Antiracist Accountability: Belated Holiday Gifts from Black-Owned Businesses

Hello again!

After holding myself accountable for inconsistencies in my completion of these posts this year, I want to offer some further repairs with a quick additional Antiracist Accountability post before 2021 is over!

For anyone who has yet to complete all their gift shopping this holiday season, I would like to offer a second chapter to February's post encouraging shopping at bookstores owned and run by Black businesspeople.  As you may remember, part of the rationale for the original post was that our purchases can help buffer small, Black people-owned businesses against the deleterious financial impact of the pandemic.  Furthermore, choosing to shop at Black-owned (and more generally People of Color-owned) businesses can help hone the infinite range of gift options while also allowing us to enact our antiracist values.

Today, I'm uplifting one particular subset of Black-owned businesses for a couple of additional reasons:

• These businesses sell products that are finely hand-crafted, which means your purchases support skilled Black artisans,
• Because the products at these stores are made in-house, they are all unique,
• These products can be used for a variety of self-care and space beautification purposes through their strong sensory engagement and aesthetic appeal, and last but not least,
• The products sold at these businesses are excellent gifts both for people whose tastes you know very well, but also for people for whom you want to get something nice but who you maybe don't know super well--an unusual range of possible happy gift recipients!

I therefore recommend to you: Black-owned candle companies!

You can readily find Black-owned candlemakers by searching online, but I'd love to offer some specific suggestions of stores whose products I've purchased for myself and others.  They include:

Named for the owner's grandparents home, 228 Grant Street Candle Company is a Baltimore-based soy candle company whose collection "features scents for every mood and every season. Our curated fragrance profiles are inspired by nature and travel."  The beautiful aesthetic of their candles is simple, elegant, and timeless.

Short for Knits, Soy, and Metal, KSM Candle Company is another Baltimore-based shop that features handmade soy candles as well as other home goods, body products, and treats, like jewelry, books, and DIY candle making kits.

Lotta Scents Candle Company is based in Phoenix, Arizona.  They sell hand-poured coconut candles and wax melts through their Etsy store, including intriguingly-titled aromas like "The Gentleman", "Gray Sweatpants", "Reset", and "Unwind".

Happy candle shopping!

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