia — Dilsad Banu
CraftCloudIndia brings a maker-led story to the list. Founder Dilsad Banu started the Kolkata business in 2024 after moving from teaching to homemaking and finding a new creative direction through candle-making. Today, the brand describes itself as a women-run studio working with women artisans in West Bengal, with every candle hand-poured in small batches and made to order using soy wax. The catalogue extends into personalized and bulk gifting, but the strongest reason to consider CraftCloudIndia is the intimacy of the production model itself. It suits buyers who value a small-batch product where the maker story remains visible rather than hidden behind a large lifestyle brand.
6. The Umbrella Store — Davneet Kaur
Davneet’s The Umbrella Store approaches candles through whimsy and everyday gifting. The Delhi-based women-owned brand has a particularly broad candle catalogue, moving from straightforward scented soy candles to coffee-inspired designs, sculpture candles, gift sets and wax melts. That breadth gives it a different role from the more tightly positioned brands in this list: it is easy to browse for a housewarming, birthday, Secret Santa or small festive gift without committing to a luxury price point or a single aesthetic. The Umbrella Store is the most playful, variety-led option here, especially for shoppers who enjoy novelty formats alongside familiar fragrances.
7. OTILIA — Anchal Jindal
Founded by Anchal Jindal in New Delhi in 2020, OTILIA has developed one of the broadest design vocabularies in this edit. Its core identity is rooted in contemporary candle design — from hand-cast concrete sphere candles filled with soy wax to glass jars, wooden formats and a large Diwali collection of urli, marigold, mithai and moulded-wax pieces. OTILIA works particularly well for buyers who want variety without losing a recognizable design point of view. The brand can move from an inexpensive festive add-on to a substantial home object, while its gifting studio and refill model give it relevance beyond one seasonal purchase.
What connects these seven brands is not one wax type, fragrance family or price point. It is the fact that each gives the candle a different job: Wickit turns it into a statement object; Remeha into a personalized gift; Homelixir into a scent memory; Ruh into a ritual; CraftCloudIndia into a maker-led product; The Umbrella Store into playful everyday gifting; and OTILIA into a design category of its own.
For Women Listed, that difference is exactly what makes a recommendation useful. Instead of searching for a single ‘best’ candle brand, start with the experience you want to create — atmosphere, gifting, décor, ritual or celebration — and choose the maker whose product language fits it best.
Explore more women-led home and lifestyle businesses on Women Listed, or browse The Gift Edit for gifting-ready products by women entrepreneurs across India.
